Gilgamesh Hero

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“The Epic of Gilgamesh” is perhaps the oldest written story. Interestingly, this suggests that the qualities of a good hero were just as important to the ancient Mesopotamians as they are to us now. As the hero, Gilgamesh teaches the audience something about what it means to be human. After watching the slow death of Enkidu, the grieving Gilgamesh sets off of an arduous journey. Eventually, Gilgamesh finds himself at the tavern of Siduri and later in the land of Utanapishtin. As two-thirds divine, Gilgamesh’s morality marks him as incomplete, an outsider set apart from the gods. Until now, the epic’s hero has been able to obtain his any desire through feats of strength and power. However, as Utanapishtin tells Gilgamesh, no matter how much strength he has, no matter how godlike he may be, he will never be immortal -- “Why, O Gilgamesh, did you prolong woe, You are [formed] of the flesh of gods and mankind...” (82). Unlike Huwawa, death is not a tangible enemy that Gilgamesh can overcome because “no one sees the face of death, no one [hears] the voice of death, but cruel death cuts off mankind” (82). Ironically, then, on his journey for immortality, the godlike hero must come to terms with his human side and realize that death exists within life; futhermore, he must see that to live means to die. Before Enkidu’s arrival, Gilgamesh was far from …show more content…

Utanapishtin is a man who has been granted immortality and tells Gilgamesh to no longer seek it. It seems that Utanapishtin is saying that only through death can one find meaning in life. Just as one does not know light without darkness, one cannot know life without death. Along with Gilgamesh for his journey, the audience expects Utanapishtin -- the only human granted immortality -- to be extraordinary and heroic. Instead, as Gilgamesh states, the old man is “drained of battle spirit,” and exiled from the rest of the world as evidenced by his name “The Distant One”

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