Gilgamesh will have to face the five stages of grief. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Acceptance for Gilgamesh seems to be the hardest for him. He had to find a way to adjust to the death of his friend and companion, Enkidu and then come to accept his own morality. Gilgamesh first went through denial, when he found out that his best friend Enkidu was dying “even though he was King he had never looked at death before” there was nothing he could do to help his friend.
When Enkidu was laying there he didn’t believe he was dying, he saw that Gilgamesh was helplessness and there was nothing to be said. Enkidu says to Gilgamesh “why am I to die”? Gilgamesh is silent. During this time Enkidu and Gilgamesh are angry. Enkidu has gone on “to curse the gate as if it we’re the person to blame and cursed the hunter and the woman in the many colored furs” by the tears running from Gilgamesh eyes, he knows he’s going to die. Gilgamesh is realizing there is nothing he can to for his friend and is angry with himself.
Gilgamesh thought he could bring his friend back to life, so he went on a “wandered through the desert” looking for utanapishtin for secret of internal life. Gilgamesh was on a quest searching for an eternal life which he might carry back to give his friend Enkidu. Gilgamesh bargained his life doing this quest so he could bring back his best friend “spiritual father, ancestor in the sense that he, the spiritual father can ward off evil”. When Enkidu died Gilgamesh was very depressed at the fact his best-friend/Campion has died.
Gilgamesh warned before everything happened that “for only one of them, he knew, would be released”. Enkidu was depressed that he would not see his true love. During this moment Enkidu still reminded Gilgamesh to move on. Gilgamesh felt nothing but guilt and sorrow “wept bitterly for his friend” and the name Enkidu roamed through his every thought. Gilgamesh will never accept the fact that his best friend Enkidu has died. Enkidu accepted the fact that he was going to die early on when he was laying on the ground he knew nothing could be done. Enkidu even said in the “only one of us will make it”.
It comes done to that Gilgamesh could not accept the fact Enkidu died because he believes it should have been him that died. When Enkidu dies Gilgamesh is filled with such loneliness that he sinks into a deep depression. Gilgamesh “wept bitterly for his friend for seven days and seven nights”. Enkidu experienced the five stages of grief throughout the story, like Gilgamesh, but Gilgamesh went through the stages of grief more than once. Gilgamesh after experiencing the five stages of grief went back home to his kingdom of Uruk and became a better King for his people, from his learning’s.
