Essay On Gilgamesh Hero

Gilgamesh a hero? According to Joseph Campbell, “[a hero] must put aside his pride, his virtue, beauty and life and bow or submit to the absolutely intolerable,” as said in his classic book, The Hero With a Thousand Faces. As explained by Campbell, a hero usually begins with an adventure due to someone or something that has been taken from them, or feels that there is something missing in their normal life. Then that person takes off and goes on a journey full of adventures that are beyond the ordinary to try and recover what he/she lost or even to discover something new, “it’s usually a cycle, a coming and a returning,” (Joseph Campbell). In a television series named The Power of Myth, Campbell has a conversation with Bill Moyers, a journalist, and states that “A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.” Time has passed and many things have changed. Religion, morals, traditions, laws, and entertainment have all changed, and continue to change. This also applies to the definition of hero. In Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh did not possess the qualities that would meet the American or even the world’s standard of a hero. A hero in modern day is a person or a character who is looked up to or admired for his/her great, brave acts and fine qualities. At the beginning of the passage, Gilgamesh is described physically as a strong man; huge, good looking, radiant, and perfect. On the other hand, he seems like a powerful, arrogant ruler who uses his authority and his powers in a negative way such as “deflowering” a man’s bride. This does not, in anyway, represent any type of hero because he uses his authority and powers in a negative and selfish way. Gilgamesh’s personality has greatly caught my attention, he is full of self importance. Enkidu, his best friend and brother, is there to control Gilgamesh’s selfishness, but Gilgamesh can only ponder about how to benefit himself and be famous. He is no hero; he just fights for glory. A great example would be the battle with Humbaba. Humbaba is no threat for Gilgamesh, or any citizen within Uruk, Humbaba is just at the Cedar Forest doing his job, to protect the forest. However, Gilgamesh sees Humbaba as some type of challenge that he can defeat and make him famous. “I will kill Humbaba, I will make a lasting name for myself, I will stamp my fame on men’s minds forever,” (p. 94). Gilgamesh knows that killing Humbaba will anger the the gods but Gilgamesh throws all that out the window and decides to embark on this journey to kill an innocent. Furthermore, Gilgamesh feels that he can not do this on his own so he drags Enkidu into the journey and battle even though Enkidu believes that what Gilgamesh is doing is wrong. Plus, Gilgamesh is scared, he feels threatened by Humbaba once he is at the forest and Enkidu has to talk him into killing Humbaba in the end. What kind of hero needs the support of someone else? Aren’t heroes supposed to be fearless? In the end Gilgamesh leads Enkidu to his death. Isn’t a hero supposed to protect his/her loved ones? Maybe the real hero could have been Enkidu. Enkidu is much less selfish and his actions always take into consideration Gilgamesh. However, always taking Gilgamesh into consideration and always participating in Gilgamesh’s battles just adds more to Gilgamesh’s selfishness. Enkidu had warned Gilgamesh about fighting Humbaba, but selfish Gilgamesh did not care. If anything, Enkidu embarked on the journey to be by his brother’s side and …show more content…
I believe this is very selfish. Gilgamesh shows the love he had for his friend, his brother, by making a statue of him but that is all he can do, nothing else. A true hero would maybe make a big ceremony for his companion and talk about how much help that person was and how he/she was a hero too. However, he decides to embark on yet another journey but this time he wants to find Utnapishtim, a mortal who becomes a God. He embarks on this journey to ask Utnapishtim about death and how to become a God, and even though he did go thorough a lot in this challenging journey, I can not find the hero in