The Odyssey and The Epic of Gilgamesh are windows through which we are offered a glimpse of the ancient Greek and Sumerian views on life, its meaning, and how to live your own. Within each of these epic poems lie many lessons that transcend the ages, and most are still relevant to how we live out our lives today. One might expect the two to take completely different approaches to how they teach their lessons since they were written almost 2000 years apart. On the contrary, they display a surprising number of similarities in the way they administer these teachings to the reader. In the following paragraphs, I will argue that they are more similar than different by providing numerous examples of just how close some of the lesson structures resemble their counterparts in the other poem.
In an attempt at such an argumentative analysis, let’s start with the similarities of the rising actions in each work and what it might symbolize. Here they have the exact same fundamental concept at their core. Both The Odyssey and The Epic of Gilgamesh are about a great hero setting out onto an epic journey. Great men doing great, or sometimes even reckless, things. This idea of venturing off to become enlightened or reaching some glorious destination shows how the authors might have believed that a person needs to get away from …show more content…
Odysseus is attempting to make it back home to Ithaca after traveling with Agamemnon to take on the Trojans in the Trojan War. He is caught in storms, shipwrecked, imprisoned, and almost eaten by a cyclops on one occasion. Gilgamesh has set out on the noble pursuit of immortality after being deeply scarred by the death of his best friend Enkidu. He walks and sails for many days until he finally reaches the guy he is looking for, Uta-napishti. On his way back home he falls asleep and is robbed which completely skews the results of
In an attempt at such an argumentative analysis, let’s start with the similarities of the rising actions in each work and what it might symbolize. Here they have the exact same fundamental concept at their core. Both The Odyssey and The Epic of Gilgamesh are about a great hero setting out onto an epic journey. Great men doing great, or sometimes even reckless, things. This idea of venturing off to become enlightened or reaching some glorious destination shows how the authors might have believed that a person needs to get away from …show more content…
Odysseus is attempting to make it back home to Ithaca after traveling with Agamemnon to take on the Trojans in the Trojan War. He is caught in storms, shipwrecked, imprisoned, and almost eaten by a cyclops on one occasion. Gilgamesh has set out on the noble pursuit of immortality after being deeply scarred by the death of his best friend Enkidu. He walks and sails for many days until he finally reaches the guy he is looking for, Uta-napishti. On his way back home he falls asleep and is robbed which completely skews the results of