Archetypes In Gilgamesh

Archetypes are the deeper meanings to symbols people often look past. It is only when one stops and actually looks can they find the underlying messages. An archetype is always a symbol, but symbols are not always archetypes. Archetypes are very important because they help readers understand what the author was intending while writing the work. Gilgamesh is an epic full of reoccurring symbols and gestures. Gilgamesh is one of the oldest works in existence. It is believed he was a Sumerian king who was two thirds god one third human. Its author is unknown and it was passed down orally till the Babylonians translated and preserved the scripts. On the other hand the Adoration of the Disk was written as a correction of gods in ancient Egypt, the

The parables are stories which are made understandable for the common man. Genesis in some cases could be considered a parable in its use of archetypes to make the story more relatable. In particular the use of birds in Genesis’s flood story. In this story there was a flood similar to the one of the epic of Gilgamesh. Birds are seen as migrations into the new age. Its starts when God tells Noah he will flood the world to get rid of the evils. Noah prepares and the flood occurs. Contrastingly this flood story does not have a sparrow, but it does have the raven and dove. Here the raven leaves and fly’s around till the water dries. He also sends out a dove and sees the water has not receded, when he sends again the dove returns with an olive branch in its hold. The importance of birds is evident when it

The stories mentioned all used the same archetype to present what they believed to be true. They all showed how birds meant migration, water is destruction and rebirth, and how the serpent will always be evil. Archetypes still affect us today, when people see birds flying in the V formation, fall comes to mind the idea that winter is coming there is a migration of seasons. Water shows destruction in many forms for example hurricanes and floods, but it also shows rebirth in situations like baptisms or how the waves move, crash and recreate. The serpent will always mean danger, when snakes are near it is human nature to be on high alert because of the evil connotations they have with their aggressiveness. All these archetypes and more are still found in everyday life not just the Ancient Middle East or other old literature. The storytellers using these archetypes it reveals information about their culture and how their beliefs were impacted. The symbols give information that might have not ever been discovered if not for these