By The Waters Of The Babylon Literary Analysis Essay

“But they were men who built the city, not gods or demons. They were men. I remember the dead man’s face. They were men who were here before us. We must build again”-Stephen Benet. In the book, By The Waters of the Babylon, by Stephen Benet, the tones, literary devices, and the point of view the narrator plays an important part in the story. The tones are very contrasting being eager and dark, the literary devices that are used in the story are flashback and foreshadowing, and the naive narrator speaks in first person.
Stephen Benet uses the idea of contrasting the tones eager and dark, into an effective idea. The tone eager sets the feeling in an excited and adventurous way. Then, dark sets the feeling in the complete opposite way. Dark is cloudy and unsure of what’s going to happen next. This gives of a sense that the narrator doesn’t know what’s going to happen next either. The tones mainly rely on the narrator. Since the narrator is

John doesn’t know everything that happens to him and around him so, John is a naive narrator. The narrator being naive helps sets the tone of the story. John is very eager to learn more about the gods, but he doesn’t know what the dark things that lay before him. In the beginning, John and his father used to go take things from dead people's houses. John didn’t know if he was going to be a priest until his father tested him, but when they found out that he will, it changes his entire life. John was then held more accountable for his actions whether he knew or not. When John enters the place of the gods, he was confused and scared. John didn’t understand the things that the gods used. John thinks everything the gods used, had magic in them. John also didn’t know why the gods fought, but he wants to rebuild the city. This is what Stephen Benet was trying to get across. War will destroy our world and the curiosity of mankind will rebuild it