Anticlimactic

The ending of the Epic of Gilgamesh proved to be very anticlimactic, and featured the almost universal theme, man’s fear of death. After all of Gilgamesh’s epic adventures, slaying heavenly men and beasts and doing basically whatever he pleased for the most of the tale, the monumental demigod had an important epiphany. With the death of his close friend and compatriot Enkidu, Gilgamesh realized that he too was destined to be “turned to clay.” For the remainder of the tale he frantically searches for the man whose secret is eternal life; upon finding him Gilgamesh learns the secret and even finds a plant which would grant him life, but in the end it is all for naught as the herb is stolen by a snake (very abruptly I might add). Even Gilgamesh, whose feet are 5 feet long and who is more god than man, fears his inevitable death more than anything else. I cannot count how many stories I have read where the ultimate goal is eternal life, it seems as if this may be the most universal theme in storytelling since ancient times. Death is a difficult concept to comprehend, and each of the religions practiced out there in the world make an effort to explain it, or have a form of afterlife or something along those lines, perhaps to give people something to look forward to or ease their stress from dreading the inevitable. The ending reminded me of the poem of Ozymandius, describing a stone pedestal standing alone among nothing but dust and rubble as far as the eye can see reading, "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" Even Gilgamesh, who was mightier than any man alive, will one day be nothing but dust in the wind. As will we all, but that is just the nature of life.