—Anonymous
I think The Epic of Gilgamesh can be considered a “great work”. A “great work” to me is something that can inspire you and teach you how to see things in a different way. At times change is needed to make you see things more clearly. Every character in The Epic of Gilgamesh had different characteristics that made them affect others in positive and negative ways. Love and friendship shown throughout the epic had an effect on all of the characters in different ways. At the beginning of the epic, Gilgamesh didn’t care about the way that he treated others and he didn’t care about who he had to kill in order to get what he wanted. As soon as Enkidu came into his life, he started to show him what he should do and stopped him whenever he tried to go back to his old ways. Although Enkidu might’ve helped Gilgamesh become a better person, Enkidu slowly turned into Gilgamesh since he killed the Bull of Heaven even though he knew it wasn’t the right thing to do. Although Enkidu was able to influence Gilgamesh in a positive way, Enkidu took on some of Gilgamesh’s negative characteristics which ended up causing his death. Although Enkidu’s presence in Gilgamesh’s life had a positive impact on him, Gilgamesh had a negative impact on Enkidu’s life. When Enkidu died, Gilgamesh mourned his death for seven days which shows the impact that Enkidu had on him because he didn’t cry when he killed people at the beginning of the epic. Gilgamesh’s growing fear of death was fixed by Siduri since she told him to live life to the fullest when he was looking for a way to be immortal. When he was able to get the plant that would make him immortal, a snake took it. Siduri told him that there was no true purpose behind the need to become immortal, it was just his fear getting the best of him and he realized that at the end of the epic. At the beginning of the epic Gilgamesh only cared about himself, but that changed as soon as Enkidu became his friend. The love and friendship between Gilgamesh and Enkidu was good on one side and bad on the other side but that makes it relatable because there will be people who you’ll try to please, but they won’t do anything but harm you.
