"Destiny in Gilgamesh and The Iliad" Stories do not need to inform us
of things. From Gilgamesh for example, we know that some of the people who lived
in the land between the Tigris and Euphates rivers in the second and third
milleniums BCE. We know they celabrated a king named Gilgamesh; we know they
believed in many gods; we know they were self- -consious of their own
cultivation of the natural world; and we know they were literate. In the story,
The Iliad we also know that great rulers and gods ruled and where top priority
of the lands. Point being it can be argued that the story of Gil- -gamesh and
the Iliad destiny's are quite the same in relivence of the wars and the way's of
life both of the story's complete to meaningful death. In hand which comtr- -ibutes
to both of the epics. In the story of Gilgamesh, it is important to look careful
what happened in the story; that is , look at it as if the actions and people it
describes actually took place or existed. The questions raised by a character's
actions discuss the implic- -ations of their consequences. But it's not to
consider how the story is put together rather how it uses the conventions of
language, of events with beginings and endings of description of character and
storytelling itself to reawaken our sensitivity to the real world. The real
world is the world without conventions, the unnameable, unrep- resentable
world--in it's continuity of action, it's shadings and blurrings of character
its indecipherable patterns of being. The Iliad and Gilgamesh story's is greatly
a remminder of the way life is today; just different in time but neitherless to
say similiar in goals and destiny's. Moreover, in the prologue of Gilgamesh it's
found to know that he was two- -thirds god and one-third man, and his knowledge
is the key that follows. Gilgamesh is a hero-- more beautiful, more courageous,
more terrifying than the rest of us; his desires, attributes, and
accomplishments epitomize our own. Yet he is also mortal: he must experiance the
death of others and also die himself. How much more must a god rage against
death than we who are merely mortal! And if he can reconile himself with death
then surely we can. In fact, without death his life would be mean- -ingless, and
the adventures that make up the epic would disappear. The story begins with the
coming of Enkidu. As a young man and a god Gilgamesh has no compasion with the
people of Uruk. He is their king but not their shepherd; he kills their sons and
rapes the daughters. Hearing the peolpe's lament, the gods create Enkidu as a
match for Gilgamesh, a second self:"[L]et them contend together and leave
Uruk in quiet"(31). The plan works in several ways. First Enkidu prevents
Gilgamesh from entering the house of a bride and bridegroom; they fight embrace
as friends. Second, Enkudu and Gilgamesh undertake a journey into the forest to
confront the terrible Humbaba. There they encourage each other to face death
triumphantly: [All] living creatures born of the flesh shall sit at least in the
boat of the west/ and when it sinks/when the boat of Magilum sinks/ they are
gone but we shall go forward and fix our eyes on this monster.(35) While
everlasting life is not his destiny, Gilgamesh will leave behind him a name that
endures. "[I] will go to the country where the ceder is felled/ I will set
up my name in the place where names of famous men are written"(32) Thus
Gilgamesh turns his attention away from small personal desires to loftier
personal desires desires that benifit rather than Uruk. To remember from the
progue that the walls of the city, made from cedar taken from the forest, still
stand in actuality or imagi- -nation to proclaim Gilgamesh's fame, and the very
first sentence of the epic attest to the immortality of his name. But the
immortality of a name is less the ability to live forever than to die. Third and
most important, Enkidu teaches Gilgamesh what it means to be human; he teaches
him the meaning of love and compassion, the meaning of loss and of growing
older, the meaning of mortality!! However similar in the Iliad the main theme of
the story is also war, unlike Gilgamesh there's two sides having war with each
other aswell as themselves and family. The epic begins with an arguement between
the greek king and the chief fighter. Homer's outlook on the war itself is
unique and compeling as where the battle between the greeks and the trojans are
caused mainly because of a woman. At the period women where belittled and
treated like whores and it was all fine. A war that was so intense the god Zeus
was called upon to help, first off Apollo is angry because Agamemnon(king of the
greeks) has failed to let one of the god's priests ransome a daughter, Agamemnon
had alloted himself as a war-prize. Ag- -amemnon reluctantly gives girl up but
insists on taking in her place Briseis(achellis concubine; captured by the
greeks) who was originally assigned to Achilles-hence the "wrath of
Achelles," which is the epic's announced topic. Achelles complains to his
mother Thetis, who presuades Zeus to let the trojans prevail in battle, until
Achelles's honor is satisfied. That's the thing about this war between the
Greeks and Trojans all of the flat characters of these two stories seem's to be
their destiny to die with honor. Later to find out in the story of the Iliad
when the cheif fighter Hector leads the Trojans through the greeks wall with
vingance. Poseidon disobeys Zeus and help rally the greeks. Poseidon keeps
Agamemnon from calling retreat to the ships, while hera (borrowing a magic
girdle from Aprhodite) seduces Zeus and lulls him to sleep. Hector is wounded by
a stone, and the Trojans are driven back. Zeus wakes up mad at his wife and
sends Apollo to heal Hector, who comes back and burns the Greek ships. Later on,
Hector reproaches himself for not having retreated at the first appearance of
the Achilles. He goes out to meet Achilles in single combat and is slain. So he
finally met his destiny. Achilles ties his body behind a chariot and drag it off
to the greek ships. Finally, these are some contributes whereas the works of
Gilgamesh and the Iliad are the same and virtualy look upon as the choosers of
their own true destiny and that's DEATH.