By the Waters of Babylon Quotation - by Hantine Hsu

“There was also the shattered image of a man or a god. It had been made of

white stone and he wore his hair tied back like a woman’s. His name was ‘ASHING’,

as I read on the cracked half of a stone. I thought it wise to pray to ‘ASHING’, though

I do not know that god.”

Comment: I found this part of the story very amusing, because from where he said

the stone was cracked in half, the reader could tell that the words he read was a

portion of someone’s name we made a statue of. This passage really shows the

irony of the story. We, the reader knows that it was a statue of a man, even though

we might not be able to guess who. (Who is it?) However, John, our main character

has no idea who the statue was, and then he even prayed for “the god, Ashing’s”

protection. To me it was quite hilarious of how a first person narrative could be so

blind and bring so much irony from the story.