“By the Waters of Babylon”
Vocabulary
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Boasted – to speak of or assert
with
excessive pride
Fasting – to abstain from food
Perplexed – filled with uncertainty
Purification – the act or instance
of purifying or making pure
Spite – petty ill will or hatred with
the
disposition to irritate,
annoy, or thwart
Take the following notes as you come
in and answer the question at the
bottom of the page:
Apocalyptic fiction is:
-a type of science fiction
-Story is set in a world or civilization after
a great disaster
-Story takes place in a primitive non
technological world
- this kind of story is similar to a dystopia
in some ways.
Answer this Question:
What movies, books, or TV shows have
you seen are post apocalyptic and why?
Themes
“Downfall of Society”
when technology grows faster than
we can control it – a warning to
learn from history
“Spirit Walk”
Where boys become men IF they survive
-these days we have getting a driver’s license or getting
a first real job.
“Right of Passage”
A dangerous challenge must be attempted and if
successful, they were respected by elders.
Biblical allusion
The title "By the Waters
of Babylon" is a clear allusion
to Psalm 137 of the Bible, which
begins "By the Waters of Babylon
I sat down and wept.“
The Israelites lost their "promised land" of
Israel from
which they have been exiled. Their
homeland was
destroyed and its people scattered.
The message of the short story’s allusion:
the eventual threat of self-destruction if
we are unable to curb our thirst for
knowledge - and not "eat it too fast."
Read Psalm 137 and respond. How does the title’s
Biblical Allusion connect to the theme of the story.
Answer in paragraph form.
By the rivers of Babylon we sat and
wept
when we remembered Zion.
2 There on the poplars
we hung our harps,
3 for there our captors asked us for
songs,
our tormentors demanded
songs of joy;
they said, "Sing us one of
the songs of Zion!"
4 How can we sing the songs of the
LORD
while in a foreign land?
5 If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
may my right hand forget its
skill .
6 May my tongue cling to the roof of
my mouth
if I do not remember you,
if I do not consider Jerusalem
my highest joy.
7 Remember, O LORD, what the
Edomites did
on the day Jerusalem fell.
"Tear it down," they cried,
"tear it down to its foundations!"
8 O Daughter of Babylon, doomed to
destruction,
happy is he who repays you
for what you have done to us9 he who seizes your infants
and dashes them against the
rocks.
First-person Narrator
John - coming into manhood and must
complete a dangerous right of passage
before he is accepted by his father and the
elders.
A naïve narrator as he tells his story
My father is a priest; I am the son of a priest. I
have been in the Dead Places near us, with
my father—at first, I was afraid. When my
father went into the house to search for the
metal, I stood by the door and my heart felt
small and weak.
Literary Elements…
Allusion- reference to something
in a story that the author assumes
most readers will already know
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Setting: Believed to be New York
City in the future after warfare
(written 8 years before the first atom
bomb)
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Conflict- Man vs. himself
John must face his fears by visiting the Place
of the Gods
Man vs. Nature – John is put in situations
where he must survive against nature itself
Man vs Man – Will John question what he
cannot understand about other men’s laws?
Journal
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When is it right for government
leaders to omit the truth in order to
protect someone? Does society
have a right to know the full truth?
Based on what we have seen in
Harrison Bergeron, can this have
dire consequences?