The story of Gilgamesh shows how people value life in the 2000’s B.C.E. The main character King Gilgamesh is a warrior who is careless about other people feelings. He oppresses people from his town. This story can help one think about the meaning of life, death, friendship, love and more.
Throughout the reading, we learn that the great King that is supposed to be strong, a hero, someone accomplished, respected. He is part God and part man. Gilgamesh fears mortality and death when his friend Enkidu died. Death is something everybody face at some point. It is inevitable in human life. No one is eternal, we all deal differently when facing this type of situation. Is it better to be in denial or face the situation? Dealing with reality is supposed to help one greed and know how to move forward. Being in denial is not a solution because at some point the reality will come back and hit you. As Gilgamesh take a journey to discover to secret of eternal life, we can see that he finally accepts the death of his friend and start to mourn Enkidu. Life does not always give us what we expect. Seeking retreat, advice from wise people is always a good idea instead of acting cowardly or refuting reality. This reading can also help people trying to understand life thru religious beliefs and how to act when death knock at your door. Death in someone life usually help that person to value life and not take things for granted as it is the case for Gilgamesh that never taught they could face death.
Another theme one can explore is friendship and love. The main character is depicted as someone that always complain and does not respect enough older Gods in the Sumerian culture. In order to teach Gilgamesh a lesson, the Gods decide to send Enkidu to compete with the king. In contrary of what was expected, the two became best friends. Their friendship is so strong that we see the main character change his attitude about death when is best friend passed away. Two people can be call best friends when both will love each other unconditionally and will always tell the truth to each other and find the best situation for each other. They treat each other as if they are siblings. That is the case for the two protagonists and that can be seen when Enkidu warns his friend that life after death will not be pleasant. His encounter with Enkidu changes Gilgamesh behavior. The friendship between the two show how in life it is important to have true, real friend. How friendship can impact positively one life. Friendship is vital in everyone existence.
Love is not only portray thru the two best friend but also with the king and his mother Ninsun who predicted the love between the two friends. Mothers carry their children for 9 months and if all goes well, there will always be a strong bond between a mother and her children. Gilgamesh is also known to love women. He does not hesitate to have sexual relationship with any women regardless of their relationship status. Most of Gilgamesh accomplishments whether positive or negative involve women. Because of his involvement with women he is able to get the plan that will help his rejuvenation. Women are often portrayed as strong powerful women in the life of men. They can sometimes easily manipulate men as both gender think differently in some situation. Women are also emotional and do not always make decision based on facts. It is the case of the goddess Ishtar in the reading. Because of the king refuting her, she created a situation that led to Enkidu death.
The epic of Gilgamesh is a reading that can help one benefits the meaning of life thru love, friendship and death. It can also help those who are curious to learn more about religion and the Sumerian culture. In addition understand reality versus factuality. Moreover, one can understand the power of morality, ethic. Our behavior reflects our life, our future. One should enjoy what we have and not always search for the impossible.
“The Epic of Gilgamesh” poem is very meaningful through all times. The poem bring the aspects of life such as life and death, friendship, love, the desire to live forever, fear of the death. People are always care and worry about those elements of life.
Through the centuries people were looking to find the way how to live forever, fight the death. The king Gilgamesh who had superhuman strength, who was brave warrior, ambitious builder, that created the great walls around his city, was looking for forever life. The friendship played a key role in his life. Enkidu, who lived with animals and became a part of human world, was the best friend of the king. After killing the Bull of Heaven, gods decided to punish best friend and one of them must die. Enkidu death had a huge impact on Gilgamesh life. His friends death affected him so much that he cant stop thinking about own death. He is scare one day to pass away. He decided to find the Utnapishtim, Mesopotanian Noah, because the gods promised Utnapishtim eternal life, king hoped that Mesopotanian Noah tell him how to avoid the death. After reaching his destination he is not allowed to live forever, even flower that gives the youth he lost on the way back to home. This story shows that it doesn’t matter if you king or just a human kind you cant live forever. Every life reaches death at some point.
Mortality depicts a beginning and an ending. A journey in between, which often times entail a transformation or a change over the course of point A to point B. Those two points however were given a stage that a simple location in time would not suffice. A stage that puts into perspective the development of characters beyond just the physical. This perspective holds true in “The Epic of Gilgamesh”.
A river begins from the steps of heaven to the overwhelming denial of the sea. Rivers were often described in the face of death a journey where one would flow until no light can be seen. Another perspective of the rivers are shown in a ceaseless motion. As an individual the disturbance you could cause in the stream of life is but a simple pebble barely making a mark. Utanapishtim tries to convince Gilgamesh that even with immortality your life could still be dead without any appreciation of who you were or where you came from. Here laid a man of perfection, two third’s divine but yet mortal only to seek life, an endless second chance. Was the search for immortality for himself? Or Enkidu? If Gilgamesh consumed the immortality herb, would he truly obtain what he wished for?
The transformation of who you become when you lose a part of yourself in any shape or form is a journey where life begins even if death was not involved. The whole role of Enkidu was not to rival but fill and show Gilgamesh with emotions that he lacked prior to meeting Enkidu. The emotions Gilgamesh felt after the death of Enkidu were guilt, sympathy, love and fear. Which begged the question, would he have preferred to live the life before or after Enkidu’s death? If you could, would you turn off your humanity?
Factoring in human nature and our basic instinct to avoid pain, I believe Gilgamesh would have chosen life before meeting Enkidu over life after Enkidu’s death. But, in the grand scheme of things, Gilgamesh is a better person after having met, befriended, loved and parted with the beast-man. Any transformation as drastic as the one Gilgamesh underwent is not possible without the rivalry, friendship, heartbreak that Endiku provided.
As for the option of “turning off your humanity”, the burden that accompanies indefinite life is one that is much to great for me to consider eternal life. And, in his delay of eating the fruit, i infer that Gilgamesh subconsciously felt the same.
The Hebrew Bible
The Lord God portrayed in Genesis was a very powerful and “volatile” character. When he is happy, he made the lights and darkness, sun and moon, sea and land, human and every other creatures on Earth,and brought the humans into the Garden of Eden to enjoy life. When he is angry, he sent the flood to devastate everything except those he was in favor. He does not allow anyone to challenge his authority. He forbiddened Adam and Eve to eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge, so human would obey him forever as the result of not knowing right or wrong. When Job wants to speak to God, he was only given a response that he was not even born at the time God shows his magnificent power to create the earth, and acknowledge himself that he was not qualified to meet with the God in equal terms. While most other religions such as Buddhism and Taoism tells people to love each other, Bible tells us that too, but more importantly: “God loves people”. “God” is always the unshakable center of everything.
One important question that was raised in the intro part has caught my attention. “Why did the God allow the good people suffer?” The question is in fact not a complicated one to answer. There was a saying from the Confucianism that “When Heaven is about to place a great responsibility on a great man, it always first frustrates his spirit and will, exhausts his muscles and bones, exposes him to starvation and poverty, harasses him by troubles and setbacks so as to stimulate his spirit, toughen his nature and enhance his abilities…” This could be a reference showing us that how both the eastern and western culture insisted in encouraging people the idea that no matter how much you suffer, do not lose your heart. Indeed, the story of Job has proven that if a person do not give up his or her humanity while incurring so much setback in life, he or she will eventually be ending up blissfully.
The Hebrew Bible
In the hebrew bible of genesis I percieved god as a very uneasy going character who’s trying to build his own utopia but realize mankind becomes more evil during the pass of time. He spent seven days creating an idealistic earth and heaven and living life. As the story goes on god begins to show he’s very hard to satisfy, following the events of disobeidence of mankind. The first disobedience began with Adam and Eve who did not follow the gods order of not eating from the knowledge tree, followed by Cain killing his own brother Adel. During this episode of events god had enough and decided to flood the earth but favored Noah for his good behavior. In which I wonder of what God really wants, he punished Cain for killing Adel but wanted Abraham to kill his own son. So what does God really wants? Meanwhile during the whole story he acts like even a littlest thing like eating an apple from the knowledge tree would punish greater or equal to killing because Cain only got moved to the east of Eden but to Eve she suffered unpleasant pain while giving birth. No matter how ideal god want his creation to be or volatile he acts toward human kind, Man kind yet again proved it was corrupted later on.
Caca Atchon
The Epic of Gilgamesh
The story of Gilgamesh shows how people value life in the 2000’s B.C.E. The main character King Gilgamesh is a warrior who is careless about other people feelings. He oppresses people from his town. This story can help one think about the meaning of life, death, friendship, love and more.
Throughout the reading, we learn that the great King that is supposed to be strong, a hero, someone accomplished, respected. He is part God and part man. Gilgamesh fears mortality and death when his friend Enkidu died. Death is something everybody face at some point. It is inevitable in human life. No one is eternal, we all deal differently when facing this type of situation. Is it better to be in denial or face the situation? Dealing with reality is supposed to help one greed and know how to move forward. Being in denial is not a solution because at some point the reality will come back and hit you. As Gilgamesh take a journey to discover to secret of eternal life, we can see that he finally accepts the death of his friend and start to mourn Enkidu. Life does not always give us what we expect. Seeking retreat, advice from wise people is always a good idea instead of acting cowardly or refuting reality. This reading can also help people trying to understand life thru religious beliefs and how to act when death knock at your door. Death in someone life usually help that person to value life and not take things for granted as it is the case for Gilgamesh that never taught they could face death.
Another theme one can explore is friendship and love. The main character is depicted as someone that always complain and does not respect enough older Gods in the Sumerian culture. In order to teach Gilgamesh a lesson, the Gods decide to send Enkidu to compete with the king. In contrary of what was expected, the two became best friends. Their friendship is so strong that we see the main character change his attitude about death when is best friend passed away. Two people can be call best friends when both will love each other unconditionally and will always tell the truth to each other and find the best situation for each other. They treat each other as if they are siblings. That is the case for the two protagonists and that can be seen when Enkidu warns his friend that life after death will not be pleasant. His encounter with Enkidu changes Gilgamesh behavior. The friendship between the two show how in life it is important to have true, real friend. How friendship can impact positively one life. Friendship is vital in everyone existence.
Love is not only portray thru the two best friend but also with the king and his mother Ninsun who predicted the love between the two friends. Mothers carry their children for 9 months and if all goes well, there will always be a strong bond between a mother and her children. Gilgamesh is also known to love women. He does not hesitate to have sexual relationship with any women regardless of their relationship status. Most of Gilgamesh accomplishments whether positive or negative involve women. Because of his involvement with women he is able to get the plan that will help his rejuvenation. Women are often portrayed as strong powerful women in the life of men. They can sometimes easily manipulate men as both gender think differently in some situation. Women are also emotional and do not always make decision based on facts. It is the case of the goddess Ishtar in the reading. Because of the king refuting her, she created a situation that led to Enkidu death.
The epic of Gilgamesh is a reading that can help one benefits the meaning of life thru love, friendship and death. It can also help those who are curious to learn more about religion and the Sumerian culture. In addition understand reality versus factuality. Moreover, one can understand the power of morality, ethic. Our behavior reflects our life, our future. One should enjoy what we have and not always search for the impossible.
“The Epic of Gilgamesh” poem is very meaningful through all times. The poem bring the aspects of life such as life and death, friendship, love, the desire to live forever, fear of the death. People are always care and worry about those elements of life.
Through the centuries people were looking to find the way how to live forever, fight the death. The king Gilgamesh who had superhuman strength, who was brave warrior, ambitious builder, that created the great walls around his city, was looking for forever life. The friendship played a key role in his life. Enkidu, who lived with animals and became a part of human world, was the best friend of the king. After killing the Bull of Heaven, gods decided to punish best friend and one of them must die. Enkidu death had a huge impact on Gilgamesh life. His friends death affected him so much that he cant stop thinking about own death. He is scare one day to pass away. He decided to find the Utnapishtim, Mesopotanian Noah, because the gods promised Utnapishtim eternal life, king hoped that Mesopotanian Noah tell him how to avoid the death. After reaching his destination he is not allowed to live forever, even flower that gives the youth he lost on the way back to home. This story shows that it doesn’t matter if you king or just a human kind you cant live forever. Every life reaches death at some point.
Mortality depicts a beginning and an ending. A journey in between, which often times entail a transformation or a change over the course of point A to point B. Those two points however were given a stage that a simple location in time would not suffice. A stage that puts into perspective the development of characters beyond just the physical. This perspective holds true in “The Epic of Gilgamesh”.
A river begins from the steps of heaven to the overwhelming denial of the sea. Rivers were often described in the face of death a journey where one would flow until no light can be seen. Another perspective of the rivers are shown in a ceaseless motion. As an individual the disturbance you could cause in the stream of life is but a simple pebble barely making a mark. Utanapishtim tries to convince Gilgamesh that even with immortality your life could still be dead without any appreciation of who you were or where you came from. Here laid a man of perfection, two third’s divine but yet mortal only to seek life, an endless second chance. Was the search for immortality for himself? Or Enkidu? If Gilgamesh consumed the immortality herb, would he truly obtain what he wished for?
The transformation of who you become when you lose a part of yourself in any shape or form is a journey where life begins even if death was not involved. The whole role of Enkidu was not to rival but fill and show Gilgamesh with emotions that he lacked prior to meeting Enkidu. The emotions Gilgamesh felt after the death of Enkidu were guilt, sympathy, love and fear. Which begged the question, would he have preferred to live the life before or after Enkidu’s death? If you could, would you turn off your humanity?
Factoring in human nature and our basic instinct to avoid pain, I believe Gilgamesh would have chosen life before meeting Enkidu over life after Enkidu’s death. But, in the grand scheme of things, Gilgamesh is a better person after having met, befriended, loved and parted with the beast-man. Any transformation as drastic as the one Gilgamesh underwent is not possible without the rivalry, friendship, heartbreak that Endiku provided.
As for the option of “turning off your humanity”, the burden that accompanies indefinite life is one that is much to great for me to consider eternal life. And, in his delay of eating the fruit, i infer that Gilgamesh subconsciously felt the same.
The Hebrew Bible
The Lord God portrayed in Genesis was a very powerful and “volatile” character. When he is happy, he made the lights and darkness, sun and moon, sea and land, human and every other creatures on Earth,and brought the humans into the Garden of Eden to enjoy life. When he is angry, he sent the flood to devastate everything except those he was in favor. He does not allow anyone to challenge his authority. He forbiddened Adam and Eve to eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge, so human would obey him forever as the result of not knowing right or wrong. When Job wants to speak to God, he was only given a response that he was not even born at the time God shows his magnificent power to create the earth, and acknowledge himself that he was not qualified to meet with the God in equal terms. While most other religions such as Buddhism and Taoism tells people to love each other, Bible tells us that too, but more importantly: “God loves people”. “God” is always the unshakable center of everything.
One important question that was raised in the intro part has caught my attention. “Why did the God allow the good people suffer?” The question is in fact not a complicated one to answer. There was a saying from the Confucianism that “When Heaven is about to place a great responsibility on a great man, it always first frustrates his spirit and will, exhausts his muscles and bones, exposes him to starvation and poverty, harasses him by troubles and setbacks so as to stimulate his spirit, toughen his nature and enhance his abilities…” This could be a reference showing us that how both the eastern and western culture insisted in encouraging people the idea that no matter how much you suffer, do not lose your heart. Indeed, the story of Job has proven that if a person do not give up his or her humanity while incurring so much setback in life, he or she will eventually be ending up blissfully.
The Hebrew Bible
In the hebrew bible of genesis I percieved god as a very uneasy going character who’s trying to build his own utopia but realize mankind becomes more evil during the pass of time. He spent seven days creating an idealistic earth and heaven and living life. As the story goes on god begins to show he’s very hard to satisfy, following the events of disobeidence of mankind. The first disobedience began with Adam and Eve who did not follow the gods order of not eating from the knowledge tree, followed by Cain killing his own brother Adel. During this episode of events god had enough and decided to flood the earth but favored Noah for his good behavior. In which I wonder of what God really wants, he punished Cain for killing Adel but wanted Abraham to kill his own son. So what does God really wants? Meanwhile during the whole story he acts like even a littlest thing like eating an apple from the knowledge tree would punish greater or equal to killing because Cain only got moved to the east of Eden but to Eve she suffered unpleasant pain while giving birth. No matter how ideal god want his creation to be or volatile he acts toward human kind, Man kind yet again proved it was corrupted later on.