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The theme of Enkidu’s dreams clearly shows that it is confident he cannot escape death. Enkidu and Gilgamesh must contend with the revels as they satisfy their desires. They must challenge themselves with complex tasks in this crucial tablet, which marks the exact midway point of the epic. George shows that death is inevitable no matter how powerful, daring, or attractive the friends are. Therefore, the work’s primary themes are the meaning of life and immortality, as well as relationships. The paper is written based on the tablets IV, V, VI, and VII of The Epic of Gilgamesh.
Enkidu must perish, according to the gods’ seemingly random judgment. Gilgamesh discovers in a later tablet that the gods once attempted to exterminate all life on Earth for no apparent cause (George 47). George shows how Enkidu accuses the hunter and the prostitute of conspiring to bring him out of the forest (Villiers 3). Enkidu thinks he would not have brought his destruction upon himself if he had remained to live among the animals and with them.
The exquisite agony that the thought of passing away has on people is prevailed by the characters’ self-awareness. Enlil accused Shamash of behaving more humanely than a god, and the solace the sun god gives Enkidu is, in fact, humane (George 54: Nayeri 2). The deity reminds him that being cherished while alive and grieved while deceased are both significant aspects of affection, grandeur, and the delights of a fruitful life.
This solace provides an odd sort of solace since, in essence, he is stating that sacrificing the life he treasured is the life he treasured. Enkidu’s vision of the underworld foreshadows the journey that the grieving Gilgamesh will shortly take. Enkidu spotted King Etana among the dead, which is noteworthy since recently discovered sections of the ancient Sumerian “Myth of Etana” chronicle the king’s fruitless search for a magical herb to treat his wife’s infertility.
The curses were viewed as a particularly effective form of magic in ancient Mesopotamia that had the power to change fate. Enkidu ends his curse on the prostitute and gives her a different blessing. Naturally, this foreshadows Gilgamesh’s subsequent escapade involving a different miraculous plant. Therefore, this epic shows how people cannot escape death and their curses. In addition, the author, through his characters, conveys the importance of this life lesson that Gilgamesh and Enkidu had to master.
Works Cited
George, Andrew. “The Epic of Gilgamesh.” The Combat with Humbamba, 1999.
Nayeri, Kamran. “Culture and Nature in The Epic of Gilgamesh.” Our Place in The World: A Journal of Ecosocialism, vol. 1, 2018.
Villiers, Gerda de. “Suffering in the Epic of Gilgamesh.” Old Testament Essays, vol. 33, no. 3, 2020, pp. 690-705.
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