Human Mortality In The Epic Of Gilgamesh

The Epic of Gilgamesh is worth your attention because of his relevancy whether it is the literal richness of it or simply the universal reflection of the human nature and our desire to seek for eternal youth and immortality. This Epic depicts perfectly the idea of ‘’what one wants, isn’t what one might need’’, that our life shouldn’t be around temporary pains and pleasure and fundamentally challenges our view and comprehension of what it is to be human through the incredible glass of time. Unfortunately, we all lost someone in our live, whether it is through an unwanted breakup or through the death of a dear one. This piece reflects on the impressions that we all had on death and the shows that one can be willing to go through hell and high

waters to not feel this particular pain or never personally experience it. Trust me, you should read it, you can even brag about it in your other classes and look smarter and cultivated than the rest of your classmates. More than death, several themes are explored in this timeless work such as life, love, despair and hope. The oppositions and contrasts that are featured in this Epic are numerous and each worth of our attention. For example, the contrast between life and death through the use of metaphor and elements like the sea of Death and the twelves mountains. Moreover, as of page 101 in the fourth chapter, the use of repetitions is poignant and emphasizes greatly the attention of the author to their meaning when mentioned several times throughout the following pages:
“If you are that Gilgamesh who seized and killed the Bull of Heaven, who killed the watchman of the cedar forest, who overthrew Humbaba that lived in the forest, and killed the lions in the passes of the mountain, why are your cheeks so starved and why is your face so drawn? Why is despair in your heart and your face like the face of one who has made a long journey?”
This citation is incredibly rich if you’d only take the time to consider it in this text and analyze it. I assure you that you should thank me for doing my job of ‘friend’ amazingly!

One story that should also blow your mind is Utnapishtim’s with the Story of the Flood. Does it remind you of any story? Maybe one that you heard in church? No? Noah’s! you will figure quite fast that the same story! Surprising? To be honest, it wasn’t something that swept me out of my feet a long time because knowing that the Bible’s Old Testament comes from the Torah and that the Torah is a compilation of several fundamental books compiled throughout history, the mind-blowing aspect of this story came from the fact that the story was transmitted throughout time almost identically.
In terms of the characters, Utnapishtim is one that is the most deceiving.

Being called a God throughout the whole story, I came to realize that he was just a man with an incredible story just like Gilgamesh stated at page 107; “I look at you now, utnapishtim, and your appearance is no different from mine”. He talked and sounded like a man except that he was alone. Though, I thought that he taught an important lesson at page 107 when he states that ‘’from the days of the old there is no permanence.’’ In addition, I was very impressed by the depth of the theme of human mortality. Indeed, the fact that every aspect of this story based on a mourning is intriguing on an analytical level. The Epic of Gilgamesh is a complete piece concerning mortality and how it is humanely processed. As I mentioned earlier, we humans have different reactions to the death of a dear one and this story really depicts the pain that can be carried by someone and the extent of this pain that eventually transforms into fear and apprehension. You can read about the richness of this theme throughout the whole epic. Since it is on-going, the theme of mortality can be analyzed under many perspectives such as the fragility of the Man’s ego or the envy that we have of the Gods and the importance that we accord to youth and

eternity.