Niki Dickerson 8-27-07
“Life is Full of Choices”
Should one lie for the good of the society? “By the Waters of Babylon”, by Steven Vincent Benet, tells the story of a priest’s son, John, who travels to the Land of the Gods against his society’s will and ends up discovering a secret. Also, it shows how the character is affected by and reacts to the standards set by his society, and the outcome of his actions.
John, the main
character in the story, comes from a group of people known as the Hill People.
In their society, they have certain beliefs and standards, such as it is
“forbidden to go east” (17) and also “forbidden to go to any of the Dead
Places except to search for metal” (17). Additionally, only a priest or the
son of a priest may touch the metal and not die; however, afterwards both the
“man and the metal must be purified” (17). While searching for the metal,
though, one must be careful around bones because “they will fall into dust if
you touch them, [and] that is a great sin” (18). Another forbidden area is the
Place of the Gods, located on the other side of the
John, also the son of a priest, hopes to one day follow in his father’s footsteps and become one as well. Therefore, he always travels with his father to the Dead Places in search of metal, even touching it himself. As a result of training to become a priest, the “good piece of meat and the warm corner by the fire” (18) went to John, but if he wept or boasted without reason, he was punished “more strictly than [his] brothers” (18). Also, he was taught that “a priest must know many secrets” (18) as well as that, to become a man, he must embark on a journey that consists of certain rituals and requirements. To begin with, John must be purified to cleanse his body, and then he must look into the smoke from a fire and see his dream, which symbolizes where his journey will take him. When he leaves, he must go while fasting, and then look for the sign that will point him in the right direction. When he returns from this journey, he will have “went away a boy, [but came] back a man and a priest” (29).
In this story, John goes from agreeing with and obeying his society’s standards to, in a way, opposing them. At the beginning of the story, he follows his society’s guidelines by studying to become a priest, fearing the Land of the Gods, and going through the process to begin his journey. However, during the talk with his father after seeing his dream, John sort of goes against his society in the way that his dream tries to lead him to the Land of the Gods, which he knows is forbidden, but in his soul knows that he must go there to stay true to himself. He strongly believes that “it is better to lose one’s life than one’s spirit” (29), so he travels to the Land of the Gods, which is disobeying his society in many ways. When he arrives there, he learns a terrible secret—the Gods were just men! This means that his society has lied to everyone all along. John then travels back to his father, and tells him what he has discovered and that to “slay [him], if it is the law” (29). Instead his father congratulates him on his successful attempt to become a priest, and then warns him that he must keep his new-found knowledge to himself, because everyone else could not handle the information properly.
In conclusion, John travels to the Land of the Gods even though it is strictly forbidden, and discovers that the basis of his people’s society is actually a lie. At first, he wants to tell everyone, but after he talks with his father, decides it best to keep that lie as a lie, so as not to cause chaos and confusion. Was this the right thing to do?