Introduction
By the Waters of Babylon and There Will Comes Soft Rains

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The story By the Waters of the Babylon by Benet, and the poem There will Come Soft Rains by Teasdale are about the destruction of the world and what will come after. However, Benet has an optimistic view expressed by the suggestion of a fresh start, and Teasdale has a pessimistic view, that men will not even have a chance to get a new start.

            In the story By the water of the Babylon Benet implies that men will not have a new start and learn from their own mistakes creating a better civilization than the one they destroyed. John, a preachers son, goes on a trip to a destroyed civilization and wants to tell everyone but his father believed otherwise. The preacher repelled his sons commotion Truth is a hard deer to hunt. If you eat too much truth at once, you may die from the truth. It was not idly that our fathers forbade the Dead Places (Benet 723). The preacher knew about the old civilization, he knew what men had done to destroy their own world, they had not used their knowledge wisely, and he, as future leader didnt want this to happen to his own civilization. Although the son understands he believes that they should use this as an opportunity. They were men who were before use. We must build again. (Benet, p. 723). Based on the new knowledge and his fathers inspirational words, John wants to rebuild and take advantage of what he believes to be a second chance. John and his father learn from their mistakes they see in past civilizations and have a wish to create a better one without committing the same mistakes again.

            In the poem There will Come Soft Rains, Teasdale expresses her belief that after the destruction of mankind, the world will continue regardless of the events. She writes about the indifference of nature, And frogs in the pool singing at night, and wild plum-trees in tremulous white (lines 3,4). The animals and trees do the same thing they would be doing if men were still there. They are unbiased to the fact that they are gone. Humans will not have a second chance, the world will go on and everything will be the same. And spring herself when she woke at dawn, would scarcely know that they were gone (lines 11, 12). According to her poem when humans die no one will care about the change and it will seem like they were never there in the first place.

 

I was succesful in this essay by comparing 2 stories accordingly and getting a higher score. A weakness of this essay is the lack of mentioning of the common theme. A new strategy I atempt to incorporate is add a paragraph comparing the views more directly. In my next composition i plan to try to pushmyself to finish the same quality paper in a shorter time.

Score: 4