Many people have read an action book during their lifetime, most likely including you! Chances are that the action books others read are very fundamentally similar to the action books you’ve read. How could that be?, you might ask. Well, most books, even books from 5000 years ago such as The Epic of Gilgamesh by _________ follow the same format, called the hero’s journey template. This template provides an arch to the book that starts with the departure of the hero, reaches the climax with initiation and ends with the return of the hero, who have mastered themselves and the worlds around them by the end of the book. In the epic of Gilgamesh, there are two main characters: Gilgamesh and Enkidu. Gilgamesh is the king of a massive city, and at the beginning of the book, he terrorizes his people. Enkidu is created by the overwatching gods and goddesses in the
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In an epic, you’d expect there to be a brave person who takes control and leads the book and the people in it to their happy ending. I think that this person is Enkidu. One example of this is through the hero’s journey template. In the following quote, he is being “shaped” by a goddess to protect the people of Uruk against Gilgamesh. “Create a new hero, let them balance each other perfectly, so that Uruk has peace…. She kneaded it it, shaped it to her idea, fashioned a man, a warrior, a hero” (p.74). This excerpt from the text shows that Enkidu begins his life as a hero; unusual, created by gods to be indeed called to adventure, unlike Gilgamesh. In many stories of heros, the main character is someone who is not already in power, but has to learn and grow so they can receive it. This is a crucial part in his story, because this call to adventure leads him to one of his mentors, Ishmat. The fact that Enkidu experienced the full “initiation” portion of the hero’s journey is further proof that he is, in fact, the real
In an epic, you’d expect there to be a brave person who takes control and leads the book and the people in it to their happy ending. I think that this person is Enkidu. One example of this is through the hero’s journey template. In the following quote, he is being “shaped” by a goddess to protect the people of Uruk against Gilgamesh. “Create a new hero, let them balance each other perfectly, so that Uruk has peace…. She kneaded it it, shaped it to her idea, fashioned a man, a warrior, a hero” (p.74). This excerpt from the text shows that Enkidu begins his life as a hero; unusual, created by gods to be indeed called to adventure, unlike Gilgamesh. In many stories of heros, the main character is someone who is not already in power, but has to learn and grow so they can receive it. This is a crucial part in his story, because this call to adventure leads him to one of his mentors, Ishmat. The fact that Enkidu experienced the full “initiation” portion of the hero’s journey is further proof that he is, in fact, the real