Essay about Literary Analysis

Two understand how the gods influenced our hero, Gilgamesh, one must first look at the various ways the gods meddled into his life. The Epic of Gilgamesh is a tale of a half-mortal man whose quest to break his own boredom turns into a tale of friendship, immortality, and kingship. However, his tale would not have been able to happen if it was not for the influence of the various Sumerian deities. After the people of Uruk complained to the gods about Gilgamesh’s child-like behavior, the goddess Aruru creates the man that will become Gilgamesh’s closest friend, Enkidu. Enkidu was created as an equal to the king so that Gilgamesh would have a way to occupy his time. Unfortunately, after the two friends defeated the giant Humbaba, a terrible demon creature, the god Enlil becomes enraged, but despite Enlil’s best effort, he is unable to punish the two.

These actions define the king as despotic by Babylonian standards. Further, his entrapment of Enkidu shows Gilgamesh using sex to corrupt. Enkidu lived a life of ignorance and bliss in the wilderness. He did not know fear, age, and many human constructs that make life arduous. Gilgamesh weaponizes sex by sending a prostitute to Enkidu, in aims of domesticating him. This sex removes Enkidu from the natural world and forces him to adopt attributes of humanity (alcohol, clothing, shaving). The Mitchell translation of the scene shows Enkidu’s sudden loss of power and separation from his natural life, explaining “He set off towards his beasts. When they saw him, Enkidu, the gazelles shied off . . . he could not run as before” (Mitchell 13). Therefore the act of sex marks his irrevocable entrance into civil society; through sex, Enkidu desecrates his innocence and is barred from his pure life. In this sense, Gilgamesh begins with one man the abuser of sex, and the other the abused. As both men build their relationship, Gilgamesh begins to incorporate Enkidu’s mature understanding of compassion into his character and diverges from his initial status as a cruel tyrant.

The text ‘A Most Lamentable Man’ written by Christine Marlowe is an interpretation of Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet which portrays arguments about Friar Laurence, indicating that he was to blame for the tragic ending to the play. Marlowe Claims "Throughout the plot, it is the actions of Friar Laurence, and he alone that are most significant in ensuring the final tragedy of the play." The statement proves that she believes the Friar to be the influence or the main reason the star crossed lovers die whereas in Shakespeare's original version he made the Friar a caring man that just wants to help the young couple and marry them in the unlikely event that

The division becomes prominent between the power-struggle of Gilgamesh vs. Enkidu. Gilgamesh represents the civilized person and Enkidu represents the natural world. Therefore, he represents the gifts of nature, such as the forests, vineyards and gates. Gilgamesh directly ties in with books 1-3 of The Genesis. The relationship between Adam and Eve is extremely proportionate to the relationship between Enkidu and Harlot. Both of the stories have far reaching implications on the contrast between men and women and their role in the natural world. All Adam, Enkidu and Harlot face isolation and rejection from the women they used to depend on them for support and assistance. Harlot entices Enkidu. He chooses to bring him to the world of humans. Similarly, Eve persuades Adam to have the apple of their sin. This causes the rejection by God. Although in Gilgamesh women were subordinate to men, the Book of Genesis provides an extremely different light. In the Book of Genesis women take center stage. Their triumph has them dominate the center of the universe and this enables them to maintain female position dominate in the world of

The short story, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been”, by Joyce Oates, (1966), and the poem, “What it’s Like to Be a Black Girl”, by Patricia Smith, (1991), are both about the coming of age of young girls and the conflicts that they encounter. The two pieces explore issues that most young girls have with their bodies and others during their puberty years. The literary elements that will be compared in this essay is imagery and symbolism. The main conflict in both pieces that will be explored is individual versus self. These literary elements and conflict will help us to explore the issues that these two individual young girls

In the Epic of Gilgamesh, Enkidu helps act as a catalyst for the transformation of Gilgamesh’s character from an undefeatable god-like brute into a complex thinker. In the eyes of Gilgamesh, he is unstoppable and is willing to challenge death itself so long as he is remembered as a hero by his subjects. With Enkidu’s help, Gilgamesh learns to become a better person as a ruler, not as a better warrior. Although not blood related, Enkidu was like a brother to Gilgamesh and the duo shared an inseparable bond. Throughout the epic, Enkidu teaches Gilgamesh that he is not unstoppable, being stubborn will not stop him from dying, and that there are no easy solutions to life.

For a while everything is fine in Enkidu's life until one day a trapper sees Enkidu and notices that Enkidu is preventing the trapper from catching any game. So to his father and the father send the trapper to Gilgamesh to get a harlot to trap Enkidu. And how does she trap Enkidu? By using her womanly powers, sex, and these powers Enkidu cannot resist. When Enkidu tries to return to his home in the forest, roaming with the animals, the animals reject Enkidu. The wild beasts reject Enkidu when he has been with a woman, as if being with a woman is contaminating: "When next he comes down to drink at the wells she will be there, stripped naked; and when he sees her beckoning he will embrace her, and then the wild beasts will reject him." So then the woman teaches Enkidu her ways. But then back with Gilgamesh, the power of lust and sex takes Gilgamesh and Gilgamesh try to take another virgin before the husband. Word gets back to Enkidu, who is the good to Gilgamesh's evil, and Enkidu travels to Uruk to stop Gilgamesh. When Enkidu arrives Enkidu fights Gilgamesh.

Many stories address the importance of companionship in one’s life and how a closeness with another person can lead to a mutual improvement on both sides of the relationship. The ancient Sumerian epic Gilgamesh explores the relationship between two soul mates, Gilgamesh and Enkidu, whose story was immortalized because of their dependence and trust in each other. Gilgamesh would not have been able to reach his full potential as a king, warrior, or person if it was not for the influence of Enkidu.

Throughout the context of “Bless Me Ultima,” it is evident that there are many motifs and examples of dichotomy. I believe that Anaya uses the previously mentioned elements of literature in order to provoke his readers’ thinking and help embody a struggle of understanding the world we live in. Motifs in this novel include: family, dreams, religion, education, and the list continues. For examples of dichotomy, the idea of good versus evil is the most vivid in this novel.

Likewise in Gilgamesh, Enkidu, was a wild man before seduced by a harlot from Uruk. After his encounter with harlot he notices his abilities have been greatly suppressed. "Enkidu was grown weak," the narrator tells us, "for wisdom was in him, and the thoughts of a man were in his heart." The woman says to him, "You are wise, Enkidu, and now you have become like a god. Why do you want to run wild with the beasts in the hills?" She tells him about "strong-walled Uruk" and "the blessed temple of Ishtar and of Anu, of love and of heaven," and about Gilgamesh himself. (Gilgamesh page 15). This suppression is from the gods for his acquisition of knowledge. Both Eve's nakedness and

The journey of Gilgamesh and his near equal Enkidu in the epic “ The Epic of Gilgamesh” shows friendship to be true motivating forces. At the beginning of the story,Gilgamesh ‘two- thirds devine and one third human’ is all-powerful and terrifying oppressive ruler who raped women, takes whatever he wants from his people. But after encountering Enkidu,Gilgamesh transforms from a tyrant to an exemplary king or hero. In the tablet 1 line-90, it appears that Aruru, the goddess of creation, created Enkidu as strong as Gilgamesh to stand up to Gilgamesh or to contend each other,but it wasn’t the fight that makes Gilgamesh a better man rather it was the love between two friends that motivates him to be a better man. Later in the poem, when Enkidu dies,

The birth goddess Aruru pinched a piece of clay and threw it to the plains where Enkidu was created. Enkidu was a wild man, hairy and naked. He ate and drank with the other animals. The harlot Shamhatwas sent to tame Enkidu. She offered her body and showed him the luxuries of men. He was led to Uruk and met Gilgamesh attending a wedding where he would have the bride for his own before her husband. Enkidu thought this was inappropriate and took exception to the act. Gilgamesh and Enkidu clashed with each other in the streets but there was no winner. This shows the moral differences in the two though they were physical equals. Enkidu would come to be the moral compass to Gilgamesh’s brutality (W. W. Norton & Company Vol

Each character in this story is experiencing an emotional battle which they try to find healing but for some it will be too late. The narrator in the story is Sheppard. Sheppard is a widow, his wife died in less than a year before the story began. Sheppard experiences emotional distress by trying hard to change a troubled teen, Rufus, into an honorable young man while teaching his son, Norton, to be selfless. Instead

Humanity has had ambivalent feelings about women since the creation of human beings. Enkidu’s feelings are extremely interesting regarding Shamhat, and his interaction with her in the myth The Epic of Gilgamesh. When Enkidu initially meets Shamhat, he views her as a “giver of knowledge” and lover; she teaches him about clothing, how to eat and drink like a cultured human, and about sexual intercourse. Eventually, she persuades him to go to Gilgamesh whom he finds a companion in. However, at the end of Enkidu’s life he curses Shamhat for teaching him about humanity, believing that she is the reason for his moral corruption. This scenario can be compared to the biblical story about Adam and Eve; Eve is blamed for humanity’s corruption because

In the Epic of Gilgamesh, Enkidu is most strongly associated with nature. He starts out in the forest, hairy and acting just like animal. It is because of Shamhat that be becomes civilized. Even though he is thought to be civilized by her, he still has a want to be more natural but is rejected by nature. Even though he is supposed to be the more natural and beast like out of him and Gilgamesh, it is Enkidu who stops Gilgamesh from acting on his beastly nature, when he is trying to have sex with a newlywedded bride.