In the epic of Gilgamesh, Enkidu death was very significant to the plot of the story. He states that he weeps for 6 days and 7 nights, which shows how traumatizing it was to experience the death of a best friend. Gilgamesh finally experience death something that happens to mortals which leads to the first step of ending Gilgamesh adventure to find immortality, the death caused Gilgamesh to realize that even a person with equal as himself could die. In comparison to Jesus Christ death, Jesus Christ was a man that created miracles saving many people. He created a miracle that fed 5000 people with just 5 loaves of beard. Also as shown in story of Gilgamesh, bread was also significant to portray life. Also when Jesus Christ was crucified for calling himself a god, people even mocked his crucifixion because he didn’t try to save himself. His death was significant because it showed the people that looked up to him that even a man with divine power could die.
I think that a death scene could make a good plot for a story as shown in the significance of the death of Enkidu and Jesus Christ. As a reader, reading a story without any impactful moments creates a less of a compelling story, which ultimately causes the reader to not enjoy reading the story. I find it interesting that a death scene of a important character in a novel or even a book can create this sorrow feeling almost like you can empathize with the characters of the story. Especially in the story of Gilgamesh, the author wrote many pages showing Gilgamesh weeping for his dead friend.
Hi, Andrew. I agree with you that the death of heroic characters is a really great way to impress the readers, and such plot encourages reader to think about author’s motivation behind writing that particular scene. I think your comparison between Enkidu and Jesus is very interesting, tying together these two seemingly unrelated heroic characters through “death”. Indeed, whether a character is set to be an immortal god (Jesus) or mortal human (Enkidu), “deaths” played a huge role in constituting these heroic figures. These scenes helps reader to go a step further and think about what the author is trying to convey to his/her readers. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, the author implies that death of mankind is, sometimes, inevitable. Rather than worrying about inevitable death of human beings, what the tavern keeper said to Gilgamesh to “Always be happy, night and day. Make everyday a delight…” (p.138) is what the author is really trying to convey to readers.
I agree with your statement that the death of Enkidu was very significant to the story because it allowed the story to progress. Enkidu’s death led to Gilgamesh’s realization that death is inevitable and that he too may die one day. Before Enkidu’s death, Gilgamesh thought that he was invincible and that nothing can stop or kill him. This can be seen during his journey to kill the monster Humbaba. Gilgamesh’s belief that he was invincible made him a confident and arrogant character.
I thought your connection of Enkidu to Jesus was very interesting. The death of both Enkidu and Jesus were very impactful so I see why you made the connection. I also thought your statement on how the bread symbolized life was interesting. I interepreted the bread as a measure of progress or time. Bread allowed Enkidu to become more human and adapt to society in the beginning of the play and bread also allowed Utanapishtim to measure how long Gilgamesh had slept.