Assignment: Gilgamesh Study Questions

1. How does Enkidu appear at the beginning of the story? How is he changed? How does he, in turn, affect Gilgamesh? What does this change for both characters symbolize?

2. Why do you suppose that Gilgamesh is presented as 1/3 human and 2/3 god while Enkidu is presented as a sort of half human and half animal before he is tamed? What does it mean to be a human in this story?

3. Why do Enkidu and Gilgamesh go to the Cedar Forest and fight Humbaba? How does this episode help both to develop the characters and to move the plot along?

4. How does Gilgamesh get in trouble with Ishtar? Why does she seek revenge? Why do the gods condemn Enkidu and not Gilgamesh to death?

5. What is the significance and role of the dreams for Gilgamesh and Enkidu? Do dreams carry a similar significance in modern times?

6. After Enkidu's death, Gilgamesh is extremely distraught. Is he distraught more from grief or from realizing that like all humans he, too, will die?

7. What role does the journey into the underworld play in the story? What does Gilgamesh learn about death and immortality from Utnapishtim? Does death give meaning to life?

8. Even though the relationship between Gilgamesh and Enkidu is central to the text, there are a number of female characters. These include Shamhat (the "prostitute"), Rimat-Ninsun (Gilgamesh's mother), Ishtar (Queen of Heaven, goddess of love and war), Siduri (the tavern keeper), and Utnapishtim's wife. How are these women portrayed? What notions about the "nature" of women are embodied in the text?

9. Washing, purifying, and changes of clothes often play important roles in rites of passage. Where do these activities occur in the Gilgamesh? What significance do you think they have?

10. Why does the story begin and end by calling attention to the walls of Uruk?

11. Would you call Gilgamesh a hero? Why or why not? How would you define Gilgamesh as a hero considering both traditional and modern definitions and examples of the term?

12. Considering whatever the tale of Gilgamesh had to say to people in its own time and place, what sorts of things do you think it has to say to audiences that read the story today? Or, if it is irrelevant, why?