The Importance of Setting in “By the Waters of Babylon” Anonymous 9th Grade

In the short story, “By the Waters of Babylon” by Stephen Vincent Benet, setting is a very important element of how the story is portrayed. Although readers are introduced to a setting that feels like thousands of years ago, the reader later figures out that the setting is actually taking place sometime in the future during a post-apocalyptic era in New York City. An event that destroyed the world reduced the remaining members of civilization to living like cavemen, and scenic descriptions emerge as a powerful means of establishing and investigating this dark fate.

The timing of “By the Waters of Babylon” is very important to how this story progresses in the end. In the exposition of the story, it seems that the Hill People with whom John lives practiced hunting and fishing skills as that of sometime thousands of years ago. Their use of the English language is very formal, and their strict religious beliefs control how they think and do things. Their ways of getting food include hunting and fishing with the use of bow and arrow, and preparing their meals by a fire, which is not practiced very often in modern times. John notices some buildings that have names such as the one that has “UBTREAS” (581) written on it, which was part...