ENGL-UA 708 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Russell Banks, Fellatio, Rastafari
Document Summary
The book rule of the bone by russell banks is a story of a kid running away from home on a journey towards enlightenment. Throughout the book, the phrase babylon appears many times. This phrase is usually used to symbolize western culture and the evils that follow it. However, it seems that babylon could mean something far different. Instead, babylon is a repre- sentation of the journey that bone takes to receive enlightenment. Bone"s journey begins before he becomes bone, but instead as a child known as chappie. Throughout the book, i-man, a rastafarian from jamaica, talks of babylon , which is a repre- sentation of all the evil in western culture. However, when referring to bone/chappie, it seems that these evils are always there, because they are a crucial part of his journey to enlightenment. He has seen this even before the book began, as shown when he says:
