Waters of Babylon Essay: A Guide to the Hero’s Quest

One will explore their curiosity for a long period in a new, undefined world. They will develop through tragedy, to uncover the real purpose, and truth of an adventure. Throughout the story Waters of Babylon by Stephen Benet, in a post-apocalyptic adventure there is separation, initiation, and return that the hero must do in order to fulfill their quest. 

To start, I tracked the Hero’s quest as I read the story, which I found harder to do in the story. The structure of a monomyth largely impacts the story. The monomyth is a stage a hero goes through an adventure. In the Waters of Babylon, John the main character goes through separation, initiation, and the final return. This gives the reader a clear understanding of the path, John goes through a brass door to New York, he is greeted with new technology and innovation, lastly, he returns with better knowledge and understanding.

Next, my take on the story was largely influenced by my knowledge. I have learned many symbolic meanings and practiced reading between the lines in a story, this made it easier to gain knowledge while reading. For example, the Dead Places in the story are places lived in before the Apocalypse. Furthermore, John was not actually in New York, he was seeing remnants of the once-booming city, along with understanding new technology. In the start, the forest animals were his sign for separation from his world.

Last but not least, the structure illuminates the story. The structure of the story that surrounds the hero’s journey explores curiosity and tragedy. In The Waters of Babylon leading up to the return is rising action, and a climax(New York), the true meaning. Different structures and different times in the story illuminated it, leading up to, and after the climax important talks with his Dad. A theme is an insight into the life of the story, the true subject, the theme has a lot to do with how the structure is perceived based on how the story flows(The river-Brass door-New York-Technology-Return-True meaning).

Lastly, In the story Waters of Babylon by Stephen Benet, in a post-apocalyptic adventure there is separation, initiation, and return that the hero must do to fulfill their quest. The monomyth of a story largely impacts it, my take on the story impacted how it was perceived, and the structure 100% illuminates the story. Using all of this, I tracked the Hero’s true quest as I read the story.