Gilgamesh And Enkidu Character Analysis

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Lucius Annaeus Seneca states, “One of the most beautiful qualities of true friendship is to understand and be understood.” With Gilgamesh and Enkidu, one of the most crucial aspects of their friendship is their ability to understand each other. Both are endowed with inhuman strength, which singles them out from the rest. Prior to meeting each other, they couldn’t relate to anyone. Although such a similarity can start a friendship, the differences are what make theirs interesting and allow for mutual growth. Gilgamesh and Enkidu’s divergent characters complement and develop each other. We can see traits in today’s friendships that are reflected in Gilgamesh and Enkidu’s friendship from thousands of years ago; the opposites attract trope is apparent in many TV shows and movies as well as real life. Gilgamesh and Enkidu share many attributes on a surface …show more content…
While similarities between the two are quite obvious upon reading The Epic of Gilgamesh, as they are surface level things like their strength, further analysis shows that Enkidu and Gilgamesh are, besides the listed similarities, completely different characters. Enkidu is much more reasonable, thoughtful, and respectful, serving as a foil that highlights Gilgamesh’s brutish and violent tendencies. Such qualities evident in a friendship thousands of years ago are still evident in the portrayal of friendships today. A similar “opposites attract” theme is common in pop culture, like Penny and Leonard’s relationship from The Big Bang Theory and Booth and Brennan’s relationship from Bones. The Epic of Gilgamesh gives us insight, way before the era of TV shows and modern novels, on how friendships can be founded on mutual interests and characteristics, but further bloomed by individual
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