LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Babel, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Colonization and Racism
Language, Translation, and Power
Race, Gender, and Intersectionality
Violence and Nonviolence
Complicity
Summary
Analysis
When Robin tells his plan to the group of strikers, Professor Craft says that it will destroy decades, if not centuries, of research. Robin says that the loss will mean England won’t go to war with China because they won’t have the silver to sustain a prolonged military effort. The future will then be more fluid, and the British Empire will be dealt a serious blow. Robin says that he plans to stay behind to do it. He says he can’t ask anyone to join him, since it will lead to their deaths, but he also won’t be able to carry out the plan on his own. There will also be no amnesty unless those who leave agree to work with Babel to rebuild the British Empire. Otherwise, if they leave, they’ll have to run. Professor Craft and three others decide to stay with Robin. Victoire and one other person decide to leave. Robin and Victoire say goodbye to each other.
Destroying Babel and the silver bars will lead to the group achieving the Hermes Society’s anti-colonialist and anti-imperialist goals. Babel symbolizes the way that the British Empire has exploited people from other countries and cultures and hoarded power for its own gain. The passage also underlines the idea that Robin and the others don’t have much of a choice other than to run or destroy Babel because the only other options are death at the hands of the Army or returning to complicity. Notably, it’s unclear how much the people who choose to stay behind and destroy the tower grapple with the civilian casualties that could result from these actions. It’s also not clear how many civilian casualties there could be as a result of destroying Babel.
Active
Themes
Robin, Professor Craft, and the others who stay in Babel start arranging silver bars in pyramids around the tower, careful to ensure that when the bars self-destruct, they will destroy the building and all of the research in it. The Army starts moving toward Babel well before dawn. Robin stands in the lobby surrounded by eight pyramids of silver bars. As the Army approaches, he moves to each pyramid and says the word translate. The bars begin to self-destruct. As the ceiling above him begins to crumble, Robin thinks of Ramy. He then thinks of his mother smiling at him and saying his name.
Robin and the rest of the striking group sacrifice themselves to put an end to the British Empire’s racist, violent, and exploitative imperialism. Notably, Robin and the group seem virtually certain that their actions will achieve their goals. That is, the destruction of Babel isn’t merely symbolic. Instead, it will lead to concrete change that will, in theory, create a more just and equitable world. That puts further limits on the novel’s endorsement of violence as a tactic for change. The novel suggests that violence is only morally permissible as a tactic if one pursues it in the name of a greater cause, if it is used as an absolute last resort (almost akin to a form of self-defense), and if one can be certain that it will produce meaningful and concrete change.