I CAN BLOW!!! J.B. is a play in verse written by Archibald MacLeish and published in 1958. Written in response to the horrors the author saw in the world around him (such as the Holocaust and the use of the atom bomb), it is based on the Book of Job from the Old Testament. Verse is a writing that uses meter as its primary organisational mode, as opposed to prose, which uses grammatical and discoursal units like sentences and paragraphs. ... Archibald MacLeish Archibald MacLeish (May 7, 1892 - April 20, 1982) was an American poet, writer, and public servant. ... 1958 (MCMLVIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Concentration camp inmates during the Holocaust The Holocaust was Nazi Germanys systematic genocide (ethnic cleansing) of various ethnic, religious, national, and secular groups during World War II. Early elements include the Kristallnacht pogrom and the T-4 Euthanasia Program established by Hitler that killed some 200,000 people. ... Urakami Tenshudo (Catholic Church in Nagasaki) destroyed by the atomic bomb, the bell of the church having toppled off. ... The Book of Job (איוב, Standard Hebrew Iyyov, Tiberian Hebrew ʾIyyôḇ; Arabic أيّوب ʾAyyūb) is one of the books of the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh, and is also one of the books of the Christian Old Testament. ... Note: Judaism uses the term Tanakh instead of Old Testament, because it does not recognize the New Testament as being part of the Biblical canon. ...

The play is set in a modern circus. Two vendors, Mr. Zuss and Nickles, begin the play-within-a-play by assuming the roles of God and Satan, respectively. They watch J.B., a wealthy banker, describe his prosperity as a just reward for his faithfulness to God. Scorning, Nickles challenges Zuss that J.B. will curse God if his life is ruined. The vendors observe as J.B.'s children and property are destroyed in horrible accidents and the former millionaire takes to the streets. J.B. is visited by three Comforters (representing History, Science, and Religion) who offer contradicting explanations for his plight. He declines to believe any of them, instead calling out to God to show him the just cause for his punishment. When finally confronted by the circus vendors, J.B. refuses to accept either Nickles' urging toward suicide to spite God or Zuss' offer of his old life in exchange for quiet obedience to religion. Instead, he takes solace in his wife Sarah and the new life they will create together. God is the term used to denote the Supreme Being believed by monotheistic religions to exist and to be the creator and ruler of the Universe. ... Gustave Dores depiction of Satan from John Miltons Paradise Lost Satan (שָׂטָן Standard Hebrew Satan, Greek and Latin Sátanas, Tiberian Hebrew Śāṭān; Aramaic שִׂטְנָא Śaṭanâ: both words mean Adversary; accuser) is an angel, demon, or minor god in many religions. ... One of the most famous quotations about history and the value of studying history, by Spanish philosopher, George Santayana, reads: Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. ... // What is science? There are various understandings of the word science. According to empiricism, scientific theories are objective, empirically testable, and predictive — they predict empirical results that can be checked and possibly contradicted. ...

As a play, J.B. went through several incarnations before it was finally published. MacLeish began the work in 1953 as a one-act production but within three years had expanded it to a full three-act manuscript. The resulting work won a Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The Pulitzer Prize for Drama was first awarded in 1918. ...