The Epic of Gilgamesh: The Story of the Flood

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Table of Contents

Gilgamesh’s and his relation with mother
The Gilgamesh accounts of the flood, comparison with the Old testament version
Comparison and contrast the behavior of Gilgamesh, Odysseus, and Arjuna
Works Cited

Gilgamesh’s and his relation with mother

In the epic of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh’s mother Ninsun is said to be a goddess who marries Lugalbanda to create Gilgamesh. Ninsun is depicted as a bold and cunning woman in the epic. Gilgamesh is found to have close relationship with his mother. An example of this closeness is when he asks his mother to find the meaning of the dream which he had and Ninsun’s reply to it. Ninsun is a woman of intelligence and determination and is ready to do everything within her power to protect her son. This adds to Gilgamesh’s strength. She summons the sun god Shamash to protect her son’s life in every walks of his life. She declares Enkidu as her adopted son in order to give maximum protection to her son. Similar is the story of Achilles and his mother in which Thetis, Achilles’ mother does everything to protect his son when a prophecy is made that Troy cannot be captured without Achilles. Thetis knows that if he goes to Troy he would not return. There are numerous accounts of Thetis’s attempt to make her boy immortal including dipping her baby boy in river Styx. Odysseus’s mother Anticlea has divine legacy also. The strength of the relation between Anticlea and Odysseus is depicted in the story where Anticlea discloses that she died of grief because Odysseus was away at war.

The Gilgamesh accounts of the flood, comparison with the Old testament version

Both the flood in Gilgamesh’s epic and the genesis were meant to destroy the entire living beings. But in Gilgamesh’s epic it was a result of the fights between gods and their wickedness whereas the flood account in genesis was because humans and living beings were becoming numerous and noisy. The onset of both floods were informed in advance to a man, Utanapishtim in Gilgamesh’s epic and Noah in Genesis. Both of them organized each pair of entire living beings into a big ship built by them. Noah’s ship was built in 3 decks and is considered seaworthy whereas Utanapishtim’s ship was huge and had equal dimensions with a heavy ceiling and had 7 decks. The design of the ship described here is not seaworthy. Noah invited only his family along with other living beings to his ark. Utanapishtim gathered the craftsmen from the city along with his kith and kin and other living beings. He also collected wealth and food enough to sustain their lives. The Biblical version has the rains lasting for forty days and night. But Gilgamesh’s epic had the rains lasting for 7 days and night. The differences in the epic show the difference between the cultures of ancient Mesopotamia in which the people were not nautical experts whereas the biblical depiction of the ark shows that the people of that period had experience in seafare.

Comparison and contrast the behavior of Gilgamesh, Odysseus, and Arjuna

Gilgamesh, Odysseus and Arjuna are the central characters of the epics of Gilgamesh, Odyssey and Bhagavad Gita respectively. All the three of them are portrayed as powerful kings of their cities and are superior to other characters of the story. The three of them represent the culture and behavior of the royalty in the areas in which they ruled. Gilgamesh is portrayed as a strong, bold and cruel king of Uruk in the beginning. He is a king who is mean and rapes girls on their day of marriage. It is the entry of Enkidu which changes Gilgamesh’s life. Both go for war and when Enkidu dies, Gilgamesh is devastated. It is Gilgamesh’s search for immortality that is depicted in the epic. Odysseus is a Greek king of Ithaca and is shown as a cultural hero in the Greek epic Odyssey and Iliad. Odysseus is shown as a compassionate son in Odyssey when he meets his mother in the underworld. Odysseus is considered as a man of cunning intelligence. Arjuna, the central character of the epic Mahabharatha is a man of strength, wisdom and who adheres to his duties. Like Gilgamesh and Odysseus, Arjuna is an outstanding warrior. Mahabharatha shows the battle between the Pandavas including Arjuna and his brothers and Kauravas, their cousins. Arjuna is devastated seeing the destructions of the war and it is then he gets counselled by Krishna his friend and brother-in-law. According to Krishna’s guidance, he fights the war by upholding his righteousness without considering personal losses incurred to him. Arjuna is shown as a symbol of righteousness with all the qualities of a mortal. This makes Arjuna more heroic than Gilgamesh and Odysseus.

Works Cited

Kovacs, MG. The Epic of Gilgamesh: Tablet XI: The Story of the Flood. 2009. Web.

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The Epic of Gilgamesh: The Story of the Flood

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