Theme Of Heroism In Gilgamesh

As Enkidu was the trigger for Gilgamesh to become “essential”, so is he the trigger for Gilgamesh’s existential crisis of mortality. When Enkidu is killed, Gilgamesh is confronted with his own impermanence, left wandering, asking “Must I die too?” (Ferry 48). This terror grips him, and he seeks to defy the transience of humanity. One way in which he goes about this is through memorializing Enkidu with a statue in his honor. When Enkidu is on his deathbed, Gilgamesh vows to keep the image and fame of him alive, effectively preventing the death of Enkidu in legacy. This act is a way of avoiding facing the inevitability of death that he would have to face to successfully be an existential hero. With his inability to accept the death of his companion as an inevitable facet of life, Gilgamesh cannot be an existential hero - he is unable to find meaning in death, and is overwhelmed by fear for it.
In addition to memorializing Enkidu through constructing a statue of him, he also incorporated Enkidu into

On the surface, it may appear that he accepts his mortality at last, saying, “. . . what I found was a sign telling me to / abandon the journey and what it was I sought for” (Ferry 81), but in reality, he has lost to his crisis instead of learning to live with it. Ending with repetition of the same words used in the first quest with Enkidu, and with the first words of the epic is telling of this. This translation emphasizes that Gilgamesh is unchanged, and still affected by the loss of Enkidu. By alluding to the quest, the translation shows that the death of Enkidu is still weighing on Gilgamesh, and affects him even after his failed journey for immortality. Additionally, the repetition of the opening lines of the epic demonstrates that Gilgamesh gained no greater understanding or management from his crisis, and therefore had been unsuccessful in embracing his