Characteristics Of Gilgamesh

1015 Words5 Pages
A person could come up with many different qualities of what makes a hero “heroic”. It all depends on who you ask and when. If you ask a young child what makes a hero “heroic” he might say superpowers and not afraid of anything. Then if you ask that same child a few years later he might describe his dad as his hero, because he is always there for him and loves him no matter what. Time is not the only factor that can shift what qualities make a hero. Cultural is another big factor. With different Gods and different beliefs, different attributes are held to different standards. For example Hindus acknowledge that, at the most fundamental level, God is the One without a second the absolute, formless, and only Reality known as Brahman, the Supreme,…show more content…
Both men were kings at the time their epics took place. They both had divine blood running through their veins; Gilgamesh because he is 2/3 god and Achilles because he is the son of Zeus. Therefore both heroes superhuman strength and are closely tied to the Gods. This also means that they are still morals and not invincible. Due to this fact they both seek more out of their lives. Neither man is concerned with family life nor with romantic relationships with women. Those would just distract the heroes for the goals he wished to obtain. The death of their close friends is what triggered them. Gilgamesh loss his right hand man Enkidu and Achilles lost his best friend…show more content…
The contrast lies in how they dealt with the loss of their comrades. Gilgamesh's grief over the death of his great friend Enkidu spurred Gilgamesh's quest to seek the immortality of the gods. Achilles, on the other hand, showed extreme grief upon the death of his great friend Patroclus, fasting, smearing himself with ash and mourning with the same kind of language used to mourn a lover. Achilles's extreme reaction separates him from Gilgamesh, who did not allow himself to become so emotional and vulnerable. The death of Patroclus provided Achilles with the motivation he needed to return to battle, this time with the aim of avenging his friend. The two heroes also have different flaws. Achilles was known to be suborn and arrogant while Gilgamesh was seen as ruthless and destructively impulsive. This is why Achilles abandoned the war after him and his commander, Agamemnon get into it. Even after Agamemnon offers to return Briseis, along with numerous other gifts, Achilles remains angry, indicating that one of Achilles' major character flaws is his excessive pride. Gilgamesh’s faults caused him to fail at his ultimate goal of becoming immortal. Gilgamesh had to undergo a drastic emotional shift at the end of his epic. He had to accept the fact that he would one day die, but he still had the opportunity to leave his mark on the world with his
Show More
Related

  • Theme Of Gilgamesh

    812 Words  | 4 Pages

    Epic of Gilgamesh from the Standard Akkadian version, translated into English by Maureen Gallery Kovacs, along with a version translated by Andrew George. Beyond the introduction, the dramatis personae of the epic are introduced – Gilgamesh, demigod and King of Uruk behaves badly to his citizens, and in response they call for goddess Aruru to create a counterpart equally matched in characteristics – Enkidu, the archaic man, is then brought into civilization to contest and accompany Gilgamesh, and bring

    Read More

  • The Epic Of Gilgamesh And The Noah Story Analysis

    759 Words  | 4 Pages

    another. For example, it is evident that Babylonian culture heavily influenced the writer of the Biblical flood story, which was made hundreds of years after the making of the Babylonian story. One of the greatest examples of this is in “The Epic of Gilgamesh”, a Babylonian story that includes a story of a man called Utnapishtim, a man some would like to say is similar to the character Noah in many different ways. One simple example of

    Read More

More about Characteristics Of Gilgamesh

Open Document