The Epic of Gilgamesh and The Code of Hammurabi

The Epic of Gilgamesh and Hammurabi’s Code are some of the most ancient texts from ancient Mesopotamia that have been found by Historians and archaeologists to date. Both of these texts are rich in information concerning Mesopotamia at this time; it politics, religion, social relationships and their cities. They show how religion was a very important part of the everyday lives of the ancient Mesopotamians and this is exemplified when Hammurabi declares that the set of laws which he has codified have been given to him directly by the god Shamash (to justify his codification of the law), and Gilgamesh’s going to the temple of Shamash to consult with the god before undertaking a major mission. In both of these texts, it can be noted that the sun – god Shamash, who was also the Mesopotamian god of justice, plays a major role in some of the major events which take place considering that he granted Hammurabi the laws and always gave guidance to Gilgamesh so that he would succeed in his missions.

The values of the ancient Sumerians seem to have been guided by their religion and many believed that they needed the authority of a god while doing anything important to ensure that their actions were a success. One would notice in these texts that the relationships between the people of this society in the ancient times were very close and that friendships had a higher value then than they have today. Friends tended to treat each other more like siblings than as people from different backgrounds and a good example of this is the relationship between Gilgamesh and Enkidu. Although Gilgamesh was the king of Uruk and Enkidu was wild man from the fields, these two strike a friendship which would be very unlikely in the current times. It can further be noted that the rulers of ancient Mesopotamia tended to place a very high value to their connection with the gods most likely in an attempt to justify their authority over their people. We note that Hammurabi claims to have been in direct communication with a god when he was give the laws which would be imposed on his people. Gilgamesh on the other hand is said to have been two thirds god and one third man and that his mother was the goddess Ninsun who is time and again seen to intercede on his behalf to the other gods. It is most likely a fact that Gilgamesh’s attempt to attain immortality was in a bid to destroy his human side and retain his divine part.

The influences of religion are still very prominent today as they were in ancient Mesopotamia. In fact, religious influences today are so strong that in some instances, they border on fanaticism. Those who have retained their religious beliefs in a world that is headed to secularization believe that what they are doing is the will of God and that anyone not doing the same is a sinner and will die in hell. Furthermore, some of the most powerful states in the world today are monarchies and the monarchs sit on their thrones not because of any great ability but because a legendary ancestor once ruled before them and this is used to justify their social position. The similarities between the code of Hammurabi and the Ten Commandments can clearly be seen especially when one considers that they both are said to have been handed by a god and that they are both based on the eye for an eye doctrine. The Gilgamesh epic and the Flood story also have many similarities especially when one considers that a version of the latter story is told in the former in greater detail than is told in the Bible.

Existentialism in The Stranger by Albert Camus

Albert Camus’ story, The Stranger, is an existential work which attempts to show the futility of being obsessed with roles that have been set by society; it shows that human beings should exist in their own terms. In The Stranger, the chief character is indifferent to all the things that go on around him and is instead interested only in his own self, essentially endorsing existentialism. Throughout the story, Meursault seems to be an incredibly selfish man who is only interested in himself and does not in the least care for the happenings taking place around him. This creates a situation which helps in the development of the plot of the story, since there is an exploration of the indifference as well as the existential way of life that is displayed by Meursault.

One of the aspects of existentialism that is shown in this story is that of individuals choosing to remain indifferent to others and only be concerned with what concerns them. This is especially the case in the funeral of Meursault mother’s and the man’s obvious indifference to the funeral symbolize his detachment from the world, which he believes to be a place full of nothing but conflict and agony as well as his optimism when it comes to death. In the story, Meursault shows a lack of care towards the diverse events that take place, even the ones that society might consider as being necessary for all of its members, and is thus looked down upon by other individuals who have attended the funeral. His mother’s funeral symbolizes existentialist joy that can be found in death, the liberation from all of the complications, conflicts, and miseries that are often experienced in life as a result of societal expectations.

Initially, Meursault is troubled when he hears of the death of his mother but when he goes to the funeral, he ends up being unaffected, believing his mother is in a better place. With reference to his mother’s death, he states that “Mother died today or maybe yesterday; I can't be sure”, showing that despite his mother’s death, he is at peace with it and he does not feel any sort of sadness or loss. This shows a possibility of Meursault’s belief that the day that his mother died is not important and that she is perhaps better off in this state. Thus, he chooses not to concentrate on the funeral service, and instead chooses to focus on the people who have attended the funeral. He does not display any of the regret or happiness that members of society would have expected him to express towards the people who have come to support him in his time of need, since he has just lost his mother.

When he is deplored by society and incarcerated for killing a man, his freedom is taken away from him, and any values or desires that he was once able to act upon would not be able to be acted upon anymore. This essentially interferes with his existential way of life because he is no longer able to act upon those impulses which were a basic part of his life. Meuersault seems to have lost all interest in life as a result of his incarceration and this creates a situation where he finds all accusations made against him irrelevant. When questioned repeatedly about his indifference towards his mother’s funeral while he is incarcerated, Meursault becomes upset and impatient. He finds it ridiculous and redundant the way society is condemning him for his beliefs and not for the crime he committed. When a priest questions Meursault, he ends up sharing his thoughts and beliefs, revealing that his mother’s funeral was a moment of joy and not of grief. He states that his indifference towards his mother’s funeral is as a result of his love for her and his wish that she rest in peace free from the problems of the world. The funeral, therefore, ends up being a symbol of hope for Meursault, that he can be free from the world and free from the expectations of society on him.

In conclusion, The Stranger is a story that endorses existentialism as seen through the manner that Meuersault considers the world. It is revealed that because of the societal restrictions, this character is highly pessimistic about life and he does not seem to derive joy from it. This is a man who does not consider death with fear or sadness; he looks upon it as a means of salvation from the problems that plague individuals in the world.

The Stranger by Albert Camus - Analysis

In “The Stranger”, Meurstault’s mother’s funeral and Meursault’s obvious indifference to the funeral symbolize his detachment from the world, a place full of nothing but conflict and agony in his eyes, and his optimistic attitude regarding death. In the text, Meursault shows a lack of care towards many events and circumstances, even the ones that might be considered essential for the average person, and is thus looked down upon by members of society. His mother’s funeral symbolizes the ironic joy that can be found in death, the liberation of all life’s complications, conflicts, and miseries. Initially, Meursault is perturbed upon discovering his mother’s death. However, upon going to his mother’s funeral, he is unaffected, believing his mother is in a better place. Of his mother’s death, he says, “Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday; I can't be sure.” This shows that despite the fact that his mother is dead, he does not feel any sort of sadness or loss, and it is possible that he considers when she died not to be important.

Instead of concentrating on the funeral service, as normal people would, Meursault instead focuses on the people who have attended the funeral. He does not display any of the regret or happiness that people have come to support him in his time of need, when he has just lost his mother.

Some other memories of the funeral have stuck in my mind. The old boy’s face, for instance, when he caught up with us for the last time, just outside the village. His eyes were streaming with tears, of exhaustion or distress, or both together. But because of the wrinkles they couldn’t flow down. They spread out, crisscrossed, and formed a smooth gloss on the old, worn face.

Meursault is detached from most things in the world and shows a lack of care towards most occurrences. However, when Meursault is free to bond with Marie, a girl he likes, he enjoys life, even if for brief moments. But even towards Marie, he seems to be indifferent because of his belief that the happiness which he is feeling is only momentary and that it will come to an end soon. When Marie asks him whether he loves her, he states that it does not mean anything, and this shows that he has no intention of taking his relationship with her further than it already is a carnal one. Meursault states, “She was wearing a pair of my pajamas with the sleeves rolled up. When she laughed I wanted her again. A minute later she asked me if I loved her. I told her it didn’t mean anything but that I didn’t think so. She looked sad.”

When he is deplored by society and incarcerated for killing a man, his freedom is essentially confiscated from him, and any values or desires that he was once able to act upon would not be able to be acted upon anymore. In addition, any appreciation he had for life and the world in which he lived is vanquished. Meursault’s trial is not focused on his assassination of the Arab man, but on his “indifference” and his “lack of emotion”, both which should be irrelevant. When questioned repeatedly about his indifference towards his mother’s funeral while he’s incarcerated, Meursault becomes upset and impatient. He finds it ridiculous and redundant the way society is condemning him for his beliefs and not for the crime he committed. Meursault is subject to execution and, at this point, is almost entirely detached from the world. He remembers his mother had told him stories of his father going to executions. Meursault believes that if he would be freed from jail, visiting executions would be joyful for him. This is due to the fact that Meursault finds joy in people being freed from their pain, their troubles, and the world itself. When a priest questions Meursault, Meursault begins divulging all his thoughts, revealing how his mother’s funeral was a moment of joy and not of grief. He was “indifferent” to his mother’s funeral because he loved her and wanted her to rest in peace and be free from the world’s complexities. Meursault’s mother’s funeral is the symbol of hope for Meursault, the symbol that he can find absolute interest in something that will last forever, and the symbol that he can be free from the world and free from society’s expectations.

When Meursault kills the Arab man, it reveals his indifference to the world and to all those who are around him. He does not experience any guilt when he is confronted for this action, he does not display any of the remorse that would be expected. He instead refers to the killing as an act which was inspired by the glare of the sun and the heat. He does not account for the reason why he shot the Arab four more times despite the fact that he was dead. One would surmise that Meursault was not only indifferent, but that he actually took a perverse pleasure in hurting other people. He realizes that his actions will land his in trouble yet he goes ahead and does them anyway. It is as if he finds satisfaction in the act of taking the Arab’s life, despite the fact that there was no real antagonism between them. Meursault gives a vivid description of how he ends up murdering the Arab in cold blood:

The trigger gave; I felt the smooth underside of the butt; and there, in that noise, sharp and deafening at the same time, is where it all started. I shook off the sweat and the sun. I knew that I had shattered the harmony of the day, the exceptional silence of a beach where I'd been happy. Then I fired four more times at the motionless body where the bullets lodged without leaving a trace. And it was like knocking four quick times on the door of unhappiness.

This may have been the reason why he agreed to help his friend, Raymond, take revenge on the latter’s Arab lover because of her perceived unfaithfulness. His incarceration is a time for reflection for Meursault and it helps him to solidify his belief of being indifferent to the world around him. He does not spend his time regretting his actions as one would expect, and instead, he spends most of his time attempting to catalogue all the things he owned in his apartment. He even becomes indifferent to the fact that Marie, his girlfriend, does not come to visit him in prison, contemplating that it was human nature to forget and that it was very likely that he would also be forgotten once he was dead as he states “maybe she had become tired of being the girlfriend of a condemned man. It also occurred to me that maybe she was sick, or dead. These things happen. Anyway, after that, remembering Marie meant nothing to me. That seemed perfectly normal to me, since I understood very well that people would forget me when I was dead.”

When Meursault is approaching the end of his life since the court is likely to sentence him to death, he is visited by a priest in an attempt to save his soul. Meursault remains adamant in his atheistic beliefs, stating that God is a waste of time and that he has no interest in Him. The priest does his best to persuade this strange man, “...he said firmly, "God can help you. All the men I’ve seen in your position turned to Him in their time of trouble." Obviously, I replied, they were at liberty to do so, if they felt like it. I, however, didn’t want to be helped, and I hadn’t time to work up interest for something that didn’t interest me.” The lack of interest displayed by Meursault is an indication of his belief that there is no God and that even if His existence were true, then his soul was already condemned. It shows his lack of faith in anything or anyone in the world, because priests, in many circumstances, tend to be a symbol of hope and salvation since they have the power to grant forgiveness for sins.

In conclusion, it can be said that the main theme of this book is that of indifference because of how the main character behaves towards the world. This indifference seems to be born out of pessimism towards life as Meursault does not seem to derive joy from it. Instead of looking upon death with fear or sadness, he looks upon it as a means of salvation from the troubles of the world. It is possible that when Camus was writing this book, he was contemplating on the meaninglessness of the physical world, since it is a place of pain and suffering, and the escape from it through death.

The Transformation of Achilles

Homer’s Iliad is one of the most popular poems from the ancient world, and it sought to ensure that it promoted the achievements of the various heroes. Among the heroes that are mentioned in the poem, perhaps even one of its most significant subjects is Achilles. Achilles is an individual that undergoes a considerable transformation from being one full of godly pride to one that is essentially human. This paper seeks to document the transformation that Achilles undergoes through an analysis of his pride and honor, his rage, and finally, his humanization.

Among the most significant factors that guide the life Achilles in the Iliad are his pride and honor. These are considered essential traits, especially by the author of the poem, who seeks to enhance them through his characters. Achilles’ pride and honor are what dictate his actions and this is especially the case where he feels that his honor has been betrayed by Agamemnon because the latter, who is the commander of the Achaeans, has essentially taken his mistress, Briseis, away from him. Achilles does not seem to really love Briseis because despite constantly professing his love for her, he does not do anything to stop Agamemnon’s agents from taking her away from him. Achilles therefore is driven by his pride not to undertake any action to protect his mistress, while at the same time also seeking to ensure that his displeasure is shown through his decision not to help the Achaeans in the war effort against Troy.

In addition, Achilles is driven by his rage as seen in the line “Rage – Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus’ son Achilles,” (1, 1). The situation essentially leads to significant losses in men during the Trojan War. This is especially the case considering that because of his rage against Agamemnon, Achilles refuses to support his fellow Achaeans in the war to such an extent that the conflict continues to drag on for longer than would otherwise have been the case. His rage, coupled with pride, leads Achilles to focus all his attention on a single individual rather than considering the plight of his countrymen. However, all this changes when Achilles’ best friend, Patroclus, is killed by Hector, the Trojan hero. The result is that Achilles’ rage is shifted from Agamemnon and directed at Hector, on who he wants to exact revenge. This situation changes the tide of the Trojan War to such an extent that Achilles ends up leading the Achaeans to victory while at the same time ending up killing Hector.

Following the death of Hector at the hands of Achilles, the latter’s rage abates and he ended up becoming a more human character. Achilles becomes more capable of showing human emotions, as seen in his joyousness and fairness when he distributes prizes to his colleagues during the funeral games held in honor of Patroclus. In addition, he professes his love for Briseis, who has been restored to him; is a sign of his essentially being happy following the satisfaction of his rage. Moreover, he also agrees to give back Hector’s body to his father King Priam, who desires to give his son an honorable funeral as befits a prince of Troy. Therefore, Achilles’ transformation leads him from a proud individual who believes himself to be superior to all other to being one that is essentially more human with feelings that can be associated with the latter personality.

In conclusion, Achilles is shown to be an individual that throughout most of the Iliad has a building rage. The intervention of the gods prevent him from killing Agamemnon when they have an argument, but it is only after the death of Patroclus that Achilles’ rage becomes of service to the Achaeans. Hector’s death transforms Achilles into a more human character because all the rage that is in him is expended.

Film Depictions of The Merchant of Venice

The Merchant of Venice is one of the greatest plays and works that was created by Shakespeare for performance on stage and because of this, it has remained exceedingly popular to the present day. When this play is made into movies, one will find that most of the scenes remain loyal to the original play since changing any aspect of the script within the movie would be detrimental to it. One of the most notable similarities between the play and the movie is the fact that some the characters in the play end up doing things that are ethically wrong, and despite having this knowledge, they tend to end up doing it because of the belief that they are within their rights. For the duration of the film, the director shows the reality of each of the characters in line with the play and he does this from the very beginning. In order to create a situation where there is a contrast of characters that leads the movie into its climax, the director of the movie chooses an appropriate time to reveal the original plot to the audience. But before the climax of the film, he uses the main characters’ personalities and other events to convince the audience that what they are viewing is the real plot of the film. By doing this, the director ensures that he maintains the element of surprise that will captivate his audience at the climax and this is almost exactly as Shakespeare did in his play and by being loyal to the script; the movie follows the same course of events as when it is performed on stage.

While the main plot of the play is retained in the movie, the latter does not completely remain loyal to the script as seen where the roles of some characters is diminished in favor of others. In most of the film versions of the play, one will notice that the roles of some of the minor characters are completely removed and that some of their lines are given to other characters. In a way, this is perhaps done with the intention of reducing the budget of making these films but by doing this, the directors of the movies being created end up watering down the original plot. The failure to constantly remain loyal to the script of the play and the removal of some characters shows that the film versions of the play are mainly concerned about making money and for entertainment. Loyal followers of the play tend not to take the film versions seriously because unlike when the play is performed on stage, the audience is not as involved. In fact, one would go as far as to state that the film depiction of the Merchant of Venice is one which makes its loyal audience to feel isolated and not as a part of the development of the plot. This isolation or detachment can be considered to be a failure of the film version of the play, and the directors of future movie depictions need to do more to ensure that their movies are absolutely loyal to the original script.

While, as stated above, the movie depictions of the play tend not to completely follow the original script, it is a fact that many of the main themes within the play are displayed. The theme of racism, for example, is as prevalent within the movie as it is within the play and this creates a lot of tension in the movie as it would if performed on stage. Both the stage and film versions of the play display a setting where Christians were most distrustful of those who practiced Judaism and this is manifested in diverse ways throughout these depictions, especially through the depictions made of the Shylock, the main Jewish character. In both of depictions, Shylock is displayed as an evil, greedy, and vengeful man whose main aim throughout the play is not only to seek revenge but also to maximize the profits of his business as much as possible. In addition, the fact that in the Venice of the Middle Ages, women were considered to be secondary citizens is also shown as seen when Portia has to dress and act as a male lawyer in order to get to defend her fiancée. In essence, both versions of the play are performed in such a way that they are able to show the importance of women in society and the need to ensure that they are not left in the background, as is the case in the play.

The movie version of the play can be seen to have been made with the play in thought especially when it comes to the physical appearance of the characters. In both the film and plays, the characters seem to be selected from those people who are similar in appearance. The directors of these representations remain loyal to the original script to the latter, with the appearance of the characters being as described in the original script. This gives the audience the opportunity to appreciate the various characters within the play and film and to identify with them in a more intimate way than if their appearance were changed. In addition, there is the potential that the most loyal fans of the play on stage are attracted to the film version not only because it remains loyal to the original script, but also because the appearance of the characters remains the same. It can therefore be said that the movie depictions of the play are a major success because they ensure that there is a sense of continuity from the original play and this enables the latter to continue in popularity as it has for the last four centuries. It can be concluded that there are more successes than failures when it comes to the depiction of the play in film because not only the script but also the depiction of the characters has remained loyal to that envisioned by Shakespeare.