The Epic Story of Gilgamesh - Book Report/Review Example

Gilgamesh: Conceptualizing Immortality The story of Gilgamesh is quite possibly the oldest epic story in existence. The story came from the heart of the origins of the Western civilization, from between the Tigress and Euphrates where a heroic king is said to have ruled in the Mesopotamian city of Uruk in the year 2750 BCE (Mitchell 1). The universality of the story has helped it to retain its presence within the world, the grief and questions about death that can connect with the basic human commonalities of experience. The character of Gilgamesh is fraught with the human flaws that best describe the human experience. According to Mitchell, “The hero of this epic is an anti-hero, a superman (a superpower, one might say) who doesn’t know the difference between strength and arrogance… (he takes) an agonizing journey, a quest that results in wisdom by proving its own futility” (2). Through examining the theme of immortality, the Epic of Gilgamesh touches on the core fears and motivations of the human experience. Eternal life, through an afterlife, was not framed by the Mesopotamians through the concept of good and evil, one place for those who please the gods and another for those who do not. The afterlife was a desolate place in which the only consoling factor was within the memories of those that were left behind (Bertman 135). The Mesopotamian’s were plagued by the forces of nature that could swell up within their environment at any moment, their living environment a virtual play toy for their gods as the common floods could take away all of their material goods, mud filling in their homes and putting them in a position to start over. Therefore, it was not the promise of an afterlife that drove them towards goodness, but the required obedience and humility that they needed to appease their gods so that they could attempt to thwart to effects of angered gods in this life. The epic story of Gilgamesh explores the concept of immortality. As a defiant attitude towards his gods, Gilgamesh contemplates his mortality and desires to find a way in which to deny succumbing to death. Gilgamesh searches out advice on methods of finding immortality, but each time nature takes control and ends his attempt to be granted this gift. One way in which he tries to win immortality is through denying himself sleep, but he is weary from his travels and he succumbs. Another way is a plant that is found at the bottom of the ocean, but after obtaining it he bathed in a pool while a serpent came and ate his plant (Olshansky and Carnes 29). There are several morals to the story, not the least of which is that without sacrifice a profound gift of such magnitude cannot be expected. In seeking immortality, Gilgamesh seeks what all humans seek. He expresses a desire to deny death and to continue his mortal life. Gilgamesh represents the hero’s journey, his undertaking an example of the classic hero’s journey as defined by Joseph Campbell and repeated throughout history in order to provide a framework for examining the human condition. In his flawed existence, Gilgamesh disrupts his harmony with the gods. In doing so, he compels them to make a balance against which he can measure himself. The epic poem reads “Create a new hero, let them balance each other perfectly so that Uruk has peace” (Mitchell 22). In answer to this request, the goddess Aruru creates Enkidu. According to Mitchell “where Gilgamesh is two-thirds divine, Enkidu is two-thirds animal…Where Gilgamesh is arrogant, Enkidu is childlike; where Gilgamesh is violent, Enkidu is peaceful” (11). Gilgamesh, instead of butting heads with this opposite creation, befriends him creating the first friendship in literary history. The concept of immortality, in contrast to mortality, is discussed through the existence of Enkidu. Enkidu is tamed through sex, his self-awareness brought forth through her “civilizing thighs” (Mitchell 17). Through Enkidu, the enlightenment of humanity is shown through his kindness to animals, his gentleness a sign of the baser human decencies in contrast to the arrogances of Gilgamesh, symbolic of the infection of the divine, his flaws a reflection of the delusion of immortality that many humans feel and in doing so deny the graces of the human spirit. In taming Enkidu through sex, a study of sensuality is made as it relates to the contrast between the animal and the human, the human and the god, his actualization accomplished through the physical affections of the female. In this act, the question of his mortality is squarely placed as he is defined as human. His elevation between animal and god is defined when he accepts the behaviors of being a man. Mitchell quotes that he learned to eat human food “He had his hair cut, he washed he rubbed sweet oil into his skin and became fully human” (18). Though he was not born of a woman, or through the seed of a man, Enkidu is defined as human as he adopts the behaviors accepted as human. The test of his humanity is through his death, his mortality released in a heart wrenching moment for Gilgamesh who cannot be consoled. As his grief overwhelms him, Gilgamesh must deny his own mortality, his attachment to the potential of the end of his life a burden that he must find a way to shed. He leaves on his quest, searching from someone who can help him to deny death the prize of his submission. After a long journey that leaves him gaunt and less than the divine king, he finds Utanpishtim who chastises him for wanting to defy death as in doing so he will diminish the joys of life. He does not yet understand the message of his quest so he goes through his trials, trying to deny himself sleep and enduring the dangers of finding the plant, only to have it eaten by the serpent, until he comes to understand the futility of his mission. The nature of the Mesopotamians was defined by the religion that was created in which almost three thousand gods made up the divinity that kept the world in balance. The civilization saw the order to the world, so in order to explain the chaos that could also be observed; they developed a polytheistic religion in which the disruption of their obedience could end in a disaster (Duiker and Spielvogel 12). The explanation of the world was defined by the actions of humans in tension with their gods. This helplessness is expressed through the search that Gilgamesh makes towards finding immortality. While the religion defined their position within their world, the humans on one side, the gods on the other, and the happenings around them creating the barrier in between, the search that Gilgamesh makes to discover the route to immortality, a divine right, is defined by his inability to deny nature either through denying his own need to sleep or by preventing a serpent from taking his prize. The lament of Achilles in Homer is reflective of the belief systems about the afterlife that was shared by the Mesopotamians. The concept of a place of souls, cold and without life, a place of unending waiting in which only the laments of their family and friends who remained in life gave comfort, held no promise of a future in which existence would have meaning (Duiker and Spielvogel 23). Thus, the search for immortality, a search that took up moments of his life, his sorrow taking away the sweetness of his existence, defied his own potential for joy. The lesson learned by Gilgamesh is that to worry about after would steal from him the now, that in trying to not experience death, he was not experiencing life. The theme of immortality is actually the theme of fleshly life, the resurrection of the mortal spirit from the ashes of grief. Gilgamesh defines himself, for a time, through his fear, in the realization of the impact of the passing of the light of life from the body. As a worm crawls through the nostril of his beloved friend, he comes to the realization of the lack of value the body has once death has taken the spirit. In his sickened stomach, he experiences the pending doom of his own mortality, the defining line between life within and the passing of that life personified in the worm that now resided within the body of his friend. According to Olshansky and Carnes, the moral of the story of Gilgamesh is that “if death was an inevitable for a part-god with Herculean strength, then ordinary people must also accept the fate of their mortal lives” (29). However, this is a very limited perspective on the moral of the story. The story provides a discourse for the impact of the realization of personal mortality, the human need to find a way in which to defy that mortality, and the reality of the precious moments of life that define what is truly important. In fighting a battle that cannot be won, an individual will be denied the beauty and richness that he would lose even if he won that battle. As life has no value without the knowledge that it will end, thus the moments within that life should be appreciated and savored, each one meaningful because it can never again be recaptured. The Epic of Gilgamesh is a story of a man who is more than human, who finds that his humanity is the defining concept in which he can find the greatest joy. The character of Enkidu represents the animal nature of man, elevated to the human condition as Gilgamesh represents the divinity within man brought to humility through understanding the nature of life. Representing the central core of understanding of the Mesopotamians, the obstacles to Gilgamesh finding his prize are natural, elements that are outside of his control. In coming to an understanding of what was within his control, he found a peace that had been missing from his life, even before he was challenged with the creature/man Enkidu who would be his greatest friend. He misunderstood the gifts of the gods, an affliction that is common in the human condition, creating a story that has lasted 5000 years because of its universal themes. Works Cited Bertman, Stephen. Handbook to Life in Ancient Mesopotamia. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2005. Print. Duiker, William J, and Jackson J. Spielvogel. The Essential World History. Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth, 2008. Print. Kovacs, Maureen G. The Epic of Gilgamesh. Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press, 1989. Print. Mitchell, Stephan. Gilgamesh: A new version. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006. Olshansky, Stuart J, and Bruce A. Carnes. The Quest for Immortality: Science at the Frontiers of Aging. New York: Norton, 2001. Print. Read More