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By The Waters Of Babylon By Kevin Beneet

504 Words3 Pages

In the short story "By the Waters of Babylon," author Stephen Vincent Benét explores the relationship between knowledge and truth through the journey of the narrator, a young man from a tribe in a post-apocalyptic world. The narrator embarks on a journey to seek knowledge and understanding of the past, and his journey leads him to discover unexpected truths that challenge his beliefs and change his perception of the world. Through the story, Benét reveals that knowledge and truth are interconnected and that seeking knowledge can lead to enlightenment, while truth can challenge beliefs.

One way in which the relationship between knowledge and truth is shown is through the narrator's journey of seeking knowledge. From the very beginning, the narrator expresses his desire to seek knowledge and understand the world around him. He says, "I am a son of a priest and a priest myself...I had been taught since birth that the god had made the world and that only the priests could talk to them" (Benét 1). His curiosity leads him to embark on a journey to the Forbidden Places, where he hopes to find knowledge about the gods and the past. Through this journey, the narrator gains knowledge that allows him to better understand the world around him. …show more content…

For instance, he discovers that the "gods" his people worship are actually humans who had advanced knowledge about the world. This discovery challenges his previous belief that the gods were divine beings. He says, "But I had seen the Place of the Gods and I knew that they were men who had been here before us" (Benét 7). This truth forces the narrator to question everything he has been taught and to re-evaluate his

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