Comparing The Epic Of Gilgamesh And The Tale Of Genji Women

The struggle for women to play a significant role in history can be traced from the ancient Mesopotamians to the 1900’s. There has been a continuous battle for women to gain equal rights legally and to be treated equally in all aspects of life. The Epic of Gilgamesh contains some of the oldest recorded accounts of the roles of women and their importance in a functional society. Women have been viewed as anything from goddesses to unwanted servants throughout history, regardless of a variety of changes in rulers, religions, and time periods. The Epic of Gilgamesh might lead one to consider the roles of women small and insignificant compared to the man 's role. In fact, throughout the epic tale, three women; Shamhat, Ishtar, and Siduri, were able to create and maintain a civilized Mesopotamian society using the uniqueness of their bodies, minds, and spirits.

In the story of The Ramayana women are viewed as a struggle to establish identity. The Ramayana men are viewed as rulers and leaders. An example of this is Rama who implied that his selection as a prince was to rule, “ Mother my father has appointed me to the task of protecting the people.”(694). The Ramayana’s example of loyalty were based upon Sits, she is Rama’s wife. The moment that Sita heard about Rama’s exile, she rushed to be by his side, "As shadow to substance, so wife to husband," she reminded Rama. "Is not the wife's Dharma to be at her husband's side?(714) The role of women in Gilgamesh are that most of the women are seen as sex objects of temptation. For example, The Harlot, is a prostitute and is seen as a sex toy; her main purpose in the story is to seduce Enkidu. Gilgamesh men play the position of power and more powerful. An example of this is Anu, who is the most powerful God. In addition to this, Gilgamesh is the king of Uruk and two-thirds god. Gilgamesh has immense powers who differentiate him from others in the human world, this proves how powerful he is. Throughout the book of Gilgamesh the development between the friendship of Gilgamesh and Enkidu was very unexpected. The first time they meet each other they start to argue, this leads the reader and everyone else to conclude and that they would be more like enemies. Through the progress of the story, we learn that loyalty

Throughout history, there has always been a gender inequality separating the roles and power of men from women. Most societies were patriarchal, emphasizing male dominance in society and directing women towards a more idle role so that they were more ornamental than influential. Through this gender division, women would take on the less powerful role as a nurturing mother, or caring wife over and over again in several ancient societies up to modern day societies. In "Gilgamesh", male characters are emphasized much more than female characters, however, the female characters are crucial in the epic as they help to drive the plot forward through their actions. Despite the constant presence of gender roles throughout history, the women of

The Epic of Gilgamesh was written around 2100 B.C.E. At this time the role of woman was to tend to the home, cook the food, and raise the children. They had very little say in any decision making, nor did were they allowed to express their opinion. In The Epic of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh himself has an encounter with the goddess of love and war, Ishtar. Ishtar very clearly

On a hero’s epic journey, the objective is to discover wholeness or extraordinary learning which will reestablish harmony to oneself and one’s kingdom. Time and time again, this amassment of mindfulness is held by or epitomized in a female character whom the hero encounters along his journey. Be that as it may, the female can be risky on the grounds that her insight can possibly make or break, contingent on the circumstances of the heroes arrival as well as how her powered is utilized. In the archaic epic poem, The Epic of Gilgamesh, women are portrayed in both a sense of profound wisdom and power as well as for their temptation and destruction.

The mythological tale, “Epic of Giglamesh” is a story that was written over 3,000 years ago and has withstood the test of time to become a true classic. It is a story full of fear, despair and hope. Gilgamesh is the King of the City of Uruk who drives his people crazy so they ask the gods for help. Their request is answered when Gilgamesh’s and Enkidu have a wrestling match and become best friends. Together they decide to kill evil demons but the end result is that Enkidu must die as well. Throughout the story, Gilgamesh is having both an internal and external struggle of trying to come to terms with the fact that one day he will die and be forgotten. Prompted by the death of his best friend, he embarks on a journey to achieve eternal life.

Female figures provide a rebirth for heroes such as Gilgamesh and Enkidu in the Epic of Gilgamesh within a domestic context through their wisdom in general persuasion, caring personalities, and sophisticated sexuality. In this essay, I discussed two different ways in which female figures civilize: female figures instill into male figures new mentality and fresh understanding of their present lives; they also use their physical beauty to introduce heroes to sophisticated aspects of society, such as food, music, and fertility. While Siduri brings Gilgamesh back to life from his despondence after his severe grievance over his loss of Enkidu, Shamhat’s beauty and sophisticated sexualilty transformed Enkidu from his wilderness. Even though female figures employ different ways in order to civilize these epic heroes, they don’t go beyond the roles of women in their society.

The women of Ancient Mesopotamian civilization did not have much rights like the Ancient Egyptian women. In the Mesopotamian society, the roles of women were outlined with strict guidelines as she was first a wife, a housekeeper, and then a mother. The Ancient Mesopotamian goddess Gula, described the stages in a woman’s life: “I am a daughter, I am a bride, I am a spouse, I am a housekeeper.” This means how the original identity and stages of life for a woman

On the other hand, we are also introduced to women who live in the household setting. Gilgamesh’s mother, Ninsun is present, providing wisdom during his time of need. Another character presented is the wife of Utnapishtim, “However, women could own property, maintain control to their dowry-and even engage in trade” (G, p. 34). Women are not limited to raising children or duties of harvesting, but allowed freedom to do as they pleased.

The roles that women seemed to play in the development of the plot of Gilgamesh and Enkidu was one of seduction and deception. They were often described

While reading Gilgamesh, I began to realize how many aspects of life resemble others. There are so many wars fought over religion when the thing is, even religions have so many aspects that are the same. There are different versions of The Flood in many religious, and non religious pieces. It is not until reading something like Gilgamesh that some people can see that. It is also interesting to see an “epic” character in action. Each epic poem has the main characters of the epic, which can be compared and contrasted to other characters in other epic poems. Gilgamesh went through so much in the tale, and near the end, he finally becomes the King that he needs to be. There is a lot that can be learned while reading

As thousands of years have passed since the ancient times, we have only just realized how important women are to the success of a prosperous society. We have come to realize that women are not just what we have depicted before, they are key providers to many families, our economy and now are even considered to be smarter than males. Myths have shown that women are secondary characters and even in some cases, tertiary characters. They are often frowned upon being considered as unworthy compared to men but are usually helping men to succeed in their quest. It is very rare for women to play a bigger role than being an assistant for the hero and we can assume how women were valued and portrayed many years ago. In summary, women are oppressed. There

In the Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the primary roles the women play is the catalyst of dominant events. As catalysts, they set into motion the major events of the rest of the story, lack character or present only a one-dimensional person, and have only brief appearances. We see these three components in the stories of the harlot, the goddess Ishtar, and the goddess Aruru.

Society generalizes the history of past cultures to place greater importance on men, but many ancient texts refute this point. Throughout history, influential pieces of literature have placed great emphasis on the significance of women in life. This pattern begins back in Mesopotamia with The Legend of Gilgamesh, which is one of the only living stories with such age. The pattern continues to be demonstrated thousands of years later in ancient Greece with Euripides’s Medea. In both of these stories, women are portrayed as beings with unrivaled powers to control men through the ability to comprehend their visions, an incredible capacity to manipulate them, and access to items that grant them unworldly power.

For example most men considered good reasoning, statecraft among others. Men were in top leadership positions. Women were not permitted to try and let female relatives to get a look at them. She got away from the gaze of any man whom she was not identified with. These demonstrate that the overseeing body was made of chauvinists who saw women as lesser creatures than men. Men enabled women to acquire and pass on property (Kido, p-68). In the Tale of Genji, author demonstrated that women would be very educated and achieve many things. They were educated different courses other than those instructed to men. The Men in this tale had likewise been given a more noteworthy level of sexual permit than their women. Women in this tale were told to maintain