Wisdom And Character Development In The Epic Of Gilgamesh

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Wisdom and Character Development in the Epic of Gilgamesh What is a work of fiction without a good character development? Whether it is positive or negative, character development is one of the most fundamental aspects of a work of fiction, and one of the aspects of its similarity to the real life. The Epic of Gilgamesh is supposedly a work of fiction, and more importantly, one that is told as if it was real. Therefore, in his journey, the main character Gilgamesh goes through a major change and a positive character development as he gets wiser at the end of the epic. In order to understand how Gilgamesh gets wiser, the question of what wisdom is must be answered. It can be answered by saying it is to possess a great deal of knowledge and having a profound understanding of life in general. Since life itself consists of one’s experiences, wisdom is most likely possessed by the one who has more experiences than the other. As the main character, Gilgamesh experiences a lot throughout the epic, and…show more content…
However, the wisdom that rang the bell of the door to his heart backfires, and once more Gilgamesh rejects the wisdom that is accepting death. It can be understood by the way he lets his friend’s corpse go bad by not performing the proper funeral rituals seven days. Even then, he mourns more than socially acceptable and turns the situation to himself by letting his fears getting to his head. At last, he rejects his human side completely and “afraid of death” starts “wandering the wild” (IX: 5). In this madness, he rejects one more counsel, this time from Shamash, telling him he will not find “the life that he seeeks” (IX: si 7). He keeps saying he will “wander the wild” (X: 77), but ultimately, after more experiences, ends up not doing it since he grows and becomes wiser in his
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