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The GILGAMESH EPIC
Some Questions
- What is Gilgamesh's position in society?
How would you define and describe his job?
Is Gilgamesh good at his job?
In what ways does his performance fail to live up to the ideal?
- What sort of person is Gilgamesh? Who are his parents?
As the hero, how is he (the hero) to be defined?
What are the personal qualities that belong to ‘the Hero’?
- Why is Enkidu created, and by whom? What changes does Enkidu undergo before he meets with Gilgamesh?
[Note: The person sometimes called ‘the harlot’ is in fact a '‘temple priestess’: do not draw moral conclusions about her activities.]
- What is the nature of the relationship between Enkidu and Gilgamesh? How do they relate to each other as adventurers and as psychological types?
- Why do they go on ‘the Quest'’ What is the nature of the quest?
Why does Gilgamesh announce his decision to the leaders of the city? Why does he laugh at them?
- What does the story of Inanna-Ishtar and Gilgamesh tell us about this hero and about the Sumerian-Babylonian attitudes to love and women?
- Why must Enkidu die? What is the nature of the Mesopotamian Underworld? Why does Gilgamesh react to Enkidu's death in the way that he does?
- Who is Utnapishtim-the-Faraway? Where does he live? (What sort of place is this?)
- Why do the gods send the Flood? Why does Utnapishtim escape? What is the nature of the relationship between Utnapishtim and Ea?
- What does the behavior of the gods during the Great Flood tell you about the nature of the Mesopotamian gods and the extent of their powers?
- What is Utnapishtim's eventual fate?
What is his message for Gilgamesh?
What is the nature of the plant with the flower? Why does Gilgamesh seek it out? What are his plans for it?
- What is Gilgamesh's fate? What has he learned from his Quest?
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