Richard Laguerre
IH 1: “The Good Life”
Dr. Daniel Leonard
21 September 2017
First Short Response Paper Assignment
The claim I will be arguing about is the theme of humans vs. the gods. The gods are
dangerous and can do as they please. No one can tell them otherwise. The gods in these
tablets are not what the audience would expect from divine beings. In these tablets, the gods
seem to act “childish and irrational” as they depict that they live by their own laws and do what
they want. As the people of King Gilgamesh are oppressed due to his rule, they call on Anu, the
chief god of Uruk, to deal with the king himself. He creates Enkidu, a wild man who is an equal
to Gilgamesh to challenge him, but when they fight they become friends after post-battle. This
shows Gilgamesh’s 1/3 mortal side to come out seeing that he is equal to a human. This also
brings out his 2/3 divine side to show that whatever the gods will try to stop Gilgamesh, it could
not be done. A god cannot get rid of a god so easily. Gilgamesh and Enkidu try to gain fame
and glory from the people of Uruk by battling the guardian of the Cedar Forest, the demon
monster Humbaba. When he killed Humbaba, he cut down the unforbidden trees from the
forest and brought the wood back to the city as their names were cemented to fame. The god
that mainly despised Gilgamesh was Ishtar, goddess of love and war. In Tablet VI, she is
rejected by Gilgamesh when asked to mate and she becomes angry with him that she asks of
her father and mother, Anu and Antum, to release the “Bull of Heaven” to her. The bull
terrorizes the city but the two heroes kill the bull. The gods felt as though they are to be
punished for both murders they committed, so they spare Gilgamesh, but kill Enkidu for trying
to exceed his status as a mere mortal. Now after being so close to Enkidu this hit Gilgamesh
where it hurt the most. He lost his best friend and he could not understand why they chose
Enkidu instead of him whilst chopping down the greatest tree in the forest. Gilgamesh is having
thoughts that he himself will die as well and this forces him to head to the ends of the Earth to
meet Utnapishtim, a mortal who was granted immortality by the gods from the great flood.
Generally, the relationship between gods and mortals is very agitated. At one point,
humans are asking gods of a big favor that the gods themselves feel can be beneficial, but many
other times gods will be careless and do as they feel despite many mortals being killed. During
the battle with the bull, one hundred men in the city of Uruk die by falling through the cracks of
the Earth each time the bull bellows and snorts. The bull bellows three times in total whilst
killing about three hundred men all for just trying to kill Gilgamesh and Enkidu. The gods are
uncaring of who dies, just as long as they get what they want. Prior to Gilgamesh’s timeline,
when Utnapishtim saved all the animals, the gods created the huge flood in the first place that
killed many humans and it was up to him to build an ark and save the animals. For some reason
the gods rewarded Utnapishtim with immortality which I really do not understand. It is a game
to them as they reward a man for saving animals and surviving a great disaster that they
created. It is their job as gods to choose who lives and dies and they are just being “childish
and irrational” when it comes that situation.