When Asleep Gilgamesh Literary Analysis

In The Epic of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh is searching for his immortality after the death of his equal, Enkidu, gave him the realization of his mortality. He sought after Utanapishtim for the answer to eternal life, for Utanapishtim, himself, had earned immortality. Upon meeting Utanapishtim and stating the motives for his quest, Gilgamesh receives advice regarding mortality. He is advised by Utanapishtim to stop searching for his immortality, for it is inevitable within the natural cycle of life for all living creatures to die. Gods breathed life into living creatures as well as giving them an inevitable end to life. Death for humans is like a destiny that they cannot escape from; Gilgamesh must accept this fate. However, despite Utanapishtim’s …show more content…
People who are sleeping are also not watching the news, catching up on reading, or interacting with others in order to see what is going on around them and within the world. As for those that are dead, well. They are just dead. Dead people have no brain function in order to operate through normal human interactions. Utanapishtim was comparing sleeping people with dead people through a metaphor, for sleeping people might as well be dead since they are not engaging in the normal functions worthy of being alive. Also, Utanapishtim’s metaphor took on a double meaning. Sleeping is a necessity of the body, like food, and is unavoidable to a living person. It is difficult for a person, especially with older age, to stay awake for more than twenty-four hours. He wanted to put sleeping, something that is inevitable for a mortal being to partake in, on the same level as death in order to show Gilgamesh the seriousness to how inescapable death was. So, making Gilgamesh try to stay awake for seven nights, a destined defeat, was to show him how immortality is, too, a defeat within itself. Gilgamesh, like every other living thing, must experience sleep as he experiences