The Tragic Hero In The Epic Of Gilgamesh

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What exactly is a hero? According to Webster’s Dictionary, a hero is “a person who is admired for great or brave acts or fine qualities.” Whether intentional or coincidental, these persons have a great impact on others. However, many of those characters that are deemed heroic figures are also ones that are identified as “tragic heroes”. This suggests that, despite the real or potential good that a character does, he is flawed and often acts in ways that lead to his downfall or to his transformation. Gilgamesh is this kind of hero. In the story The Epic of Gilgamesh, the main or title character has a hard time dealing with this experience. Initially, he is portrayed as a very self-confident, arrogant, and prideful individual. Many might get …show more content…
Little did Gilgamesh know that his failure would be his turn point. During this point of the story, his transition has begun; his old self-confident, arrogant, and prideful was starting to fade away. The moment that Gilgamesh reach the city he realizes how much he has influence and done for his city. This made him feel like the “man”. Gilgamesh notices the real reason for life. He also understands why he does not have to live forever in order to be remember. Gilgamesh’s legacy is what will allows him to live regardless of whether he is immorality or morality. Gilgamesh become a hero due to his change of actions. He has finally stop thinking about how he is going to be great, and start to think about how his work will influence other to be great. The fact that Gilgamesh finally understand that being immoral was not just about living forever makes him a hero. The death of a friend and the miss opportunity of becoming immortal was Gilgamesh eye opener. His tragedy and adventure allow him to gain a better understand of what it meant to be a mortal man. He shows readers that their legacy is what people will remember not the fact that they are immortal. We must now as reader be like Gilgamesh and figure out our legacy, so that we will be able to be someone hero in the future. We must have that determine, positive and selfless mentality that Gilgamesh gain by the end of the story in order to find the hero inside

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