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Hero's epic journey of gilgamesh
The role of death in Gilgamesh
Gilgamesh and mortality acceptance
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N.K. Sandars, is a story about a classic hero named Gilgamesh. Sandars shows how Gilgamesh goes through the three stages of departure, initiation, and the return. For example, according to an American mythologist named Joseph Campbell, “A hero is someone who has given his life to something bigger than himself, or other than himself.” Throughout these three stages, Gilgamesh fights his way through many different obstacles, learns new things about himself, and makes new unexpected friends to make a name for himself. The first stage of Gilgamesh’s heroic journey starts off with the departure from Uruk to find and destroy the ferocious Humbaba, the guardian of the Cedar forest. By doing this, Gilgamesh is trying to “Set up [his] name in the …show more content…
For example, before he starts to return home he realizes how his dear brother Enkidu dies and does not want the same thing to happen to himself. Not only is Gilgamesh afraid of death, he sets off to find immortality by seeking Utnapishtim, a man who the gods gave eternal life too. Gilgamesh then tells Utnapishtim that he wants eternal life aswell, and how to receive it, “Because of [his] brother, [he is] afraid of death”(Sandars 32). Utnapishtim then takes Gilgamesh to Urshanabi, a ferryman who shows Gilgamesh how to receive eternal life by telling him about a plant that grows under the water and it shall give him the life he wants if he succeeds in taking it. Like the man Gilgamesh is, he goes into the water and grabs the plant so he can bring it back to Uruk to give to an old man, but also eat it himself to restore both their youth. Soon after, when Gilgamesh arrives back to land, a serpent eats the plant which makes Gilgamesh heartbroken, but then he remembers everything he learned on his journey and is appreciative of mortality. Once Gilgamesh arrives back to Uruk after his long journey, “He [became] wise, saw mysteries and [learned] secret things”(Sandars 38). In conclusion, The Epic of Gilgamesh is a great example of a hero’s journey and how a hero goes through the three stages of departure, initiation, and the return. This epic poem is also an example of Joseph Cambpell’s
"The Epic of Gilgamesh." The Norton Anthology of World Literature. 3rd ed. Vol. A. New York: W.W. Norton & Compnany, 2012. 99-150. Print
The Epic of Gilgamesh. Trans. Benjamin R. Foster. Text. Martin Puncher. New York: W.W and Company, 2013.Print.
The first part of the hero’s journey is the call to adventure. This is the voyage that the hero is asked to go on in order to accomplish greater good for human kind. This is the hero’s chance to help his or her community, family or friends by embarking on a long journey and challenging his, or herself. Gilgamesh does not go on a journey to help others, he goes to make himself look better. “ I have not established my name stamped on bricks as my destiny decreed, therefore I will go to the country where the cedar is felled” (page 70). This passage shows that the only reason that Gilgamesh wants to go on a journey is for fame and popularity.
In the beginning of the book, Gilgamesh appears to be selfish. Gilgamesh’s “arrogance has no bounds by day or night” (62). Even though he is created by the Gods to be perfect, he misuses his powers and gifts for his own earthly pleasure. He has sexual intercourse with all the virgins of his city even if they are already engaged. Through all Gilgamesh’s imperfections and faults, he learns to change his amoral personality. The friendship of Enkidu helped to change his ways, for only Enkidu, who “is the strongest of wild creatures,” (66) is a match for Gilgamesh. Through this companionship with Enkidu, Gilgamesh starts to realize his incapabilities and need for his friend. When they fight Humbaba, they both give moral support to each other when the other is scared. Another event that changes Gilgamesh’s character is the death of Enkidu. When Enkidu dies, Gilgamesh goes through the suffering of losing a loved one. Gilgamesh experiences a pain, which no worldly pleasure can ease. By this experience Gilgamesh starts to understand his vulnerability toward death and pain. Losing his best friend causes Gilgamesh to be melancholic. At this point Gilgamesh is humbled by the fact that even he could not escape the wrath of death. Gilgamesh goes from this arrogant king to a lonely grieving person with fear of death in his heart.
After encountering the death of his friend Enkidu, Gilgamesh realizes that all men will die. Gilgamesh evolves from the beginning of The Epic of Gilgamesh as an unruly king to a realistic king who’s life ends in death. In the end after accepting that he too must die and be subject to fate, Gilgamesh settles back into his city setting, only this time to be a wise king rather than the foolish hero he once was.
At the beginning of Gilgamesh, the theme of acceptance of mortality emerges. Gilgamesh introduces the idea of mortality when he states, “Why are you worried about death? Only the gods are immortal anyway, Signed Gilgamesh. What men do is nothing, so fear is never justified.”(pg. 29) Here, Gilgamesh
---. “The Development and Meaning of the Epic of Gilgamesh: An Interpretive Essay.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 121.4 (2001): 614-622. JSTOR. Web. 28 Feb 2014.
When examining the character of Gilgamesh, in The Epic of Gilgamesh, one realizes the significance of Enkidu’s death. This death changed Gilgamesh’s views on peace, despair, and his understanding of his own mortality. This transformative moment is summarized in Gilgamesh’s own words when, wandering the wilderness he says, “‘How can I rest, how can I be at peace? Despair is in my heart. What my brother is now, that shall I be when I am dead’.” (Gilgamesh 97) From this quote we see a new aspect of Gilgamesh. One that is not motivated by his yearning for adventure and glory. He has now become a wounded man looking for peace, suffering from despair, and fearing his own death. This quote shows the reader the causes of the dramatic change in Gilgamesh’s attitude following the death of Enkidu.
The quest for immortality after the death of Enkidu is the first sign that Gilgamesh has changed. Gilgamesh becomes frightened when he realizes that he isn’t immortal. After the death of Enkidu, Gilgamesh tries to find immortality by trying to cross the ocean to find it. He sounds pathetic as he rambles of his reason for trying to find everlasting life. His state of being at this part in the book, which is the end, is completely different from his arrogant beginning of this epic. Gilgamesh has gone from arrogant to scared.
Death is an inevitable and unavoidable reality of human life, which is Gilgamesh’s greatest lesson learned. Gilgamesh is bitter that only the gods can live forever and say a lot when Enkidu warns him against their battle with Humbaba. Gilgamesh and Enkidu tell each other on their way to the deadly confrontation in the Cedar Forest, and the only thing that they have is their fame. But when Enkidu is cursed with a shameful, painful death. Shamash, who is the son god, solaces Enkidu reminding him of his rich life has been, but although Enkidu eventually resigned himself to his fate, Gilgamesh is scared by his own. Mesopotamian theology gives a perspective on the afterlife, but it shows comfort, the dead take the time to die. If Gilgamesh's mission to the Cedar Forest though he dies, his second task is to get Utnapishtim a way to escape from it. Utnapishtim's account of the floods shows how ridiculous such a goal is, because death is an inseparable combination of fabric of creation. But life is also adorned, and although man dies, mankind continues to live. The lesson that Gilgamesh made from his search was not the last of death, it was about life.
One of the main themes in the epic is that death is inevitable, which is shown through Enkidu's death. When Enkidu dies, Gilgamesh becomes very worried, because he realizes for the first time that everyone is going to die at some point in time. The fact that Enkidu is a close friend makes it even more visible to Gilgamesh that everyone is mortal. Then, along with this realization, comes the theme of denial. Gilgamesh does not want to accept the fact that he will die. He denies the truth, because he does not want to think about the truth or cope with the tragedy that has struck him. "And he-he does not lift his head. 'I touched his heart, it does not beat'" (Tablet VIII, Column II, 15-16). "'Me! Will I too not die like Enkidu? Sorrow was come into my belly. I fear death; I roam over the hills. I will seize the road; quickly I will go to the house of Utnapishtim, offspring of Ubaratutu. I approach the entrance of the mountain at night. Lions I see, and I am terrified. I lift my head to pray to the mood god Sin: For...a dream I go to the gods in prayer: ...preserve me!'" (Tablet IX, Column I, 3-12).
Gilgamesh goes on to seek eternal life. Death had never been a topic he had to deal with. Jacobsen explains, “death, fear of death, has become an ob...
Gilgamesh the king is a myth beholding various heroic traits shared in multiple other stories and myths for that fact. Towards the beginning of Gilgamesh’s myth, he chooses to conquer the beast of the jungle, Humbaba, and sets himself the goal to do so. Heroes must have a goal or else there is nothing for that hero to accomplish, and create a story of. However, once Gilgamesh accomplished his goal of defeating the terrifying Humbaba, he experiences a greater loss than the hero ever imagined possible, the loss of his best friend Enkidu. Although, once Gilgamesh realized what he had done was certainly the wrong choice of action, he devoted all of his time and effort into reviving his friend. On his journey for the search of eternal life, hero Gilgamesh essentially “descends into darkness” both mentally and literally while he enters the underworld to obtain his desire. Here Gilgamesh realizes that what he did was selfish and wrong, and that he is also not the only person who is of value in his life. Subsequent to Enkidu’s death, Gilgamesh becomes aware that his decision to murder Humbaba was once again wrong and resulted in his own depression and loss. Throughout the duration of a myth, the hero mu...
In the beginning of the story, the titular character, Gilgamesh, is highly regarded as the great king who built the city of Uruk: “And who, like Gilgamesh, can proclaim, ‘I am king!’ Gilgamesh was singled out from the day of his birth, two-thirds of him was divine, one-third of him was human! The Lady of Birth drew his body’s image, the God of Wisdom brought his stature to perfection” (100-01). Immediately at the start of the story, Gilgamesh is polarized as an extraordinary being,
On his journey, Gilgamesh confronts the man scorpions and rather than picking up a weapon he used reason to conquer them. "I have traveled here in search of Utnapishtim my father; for men say he has encountered the assembly of the gods, and has found everlasting life." (37) Gilgamesh is determined to find everlasting life but everybody he encounters says that he will never find what his heart desires. "You will never find the life for which you are searching." (38) He begs the maker of the wine not to turn him away; "do not let me see the face of death which I dread so much." (38)