Waters Of Babylon

Using Knowledge with an Open Mind

In the short story “By the Waters of Babylon” by Stephen Vincent Benét, the reader follows a character named John on a journey to the place of the gods where he discovers many things about himself, his people, and his role in this huge play call life. Benét takes the reader through his journey and teaches about the harmful effects of truth and what it can do to people if not dealt with properly. After John’s inspiring travels, he becomes more open minded, realizing what he and his reality actually are, and through his enlightenment, he finds the truth, but decides to obscure it from his people to keep them from harm and their own self destruction.

John’s trip to the place of the gods uncovers many truths about

When John looks out over this huge megalopolitan that he is in and sees what the humans have become along with what has been done with the technology that they have, he feels that it is his responsibility to take this knowledge and use it to create a new era for his people and sees this as an opportunity to change himself and everyone else for the better. He saw how much great knowledge the gods had, but how poorly they use it as well. So when John gets back he has all of this knowledge from his travels, but he cannot tell his community because he knows it would be too much information for them to endure at once. In the story John says “I wished to tell all the people, but he showed me otherwise.” pg.8 then his father tells him, "Truth is a hard deer to hunt. If you eat too much truth at once, you may die of the truth.” pg.8 I think the message that John’s dad is trying to get across is that people would not accept the truth all at once, and it must come gradually for them to understand. John’s job now is to make sure to prevent the same result from happening to them as it did to the gods. In the story “By the Water of Babylon” Stephen Vincent Benét wanted the reader to understand how important it is for great knowledge to be used wisely, and the emphasis of keeping an open mind and how that contributes to being more accepting of