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The Epic of Gilgamesh is an epic poem from antiquated Mesopotamia about a king who is two thirds god and one third man. The king does not fulfill his leadership expectations as he is selfish and often angry with the gods. Gilgamesh goes off on a quest to attain immortality when his companion Enkidu dies. In this quest he fails and eventually dies, but he came to terms with his own mortality and lived on his greatness through his travels. While the main characters are men, in Gilgamesh’s Epic women have small but important roles. The female characters in this epic reveal that ancient Mesopotamians appreciated the role of women as child bearers and civilization transmitters. They manipulate the story in keeping with their actions through their roles as harlots, mothers and goddesses. It is additionally shown that women within the tale have big influence over the male characters, and seem to be able to alter their decisions and even result in their deaths. The importance of their roles therefore stems mostly from their ability to reshape male roles.
People tend to argue that female roles in this epic are secondary and only serve to pave the way for males to execute their vital roles. The harlot’s role, Shamhat, is the most evident support for this argument. By using her sexuality, she had a main role of enticing Enkidu far from his undomesticated ways and to carry him into the civilized world. The trapper says to her: “There he is. Now, woman, make your breasts bare, have no shame, do not delay but welcome his love. Let him see you naked, let him possess your body”. The prostitute’s sexuality that served as an instrument to tame a man, suggests that her role is not of a character in her own right but instead a role of a phase prop.
However, whereas females in this epic play small roles, they are not secondary characters in any way. Their characters are primary, as they aim to support the male ones. It is essential to note that the vast majority of events could not have occurred without Shamhat’s role of subduing Enkidu and, showing him his way to kinship with Gilgamesh. Additionally, the power of a woman’s sexuality is featured by her ability to change Enkidu from wild to civilized as the epic says “And now the wild creatures had all fled away; Enkidu was grown weak, for wisdom was in him, and the thoughts of a man were in his heart. So he returned and sat down at the woman’s feet, and listened intently to what she said. This reveals the extent to which Shamhat’s character affects Enkidu’s. Carrying him away from his previous life and acquainting him with another one. The father of the trapper also tells the trapper to “let her woman’s power overpower this man”, emphasizing further the power that women hold over men. Shamhat plays a dual role as both a seductress and a mother, teaching Enkidu the ways of civilized men. This presence of two roles within a woman tells something about attitudes towards women. It suggests that women did not have a definitive role, but rather a variety of roles. It reflects a Mesopotamian society that has worshiped both goddesses and gods and has been rife with prostitution as well as women dedicated to marriage and motherhood. Shamhat tells him, “Endiku, eat bread, it is the staff of life; drink the wine, it is the custom of the land”. This scene recalls a mother teaching table etiquette to a child. Shamhat’s achievement in taming Enkidu exceeds the achievements of any of the tale’s male characters. In fact, instead of looking at her as a paving stone for Enkidu’s journey, she can be seen as the origin and creator of his new life, and hence as a central and almost goddess like character. She is at the center of a chain of events that make up this epic.
Her mothering role also reflects the Mesopotamian view of women as children’s bearers and life-bringers. Enkidu’s reliance on Shamhat to fulfill his role recalls the dependence of a child on his mother. The great masculine characters like Enkidu and Gilgamesh were unable to achieve greatness without there being a female influence or a mothering figure to nurture and guide them. Ninsun is the mother figure behind Gilgamesh, and she is his biological mother, unlike Shamhat to Enkidu. She has a major impact on Gilgamesh’s role as she interprets his dreams to mean he is going to make a friend, telling him that “That axe, which you saw, which drew you so powerfully like love of a woman, that is the comrade whom I give you, and he will come in his strength like one of the host of heaven”. This dream’s interpretation proved to be true as Enkidu searches for Gilgamesh. Ninsun’s words are also a driving force behind Gilgamesh and Enkidu’s initiation of friendship, as Gilgamesh says in response that he “shall befriend and counsel him”. She helps to make sure that it becomes a reality by foreshadowing their friendship.
Moreover, Utanapishtim’s wife’s role can be seen as more central than her husband’s role, as it is ultimately her who makes up his mind to help Gilgamesh. Her display of empathy towards Gilgamesh is a very feminine display of virtue that, in turn, enables Gilgamesh not only to find the plant, but also to learn a valuable lesson and come to terms with his own mortality after being stolen by a snake from him. She is another example of males being greatly influenced by females, as her good nature on her cold-hearted husband seems to rub off. Her decision is ultimately the final one, not her husbands. He even repeats to Gilgamesh almost her exact words, saying, “What shall I give you to carry back to your own country?” . This highlights how she can bend her husband’s will simply by speaking a few words. The control she exorcises over her husband is subtle, as her husband appears to be in control on the surface as he orders her to bake bread, and she does so. She uses her empathetic and mild nature, however, to make a plea to her husband to pity Gilgamesh, to whom he adheres almost immediately. The way she apprehends her husband to mock the sleeping Gilgamesh is reminiscent of a mother teaching a child moral rights and wrongs, as she tells her husband to “touch the man to wake him, so that he may return to his own land in peace”. Despite insisting on letting him sleep for seven days, Utanapishtim ultimately follows the request of his wife, once again emphasizing her influence over him and presenting her as an embodiment of the consciousness of her husband. By showing kindness towards Gilgamesh and her influence over her husband, she has a major impact on the story.
Another way that female characters play central roles in Gilgamesh’s The Epic is through their knowledge and wisdom. In ancient mythology, the female inherently knows what can only be found by the male hero through trials and quests. Tavern keeper Siduri would be the main example of such a character. She plays a major role in the story as she foreshadows the failure of Gilgamesh in his quest for immortality. She tells him that “You will never find that life for which you are looking. When the gods created man they allotted to him death, but life they retained in their own keeping”. She also says that temporary mortal existence “is the lot of man”. Her words carry the clear message that humans can never hope to attain eternal life, and should never. Eventually, all men are set to die, and death is as natural as breathing. Similarly to the female characters Shamhat and Ishtar who drive the journeys of Gilgamesh and Enkidu, Siduri makes a sound and wise prediction of how the path of Gilgamesh will unfold. This further underlines the idea that women play an almost puppeteer-like role in The Epic of Gilgamesh, with male characters simply walking the paths females set out for them. Gilgamesh chooses to disregard the advice of Siduri, leading him to misfortune, suffer, and ultimately failure. This shows that his judgment is secondary to Siduri’s judgment. Siduri also helps Gilgamesh by telling him where to find Utanapishtim, like the character of Utanapishtim’s wife, who helps him progress with his quest. This is another example of women enabling men to achieve their goals. They are not secondary or subsidiary characters; instead, they are the driving force behind male actions.
Ishtar’s character is an example of a powerful female character that imposes on male characters its influence. Unlike the other female characters, she destroys the two male leads instead of supporting or assisting them. Her actions lead directly to Enkidu’s death, showing her dominance over a primary character, and rejecting the possibility of her categorization as secondary. Moreover, the rejection of Ishtar’s proposal by Gilgamesh is based on his fear of meeting the same fate as her past lovers. He asks her, “Which of your lovers did you ever love forever?”, which suggests that she is a woman of fictitious nature who very easily falls in and out of love with men. He also compares her to “a battering ram turned back from the enemy”, a metaphor made in reference to her inclination to punish her lovers as she becomes bored of them. This highlights the way she uses her power to dominate men and ultimately destroy them, demonstrating that she is a powerful female character. Instead of supporting males, she causes them to fall. Her role in the tale is crucial as she uses this power to bring about the death of Enkidu, putting an end to his friendship with Gilgamesh, and leading Gilgamesh to find the key to immortality. Unlike Shamhat, who serves Enkidu as a giver of mankind and new life, Ishtar is Enkidu’s ultimate destroyer. The role of Enkidu is undoubtedly a major one, but two females with such strong roles to play in his very existence can certainly be considered as central characters. Unlike the other female characters in the epic, which by their female sexuality and mothering ways become central characters, Ishtar shifts gender roles by assuming the more male virtue of destruction. The goddess acts as a man, offering the hero marriage, a proposal he rejects. Then she responds in a manly fashion in search of revenge. She actually says, “Come to me Gilgamesh, and be my bridegroom” , a request that the male has traditionally made. This undermines the earlier view that women are merely supporting or subsidiary characters in the tale, as Ishtar makes a marriage request based on her own desires rather than any man’s desires. Ishtar shows that women can be centrally aggressive characters just as much as males can, if not more so, as she manages to punish Gilgamesh by killing his best friend. Ishtar may be the most central of all the female characters in the epic, as she plays the antagonist role. Gilgamesh and Enkidu would not be faced with a real trial without her destructive actions. She fires a fierce battle between Gilgamesh and the Bull of Heaven as she sends the bull down ‘to destroy Gilgamesh’. The role of Ishtar is crucial in the story as it marks the collapse of Enkidu-Gilgamesh’s partner. The roles of female characters in The Epic of Gilgamesh are also central to the development of the plot line in addition to their powerful influence over males. There are no major roles for female characters in Gilgamesh. Instead, they are important in moving the story forward. Indeed, the story would never have unfolded without the actions perpetrated by female characters. There would be no civilized Enkidu, for example, without Shamhat, but only the original, feral creature we see at the beginning. Meanwhile, Ishtar engineers the death of Enkidu, a very important plot event that leads Gilgamesh to seek eternal life after becoming highly conscious of his own mortality. The women in the tale are the plot’s creators, and the males act in response to these women’s actions. While the male characters appear to be at the center of the story on the surface, the presence of females supports the story. The story would collapse without the female characters.
In conclusion, the female roles in The Epic of Gilgamesh are small but also central. Characters like Shamhat and Ishtar act as driving forces on both the plot line and the roles of the male lead characters and the extent of the repercussions of their actions compensate for their lack of actual time in the epic. Women seem to have a great influence on men in the tale, using their sexuality to tempt them, to control them, while using their mothering instincts to teach and advise them. The female characters manage to refashion the activities and decisions of male characters through sexual temptation and mothering, making them central to the tale. Meanwhile, Ishtar becomes the tale’s central antagonist, playing the role of male destroyer. The tale depicts males being built up and destroyed and at the center of both processes women can be seen.
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