The Journey and how it changed Gilgamesh
Gilgamesh ended up becoming a wise king, but had to go through the journey to obtain eternal life and lose it to gain this wisdom to lead his people. At the beginning of the book the people said of him “His arrogance knows no bounds by day or night. No son is left with his father for Gilgamesh takes them all.” It took Enkidu bonding with him for Gilgamesh to learn empathy. This empathy is shown when Gilgamesh wants to spare Humbaba. Gilgamesh is still prideful however as he destroys Urshanabi`s stone without thought for Urshanabi. Gilgamesh is ready to face whatever to gain eternal life and he believes that he can. However his pride takes a hit when he learns that he cannot stay awake.
This trip that Gilgamesh went on to get eternal life was necessary for Gilgamesh to gain wisdom to be able to lead his people. Gilgamesh had to take a hit on his pride to become a wise leader for his people. When he died everyone mourned him.
I posted on Moriah`s and Kayla`s post.
I think Gilgamesh was always a good king. He just wasn't always a "just" king. His morals were..."loose".But once he had someone to love, and lost them, he understood empathy and I think the people saw this. I agree that his ego kept him from seeing life like everyone else. And when he realized that even he wasn't invincible, it was very humbling, in a shock and awe type of way.
ReplyDeleteI'm with Cody in that his ability to feel for others grows throughout the book, making us also start to grow on him. Often times life has a way of knocking us down in order to teach us a lesson that we remember until the way we die, one of those lessons more often than not being that we should be humble.
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