Gilgamesh as an Epic Hero, Research Paper Example

Probably when anyone today thinks of an epic hero, one of the three earliest examples to be found in Western Civilization will come to mind, namely (in historical order) Gilgamesh, the Iliad, and Beowulf.  In this paper I intend to focus on the first and most basic of the eight questions asked of us regarding the nature of an epic hero, and I will focus on the first known epic hero in Western literature, Gilgamesh. At the end I hope the reader will have learned enough about the demigod to become interested enough to at least read more about him, if not the actual text itself of the epic itself, which in my opinion is not an enjoyable experience from a literary point of view. So the question I hope to answer is: What is an epic hero?

That’s naturally the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about an epic hero: what is one, exactly? But since the classic examples are entirely fictional in their superhuman characteristics and accomplishments (if not in their historical identities) it might be better to ask what kind of literature an epic hero is found in. This is the important point here, because Gilgamesh was in fact an historical figure, an actual king, as well as the subject of epic poems and songs.¹ The two Gilgamesh’s are of course distinct, unless we want to believe in the existence of ancient demigods. I’m assuming that we don’t, which is why The Epic of Gilgamesh is the subject of this paper, not the historical king himself.²

So the short answer to the question what is an epic hero? is that an epic hero is a superman found in ancient oral literary tradition. The earliest manuscripts are written versions of oral tales, not original stories written down in their own right. And so it is with Gilgamesh. An epic hero was someone whose exploits were told if not sung around countless firesides over the centuries, someone who transcended and yet was a part of the culture of the time, which in this case would be the ancient Sumerian culture, the culture of the Tigris and Euphrates river valleys.

The Long Answer

An Epic Hero Was Admired.  Note the past tense. Heroes (epic or not) reflect their culture and their time just by being popular.  At first glance, this idea would seem to be contradicted by the story of Gilgamesh itself. After all, gods friendly to the city of Uruk created Enkidu as a foil to Gilgamesh, to get him to stop oppressing the city’s inhabitants. It would seem that Gilgamesh was a builder yet a devil, an invader, an alien oppressor, hardly a hero in a way familiar to us. But to accept that point of view is to accept the story itself as history. In reality people enjoyed listening to the adventures that the stories told because they were only stories, more or less like the stories of the Iliad and Beowulf. The actual Sumerian empire of the time was one of laws and agriculture (Owen 2). Probably most inhabitants lived rather dull lives, few could read, and those that could were restricted in their subject matter available to them — clay tablets being expensive, heavy, and fragile. This meant that memory held sway, and a good speaking or singing voice, as well as an inventive turn of mind to use when a new plot device was called for. The people wanted violent, colorful entertainment and got it good and hard. We can see that any story without such popularity would probably not have left enough artifacts for later archeologists to find and to find interesting enough to devote their careers to researching (Damrosch 1).

An Epic Hero is Greatly Feared. Note the present tense. Gilgamesh the demigod was not a positive, life-affirming force in our modern sense and thus would be difficult to view as a hero today. He was too wanton and cruel. It’s probably true that none of the three major epic heroes could be heroes for us. Gilgamesh was a conqueror who measured his victories in slaughter and glory. The only way to stay alive if you survived his conquest was to shut up and work. But Gilgamesh would not have been viewed as a positive, life-affirming hero even when he “lived” as a demigod. The difference is that Gilgamesh was an entertainer to his public at the time. He entertained as he oppressed, traveled afar, killed, and died. He entertains only scholars today, which tells us how much we have changed, how much our own culture is different from the one of ancient Sumer (Kovacs xvii). But here I’m referring to the translated clay tablets. You might think that if Hollywood were to make a movie filled with enough special effects, we might change our minds and accept Gilgamesh as a hero too. But I think that would still reveal a moral dilemma to the writers: how long could they inspire viewers with “heroes” holding an alien moral point of view?  A movie of Julius Caesar would face the same problem. The fear lives.

An Epic Hero Undertakes an Epic Quest. Gilgamesh undertakes basically two kinds. The first is optimistic, in the sense that he undertakes them with his former enemy and now sworn companion Enkidu. They are journeys of combat and victory. The first one is against Humbaba, the giant guardian of the Cedar Forest, whom (with the help of Shamash, the god of justice) they kill. Like in the  Odyssey, the next journey is to return home. There, the two friends must do battle with the Bull of Heaven, sent by Ishtar to punish Gilgamesh for rejecting her. Instead, after the bull has oppressed Uruk and its inhabitants, Gilgamesh and Enkidu  kill it.

His last quest is tragic, in that he undertakes it alone, in reaction to the death of Enkidu. It is a journey to wisdom borne of defeat. The gods, offended by repeated insults, finally manage to kill Enkidu, taking their cue from Humbaba who cursed Enkidu before dying. Gilgamesh, distraught and terrified at the prospect of his own death, then journeys to the land of the gods to learn from Utnapishtim and his wife the secret of eternal life. Crushed to learn that they were awarded the gift by Enlil only as compensation for Enlil’s cruelty in unleashing a flood worthy of the Bible itself,³ and that he must be denied that one-time gift, he  returns home one final time, to behold the walls of Uruk.

An Epic Hero Faces Epic Dangers. The first danger he faces is travel itself. It is long and challenging: “At twenty leagues they broke for some food, at thirty leagues they stopped for the night, walking Fifty leagues in a whole day, a walk of a month and a half  . . . ” (Academy).  There are also dreams subject to interpretation, and then the dangers of battle once they arrive. But those are more or less manageable perils. Anyone could encounter them while doing battle by sword with demigod foes and monsters after having traveled for tens of leagues for weeks. But there is one overall danger that both Gilgamesh and Enkidu did not reckon with, and one that was unique to their situation: the unified displeasure of the gods, particularly as lead by Ishtar, whose advances Gilgamesh rejected. This changed the nature of the journey he and Enkidu faced, for the gods finally could not and did not tolerate such affronts to their authority and dignity. A change in the balance of power among those gods was coming.

The Gods Play a Role in the Epic Hero’s Life, Quest, and Death. It says everything about epic heroes that their gods are plural in number and spelled with a lowercase g. They are gods, not God (Gill 1). Like the gods of the ancient Greeks and Romans, they are limited in their power, but finally do achieve their goal in spite of Gilgamesh’s earlier victories. It turns out that the gods’ effective power depends on the politics among them, a situation that was surely mirrored back on earth, where a history or war and trade between empires with different gods would have fostered a belief in gods that did the basically same thing amongst themselves.

Their primary role is to set the stage for the quest by creating Enkidu, a wild half-man half-animal creature whose god-designed purpose is to confront Gilgamesh, who has long been oppressing the inhabitants of Uruk. But their plan is defeated by their inability to control events on earth. Enkidu lives with the animals and only accidentally learns of Gilgamesh’s treatment of Uruk’s townspeople, particularly the women and children. Only then does Enkidu meet Gilgamesh to do battle with him, yet he is defeated. Admitting Gilgamesh’s victory, the two become friends. Doubling the power of Gilgamesh was definitely not what the gods intended.

Next, Ishtar tries to have Gilgamesh killed by the Bull of Heaven, and here again the gods  are stymied, at least at first. It is only when they agree amongst themselves that because  Gilgamesh is part god and part man (a demigod), that the man-imal Enkidu must die in his place. Enlil accuses Shamash of complicity with the pair and protection is denied Enkidu, who then takes sick and dies after much soul-searching and pain. This leads to Gilgamesh’s final quest.

Women and Goddesses Create and Destroy the  Epic Hero. Throughout the story, human women play vital but subservient roles because the adventures of the heroes’ don’t allow for a primary role for them. They are looked up to only when they nurture and advise (Harris 120.) This is probably why Gilgamesh’s habit of sleeping with all of Uruk’s brides provided the spark of Enkidu’s hatred of Gilgamesh. This hatred leads to the combat that results in the friendship between the two. And it is a temple prostitute who seduces Enkidu for a full seven days and nights, leading him to be rejected by the animals he had lived with and thus to seek civilization. But it was the goddess Aruru who made the bodies of Gilgamesh and Enkidu. And it was the goddess Ishtar who incited Enkidu’s death. Note that in both instances, they played a dominant male role, especially when Ishtar proposed to Gilgamesh — a proposal that led to Gilgamesh’s haughty and humiliating rejection of her (xi).

The Hero’s Return Ends the Epic. The final outcome of Gilgamesh’s last journey is to return home, sadder but wiser, and all but destroyed as a demigod.  He has learned that he will be denied the eternal life he sought, and will also be denied eternal youth.⁴

Seeing the walls of Uruk, Gilgamesh supposedly realizes that it is the constructive work of man on earth that matters, not eternal life or eternal youth.⁵ Regardless, the Epic of Gilgamesh is thought to have ended at this point on the 11^th tablet. But to me (and probably to everyone else), it’s not a dramatically satisfying outcome because the text just runs out at a place that allows you to imagine closure if that’s what you want to do.⁶  But it’s plain that there could have been a lot more, and that there probably was. Did Gilgamesh go on to other battles before dying gloriously? Or did he fade away like an old soldier?

Notes

1. It should be remembered that at least some versions of the epic may actually be lyrics and not narrative.
2. Little is known of the historical king named Gilgamesh.
3. Many scholars consider the Gilgamesh flood story as the source of the Old Testament version.
4. In an episode that sounds like a twisted version of the Biblical story of Adam and Eve, Gilgamesh’s plant of eternal youth is eaten or stolen by a snake.
5. It is not clear to me whether his walls had been rebuilt built in his absence, and if so, whether this fact contributed to Gilgamesh’s attitude.
6. Most readers will probably want to.

Works Cited

Academy for Ancient Texts. 2001. Web. 2 Jan 2012.

Damrosch, David. “Epic Hero.” Smithsonian.com. 2007. Web.  2 Jan. 2012.

Gill, N.S. “Early Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia” About.com. Web.

Harris, Rivkah. Gender and Aging in Mesopotamia. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2003. Print.

Kovacs, Maureen Gallery. The Epic of Gilgamesh. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1989. Print.

Owen, Bruce. Three Ancient Sources: Gilgamesh, Hammurabi’s laws , and the Westcar Papyrus.”  Foundations of World Civilization: Notes 14. Web. 2009.