Essay Questions

Question 1: Consider the concept of “wild person” in context with Enkidu in the “Epic of Gilgamesh”. Now think about the concept of “foreigner” or “outsider” as they are relate to characters in Medea and Othello.

The Concept of “Wild Person” in Context with Enkidu in the “Epic of Gilgamesh”

The concept of wild person in context with Enkidu in the “Epic of Gilgamesh is referred to a the story described. As the epic proper opens, we find that the people of Uruk are worn out with Gilgamesh's warlike energy, dispirited because his military levies deprive them of their sons, and angry that his sexual appetites require all the women to sacrifice their virginity to him before they marry. Responding to the people's prayers, the goddess of creation shapes a wild man named Enkidu who will be able to tame Gilgamesh. Enkidu lives with the beasts of the fields and the forests until one day a trapper sees him. Frightened, the trapper reports the wild man to his father, complaining that Enkidu ruins his traps and helps the beasts escape (Sandars, 20).

Othello

Othello is an old German soldier, who marries the heroine of a story of adultery Reynolds' God's Revenge against Adultery. The same story also encountered the name Jago. It is somewhat uncertain if the name does not come from the tragedy of this story. Shakespeare found nearly all the individual circumstances of the amendment already before. Only the end he could not do, of course, who not only did the crime undetected, but also destroyed the unity of action. The characters of Shakespeare are expanded. This is particularly true of that of the Moors. Here he is the great tragedian has created a wonderful soul-image portrayed as the naive barbarian who believes in the words of men. It was only because his doubts are auditioned, common soldier, whose quiet blood is slowly poisoned, and his fevered Wallen the veins to threatens to blow up. He is the Negro, who has won through sheer drive and still have the most beautiful woman on the force to keep her despair when he sees his reflection in the mirror.

The Concept of “Foreigner” or “Outsider” Relating to Characters in Medea

A truly complicated character, Medea displays brilliant, machiavellian savagery, mourns her state as a woman scorned by her husband and the conventions of her civilization, and underscores her cold, calculating plan of revenge with a passionate desire for a husband she lost. Also complex is the relationship between gods and mortals: Medea's airborne escape at the end of the play shows the gods to be advocates and facilitators of Medea's vengeful extremism. Philip Vellacott points out that Euripides' attitude toward the gods is distinct in that he presents them as "amoral cosmic or social forces, blind and often destructive in their operation; powers which man can apprehend if not explain, but which are themselves incapable of understanding the spiritual qualities of man or the values by which he lives" (Introduction to Euripides: Three Plays ...