Startled, May tells him that if there is 'someone else,' he may have his freedom. Worried by temptation, Newland flees to Florida where May's family is vacationing and asks May to move the wedding date up. When Newland speaks with Ellen - a passionate and exotic woman, unlike his quiet, innocent May - he finds himself falling in love with her, despite his engagement. Letterblair, to ask Newland to dissuade the Countess from seeking a divorce. But he senses her loneliness and, despite some misgivings, sends her yellow roses. He finds her drawing room exotic and her friendship with shady financier Julius Beaufort unsettling. The next day Newland visits the Countess' small house in a Bohemian section of town. In this way they introduce the exotic Countess, and she finds New York society charmingly narrow and provincial compared to Paris. Without delay, the Mingott family enlist the help of ancient social sages, Henry and Louisa van der Luyden, to shore up support by inviting old New York to a dinner it cannot refuse. Later, when the family plans a dinner to introduce her to society, no one accepts. To discourage gossip, Newland decides to announce his and May's engagement at the Beaufort's ball that night.Īll of old New York is at the ball, gossiping about the Countess.

As young Newland Archer, lawyer and man about town, gazes up at his soon-to-be fiancé, May Welland, in the Mingott-family opera box, he is disconcerted by the arrival of May's cousin, the Countess Ellen Olenska, who has left her profligate but wealthy Polish husband. Just before dying, Enkidu comes to terms with this, taking back what he said, and grateful for all the experiences he had as a part of human civilization.It is a January evening in 1870s New York City and the fashionable are attending the opera. Enkidu, when dying, curses Shamhat for seducing him and ultimately bringing about his death by bringing him from nature into civilization, but Shamash reminds Enkidu of all that civilization brought him-most of all, his friendship with Gilgamesh. Civilization is simply the state of mankind. Ultimately, the story does not take a stance on nature being “better” than civilization, or vice versa. The acquisition of knowledge may have been mankind’s fall from innocence, but, now that man must fend for himself, knowledge can help him. Importantly, the epic ends with the proclamation that Gilgamesh’s greatest achievement is bringing back the tablets with his story written on themOnly in civilization, not out in nature, is such a feat possible: writing serves to communicate knowledge. Civilization must make do as well as it can. Just as the Biblical Adam and all his descendants are punished by being expelled from Paradise and having to work for their survival, in the Epic too it is long past mankind’s chance to remain innocent.

But the epic does not suggest that mankind should leave the city and return to nature. Shamhat tells Enkidu that in Uruk “every day is a holiday.” The Epic shows how civilization is both good and bad: it provides safety and community for the people of Uruk, but it also tempts them into complacency, as is best shown by Gilgamesh at the beginning of the epic. In Uruk, Gilgamesh and Enkidu live luxurious lives impossible in nature.

Like Gilgamesh, he is eager to cut down the great Cedar Tree. Civilization has transformed Enkidu, and he no longer lives in harmony with nature. Soon after, Enkidu accompanies Gilgamesh on his quest to earn glory-a drastic change from Enkidu’s earlier, less ambitious life.

Just as Adam and Eve eat from the tree of knowledge and suddenly become aware of their own nakedness, so it is Enkidu’s sexual encounter with Shamhat that symbolizes his transition from unspoiled nature into civilization.Īfter he sleeps with Shamhat, nature rejects Enkidu. And, like Adam and Eve, he is tempted by knowledge and sexuality. Enkidu, like the Biblical Adam and Eve, is created as an innocent being in nature, living freely among the wild animals. On one level, the writers of the Epic show civilization as the end product of mankind’s fall from innocence. Thus the Epic’s portrayal of civilization is especially “contemporary” for its time, but also timeless in the ways it presents the positives and negatives of civilization in general. It’s important to keep in mind that the Epic was written in ancient Mesopotamia, an area that has been called the “cradle of civilization,” as the first known city-states in human history began there. The Epic of Gilgamesh portrays the idea of civilization in an ambiguous way-as something that provides protection and knowledge, but that can also be a corrupting force.

Fall from innocence spark knotes