A Chance at Immortality - Book Report/Review Example

In this description of Uruk's walls, Gilgamesh shows his audience the strength of the same by pointing to the quality materials used to make it. He also focuses on its age by referring to ancient characters like the Seven Sages, an idea further emphasized by the repetitions found in this excerpt, which also appears word by word in Tablet I. This strong wall symbolizes man's victory over time and death thus leading mortal people to a kind of immortality achieved through their surviving works (art and civilization).

The secondary theme, survival, is closely related to immortality, as men fight against nature/gods (symbolized by the storm) to prevent their own death. This is easily seen in the imagery of the storm described in the Utanapishtim flashback story of the Flood. In spite of the fury of the gods' storm (or nature in other cases), Utanapishtim and his men manage to survive thus breaking their fate of mortality. For having won their fight against the Flood, those men are rewarded with immortality, only preserved to gods or heroes.

Finally, also related with the main theme of immortality by the opposition, appears the theme of death. Death, personified, is an evil character that prevents Gilgamesh to fulfill his destiny; death prosecutes him and is always with him, as is shown in this hyperbole." The Snatcher has taken hold of my flesh, in my bedroom Death wells, and wherever I set foot there too is Death!"(257-59, Tablet XI, The Epic of Gilgamesh)Death is shown as an evil character who is not easily deceived as it happens with Gilgamesh that fails his both chances at immortality, first by falling asleep and second by losing the opportunity to become young again.

So in the case of Gilgamesh, death wins the battle as he finally succumbs to its clutches. But he and his people will be always remembered by the strong wall that has constructed around the city. However, the literary devices are not only used in relation to the themes but also with other purposes.