The Epic of Gilgamesh is one of earliest known pieces of literature. Through years of storytelling and translation, The Epic of Gilgamesh became a timeless classic. This story is believed to have originated from Sumerian poems and legends about the king of Uruk, Gilgamesh.
Throughout the epic, many themes arose about women, love, and journeys and the one I would like to discuss is the theme of death. Also, I will discuss if Gilgamesh accepts morality at the end of the story and the development of Gilgamesh’s character throughout the story.
The story mainly focuses on the character Gilgamesh and this wild man created by the gods, Enkidu in which Gilgamesh and Enkidu later become good friends. Together they go upon quests to defeat creatures and upset the gods to help Gilgamesh find immortality. The first journey they go on is to defeat Humbaba, a monstrous creature in the Cedar Mountains.
Next, they defeat the Bull of Heaven that the goddess, Ishtar had sent to punish Gilgamesh. Lastly, the end of the book focuses on Gilgamesh’s reaction to the death of his new and loved friend Enkidu that takes him on the journey to find immortality and gives the epic one of many themes, death.
Death is an inevitable fact of human life, which is a lesson learned by Gilgamesh when his dear friend Enkidu is killed. From then on Gilgamesh finds himself being scared of dying. This fear pushes Gilgamesh to search for the power of immortal life. Gilgamesh becomes bitter that only the gods can live forever and this says a lot about Gilgamesh’s character.
Many times Gilgamesh thinks he is a god and abuses his rights as a king for example by raping the virgin brides of his city.
With this mind set, Gilgamesh is an arrogant and selfish king by leaving his city to go on this very long quest for himself in which he doesn’t know when he will return. On the way to fight Humbaba in the Cedar Forest, Gilgamesh and Enkidu tell each other life is short, the only thing that lasts is fame.
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