Tablets VII & VIII Response

These two tablets were kind of surprising for me. I didn't really expect Enkidu to die in the middle of the story, for he was supposed to be Gilgamesh's companion for life. Too many events suddenly happen really fast while reading this book. It seems like the author sometimes rushed through his writing in some parts, but I guess this helps the story to be more interesting since we never know what's going to happen next. The author also keeps on repeating short parts of phrases in dialogues to point out some kind of idea, feeling, or emotion. Tablet 8 is a great example for the use of this technique: "May the wild ass in the mountains braying mourn... May the pathways to the Cedar Forest mourn... May the passes through the mountains mourn for you... May the young men of the city who fought the Bull, may they mourn for Enkidu who protected them... etc." It does start to get kind of boring when a whole page keeps going on like that, but it helped a lot to show the feelings and emotions of Gilgamesh towards the death of Enkidu. Of course, Gilgamesh is very sad and feels that Enkidu should somehow be remembered by the people of Uruk. So, he decides to build a statue in honor of Enkidu. This represents the strong friendship that existed between Gilgamesh and Enkidu and all the heroic actions they have done together. But in my point of view, the death of Enkidu represents many other things too. In the beginning, Enkidu started out living in the wilderness along with other beastly creatures. Then, he earned a better life when he became more civilized in the city of Uruk. But, the price he had to pay for that at the end was death. Since Enkidu represents humanity, the story might be suggesting that humans won't last much if they are civilized for too long and if they completely forget about the nature around us that we belong in. The author might be indirectly suggesting us to pay more attention to our surroundings and to be careful because we might not be living in the correct way...

Here's a short video that shows the death of Enkidu and explains a bit about the nightmare he had before passing away: