There are many differences and critical comparisons that can be drawn
between the epics of Beowulf and Gilgamesh. Both are historical poems which
shape their respected culture and both have major social, cultural, and
political impacts on the development of western civilization literature and
writing. Before any analysis is made, it is vital that some kind of a
foundation be established so that a further, in-depth exploration of the
complex nature of both narratives can be accomplished.
The epic of Gilgamesh is an important Middle Eastern literary work,
written in cuneiform on 12 clay tablets about 2000 BC. This heroic poem is named
for its hero, Gilgamesh, a tyrannical Babylonian king who ruled the city of Uruk,
known in the Bible as Erech (now Warka, Iraq). According to the myth, the gods
respond to the prayers of the oppressed citizenry of Uruk and send a wild,
brutish man, Enkidu, to challenge Gilgamesh to a wrestling match. When the
contest ends with neither as a clear victor, Gilgamesh and Enkidu become close
friends. They journey together and share many adventures. Accounts of their
heroism and bravery in slaying dangerous beasts spread to many lands.
When the two travelers return to Uruk, Ishtar (guardian deity of the
city) proclaims her love for the heroic Gilgamesh. When he rejects her, she
sends the Bull of Heaven to destroy the city. Gilgamesh and Enkidu kill the bull,
and, as punishment for his participation, the gods doom Enkidu to die. After
Enkidu’s death, Gilgamesh seeks out the wise man Utnapishtim to learn the secret
of immortality. The sage recounts to Gilgamesh a story of a great flood (the
details of which are so remarkably similar to later biblical accounts of the
flood that scholars have taken great interest in this story). After much
hesitation, Utnapishtim reveals to Gilgamesh that a plant bestowing eternal
youth is in the sea. Gilgamesh dives into the water and finds the plant but
later loses it to a serpent and, disconsolate, returns to Uruk to end his days.
This saga was widely studied and translated in ancient times. Biblical
writers appear to have modeled their account of the friendship of David and
A Journey into Darkness in Heart of Darkness
A Journey into Darkness in Heart of Darkness
Joseph Conrad, in his story, “Heart of Darkness,” tells the
tale of two mens’ realization of the dark and evil side of themselves.
Marlow, the “second” narrator of the framed narrative, embarked upon a
spiritual adventure on which he witnessed firsthand the wicked potential in
everyone. On his journey into the dark, forbidden Congo, Marlow encountered
Kurtz, a “remarkable man” and
“universal genius,” who had made himself a god in the eyes of the natives
over whom he had an imperceptible power. These two men were, in a sense,
images of each other: Marlow was what Kurtz may have been, and Kurtz was
what Marlow may have become.
Like a jewel, “Heart of Darkness” has many facets. From one view it
is an exposure of Belgian methods in the Congo, which at least for a good
part of the way sticks closely to Conrad’s own experience. Typically,
however, the adventure is related to a larger view of human affairs.
Marlow told the story one evening on a yacht in the Thames estuary as
darkness fell, reminding his audience that exploitation of one group by
another was not new in history. They were anchored in the river, where
ships went out to darkest Africa. Yet, as lately as Roman times, London’s
own river led, like the Congo, into a barbarous hinterland where the Romans
went to make their profits. Soon darkness fell over London, while the
ships that bore “civilization” to remote parts appeared out of the dark,
carrying darkness with them, different only in kind to the darkness they
encounter.
These thoughts and feelings were merely part of the tale, for Co…
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…ntempt to be a kind of moral heroism.
Works Cited
Adelman, Gary. Heart of Darkness: Search for the Unconscious. Boston: Little