short story by Stephen Vincent Benét first published July 31, 1937, in The Saturday Evening Post as"The Place of the Gods“ The title is a reference to Psalm 137 in the Bible. (Its opening lines, "By the waters of Babylon..." have been set to music on several occasions) Linear chronological order with some flashbacks

A post-apocalyptic story set in a distant future where the industrial civilization of the humanity is destroyed after a nuclear war Features the ‘Hill People’, a primitive community that lives inside the ruins of an American city, dubbed ‘the Dead Places’ – believes the long-dead people to be gods

Protagonist: John, the son of a priest and a inquisitive young man of the Hill People The plot follows John’s self-assigned mission to the ‘Place of the Gods’ (actually the midtown area of the city) to properly qualify himself as a priest

First-person point of view: John speaks directly to the reader, using the pronoun ‘I’ Naive narrator

John leaves his village in search of the place of the gods, eventually entering the ruined city He sees many devices from the modern technology but considers those as ‘magic from the gods’, unable to figure the true usage During his night at the ruined city, John dreams about the ‘gods’, seeing an illusion of the city at apocalypse

After seeing a ‘dead god’ at the Place of the Gods, John realizes that the gods were humans just like them, whose power overwhelmed their good judgment Returning to the tribe, John declares that the ‘gods’ had perished because of too much knowledge led them to destruction He learns that ‘the truth should come little by little’, and decides to not tell the tribe about his discovery

We must build it again. No matter how hard it is, the truth should be told at last and we must make a new civilization. In the end, John declares;

The story appears to be simply set in a primitive society until John leaves his village in search of the ‘place of the gods’ We learn that this story is in fact post-apocalyptic when John sees a ‘metal device that says hot but isn't ‘(actually a modern sink)

When John dreams about the ‘gods’, an illusion of the city appears in his dream. It was actually scenes from the past, when the civilization was destroyed by ‘the Great Burning’ (atomic bomb) At his dream, he sees the fall of mankind and the destruction of the city at his own eyes We can understand from this flashback that the modern civilization had perished

‘Dead Place’, ‘the Place of the Gods’, ‘God Roads’ Modern devices abandoned ‘The Great Burning’, ‘the Destruction’, ‘Deadly Mists’ Foreshadows the event that John finally realizes the truth, that the ‘Place of the Gods’ was really an abandoned city Also foreshadows the revelation of humanity’s fate via John’s dream Reveals the post-apocalyptic setting of this novel

Thank you for listening. IMAGE CREDIT

The Seventh Man Haruki Murakami GaIn Han MS30115

Author Haruki Murakami (Author of 1Q84) -Japanese Writer -Characteristic -First Person -Unique Writing Style

The Seventh Man A Story of Wave Third-Person Limited First Person Returns to Third-Person Limited

I The Seventh Man K. Wave Trauma, Fear The worst thing we can do with fear is to close our eyes, and change most precious thing inside us to something else. Watercolors

Can you RECOVER from tragedy? The story shows the seventh man recovering by facing his fear.

Foreshadowing Flashback