Gilgamesh and Enkidu’s Relationship in the Epic of Gilgamesh

From the beginning of the epic, we find out that Gilgamesh is the son of a king and a goddess. This in turn makes Gilgamesh half god and half human. This is due to who his parents are, Gilgamesh is very spoiled as a kid and grows up to be an arrogant adult. Of course, Gilgamesh did have great reasoning for his statement: fair visage, handsomeness, physical power ad dare. He had everything anyone could ever dream of, but because of that, he was also selfish, arrogant and never listened to anything either of his parents would say to him. Besides Gilgamesh, the Gods, mostly Ninhursag-Ki, had decided to create a reincarnation of Gilgamesh, one that would be able to combat someone who was of such great power as Gilgamesh. The goal was to eventually have the two meet, and hopefully they could grow an immense relationship and in turn, civilization would be back to normal. This is how Enkidu was created. The Great Mother made Enkidu distinctively different than Gilgamesh. Enkidu was more like a perfect man that instead of falling into the normality of civilization, took a wilder path. Despite being very similar to Gilgamesh, when it came to character and personality, Enkidu was more of a kind and caring soul as opposed to Gilgamesh’s rude and ignorant personality.

As soon as the two finally meet, the reader can obviously tell that the two are somewhat meant to be with each other in some way. They meet, they instantly start to have conflict and grow to become real friends just like a fight you would see in movies about two kids that takes place back in the 60’s. More so, they seem to complement each other in a lot of ways, it kind of seems like they are a married couple who are meant to be. Gilgamesh, for the first time in his life has found the desire inside to share something with someone else, which in turn allows him to grow further as a person. The friendship these two have seems to have an effect on Gilgamesh. He seems to become more of a kind person and less of a loner. Obviously, throughout the epic, Gilgamesh experiences loneliness but Enkidu changes that. However, Gilgamesh never knew what it was like to long for something until he lost Enkidu.

In order to have a full understanding of the relationship between the two, the reader has to try to relate to Gilgamesh and think about their siblings. It’s almost necessary to have siblings because they are the people you can turn to when you’re having issues or have secrets to share. Sometimes brothers and sisters are inner siblings. When it comes to Gilgamesh, Enkidu is his inner sibling and soulmate. Enkidu was made to fill in the gaps that were evident in Gilgamesh’s life. Gilgamesh’s bond with Enkidu was formed due to their sibling-like situation. Their bond was something so special that they pretty much never left each other’s side and were able to keep the rest of the civilization from fighting. To them, the fighting was no longer necessary. They constantly shared everything that crossed their mind and shared all of their opinions on pretty much everything, just like a married couple.

To conclude, Gilgamesh needed Enkidu in his life. Enkidu was able to bring new meaning into Gilgamesh’s life and in some aspects, completed his life. And as for Enkidu, Gilgamesh showed him the positives of civilized life and in some aspects, completed his life in the same way.