Essay Assignment

Zo Tribley

CLT3378-02

Zft15@my.fsu.edu

Word count 2562

The Epic of Gilgamesh and Disneys Tangled and How Crazily Similar
They Are
When juxtaposing The Epic of Gilgamesh and Disneys 2010
film, Tangled, stark similarities can be seen between the unlikely two
pieces of work. The largest examples of similarities can be found within
the characters and the themes and motifs. Even both works are
popular pieces of their time as The Epic of Gilgamesh was a popular
story, especially in Babylonia, and Disneys Tangled won numerous
awards, especially for its motion picture, script writing, and musical
composition.
Starting with the characters, a similarity hugely seen is with the
tricksters: the snake from The Epic of Gilgamesh and Mother Gothel
from Tangled. Mother Gothel is a trickster because from the start of the
movie, she hid away the magical plant by putting a leaf cover over it.
Afraid that anyone would take it away from her and greedy as the
flower gave her eternal life, and most importantly youth and beauty,
Mother Gothel lost herself in her own selfishness as years and years
flowed by and she easily cheated death. It wasnt until her own
hastiness resulted in the mistake of poorly covering the magical flower
that it was taken away and given to the nearby kingdoms queen who

was sick and with child, later to result in Rapunzel- the princess, who
absorbed the magical plant and so, the magical plants abilities. Again,
Mother Gothels own selfish need for such power resulted in her taking
away Rapunzel, like a trickster, and raising her as somewhat of a
daughter in an isolated tower hidden in the woods. Beyond that, how
Gothel always referred to Rapunzel as my flower and my pet shows
that she thinks of Rapunzel only as valuable as the magical abilities
that are inside her. Continuing, during the song of Mother Knows
Best, Gothel caresses Rapunzels magical hair during the lines of
to keep you safe and sound as direct support that the you Gothel is
referring to is the hair she holds in her hands, and safe and sound
meaning being locked away for Gothels use and her use alone. When
comparing Gothel to the snake from The Epic of Gilgamesh, they
both are the ones who steal away the magical plant. In The Epic of
Gilgamesh the snake snagged the plant for itself and immediately
shed its skin. This can be seen in the texts quote A snake smelt the
fragrance of the plant. It came up silently and carried off the plant By
saying silently here, the author exemplifies the trickiness of the
snake. Whats also interesting about this specific scene is that the
snake takes the plant away from Gilgamesh, the same way that in a
later scene of Tangled, Gothel finds Rapunzel on the seashore and
takes her back to the tower by tricking her into thinking that she was
always in danger and the only safe place is with her. With the same

setting of the seashore and the taking away of the plant though in
Tangled its in the form of Rapunzel, we see how alike the tricksters are
of each work. Its also important to note the irony of Mother Gothel as
the trickster figure. During a fight about leaving the tower, Gothel yells
at Rapunzel, surprising and upsetting her daughter, and so Gothel
dramatically falls into a chair and sighs out great, now Im the bad
guy. This is ironic because as the trickster of this movie, she really is
the bad guy but in this particular scene, shes fooling Rapunzel to force
her to feel embarrassed.
Another pair of alike characters is Gilgamesh and Eugene
Fitzherbert- the love interest and overall narrator of Tangled. Both
characters undergo a drastic personality change as by the end of their
different quests, they have changed and improved ways on looking at
life and the value of things such as materialistic items, social
reputation, and fame. When The Epic of Gilgamesh begins,
Gilgamesh is the all mighty ruler of Uruk, divine and touched by the
gods as he is only 1/3 human and given a beautiful design by the
creator goddess herself, Belit Ili. With stature and beauty, Gilgamesh
does whatever he wants, even if that involves dastardly acts like
raping virgins before their marriage day and beating up every man, as
hes overly righteous and arrogant. Gilgamesh is so bad and so
unbearable that his people send prayers to the gods for relief. In the
quote of In Uruk the Sheepfold he would walk about, Show himself

superior, his head held high like a wild bull. The he stated here is
Gilgamesh, and show himself superior are direct references to
Gilgamesh fighting every man so he shows his dominance physically
and then him raping women is him showing his dominance sexually.
Also by comparing Gilgamesh to a wild bull, emphasis on wild, the
author explicates to the readers how out of control and intolerable
Gilgamesh has become. When juxtaposing that with Eugene
Fitzherbert, as a G-rated Disney film, the worst about Eugene is that
hes a crook. He goes by the name of Flynn Ryder, and as a wanted
thief, he steals everything because his only dream is to be surrounded
by jewels and money, isolated on his own private island. So, how each
man starts out similarly as lowly men when it comes to morals and
character, their change and character development begins with each
storys quest. With Gilgameshs quest for immortality after the death of
his best friend, Enkidu, and Flynns objective of obtaining the lost
princesss crown, a bejeweled crown more valued than anything in the
kingdom, they both find that their goals change over the course of
their journey and that theyre different people when they have come to
journeys end. From The Epic of Gilgamesh, quotes such as shall I
die too? Am I not like Enkidu? Grief has entered my innermost being, I
am afraid of Death, and so I roam open country. Here it shows
Gilgameshs fear of death as he talks about death as a physical being,
like a predator coming after him, and this is where his quest for

immortality begins. Making it to Utnapishtim at the edge of the world,

he realizes that he cannot be granted immortality in the way that
Utnapishtim was, but hes told, for a start, you must not sleep for six
days and seven nights. As soon as he was sitting, (his head?) between
his knees, Sleep breathed over him like a fog. In this quote, Gilgamesh
fails Utnapishtims suggestion of how he perhaps may cheat death. By
comparing sleep to fog and how it was believed that to sleep is to die a
little, the words fog become synonymous with death. Another example
that supports this is Death dropped down over them like a fog which
was used when Enkidu, Gilgameshs best friend and other half, died
earlier within the text, supporting the close fog and Death
relationship. After Gilgamesh has awoken, as if the fog clears, he has
realized how mortal he is signifying his change and character
development. More development occurs later after losing the magical
plant to the snake, as thats when he mentions the great walls of Uruk
that he built to signify how he now has come to accept death and
immortality is not what he needs as he is satisfied with the walls, or
the legacy, that will essentially be him living on, even after physical
death. When comparing this to Flynn Ryder, the audience sees in
Tangled a large mentioning of fog. In the duet between Rapunzel and
Flynn, this is the pivotal moment when he falls in love, changing his
values, and a line in the song called I See the Light is significantly
and at last I see the light, and its like the fog has lifted. Here, again

we have the mentioning of fog and as the fog has been lifted Flynn
Ryder sees how he doesnt want to live a life of thievery anymore
because materialistic items arent as valuable as things such as
bravery and love, in the same way that after the fog is lifted from
Gilgamesh, meaning that he awakes from sleep, he sees now that
living forever isnt as important and that he has to be accepting of
human mortality as hes still undoubtedly 1/3 mortal. In both works we
see how the quest changes the perceptions of these two males as they
grow away from ruffian status, finding who they are and what is truly
important to them. Its also important to notice how Flynn Ryders
name becomes Eugene Fitzherbert, a name from his past used when
he was a young orphan boy, a name he used to be extremely
embarrassed of, to support the idea of new identity and growth within
this character. And just like how Gilgamesh pressed his dominance
sexually over women as ruler or Uruk, early in the movie, Flynn Ryder
tries to seduce Rapunzel into letting him go when first captured, by
using the well known and comical lines of You leave me no choice, but
it comes time to smolder. At these specific lines, Flynns lips pucker
out, his eyes squint, and a jazzy tune plays to emphasize to the
audience Flynns comical intentions of seduction.
The next pieces of evidence of how similar these two works are
come in the form of the themes and motifs. The biggest piece of
evidence is the close idea of fog and death that occurs in both

works. Briefly mentioned in the above paragraphs and to continue,

when fog is mentioned in The Epic of Gilgamesh its always around
the idea of death. Look at the man who wants eternal life! Sleep
breathes over him like a fog! His wife spoke to him, to Utnapishtim the
far-distant In this quote, fog is already mentioned in the text when
Enkidu dies, and when Gilgamesh falls into a deep sleep after his
exhausting journey to Utnapishtim. By continuing to refer to sleep
falling over Gilgamesh like fog, carrying on the idea of how sleep was
thought to bring upon bits of death, and also how the death of Enkidu
brought on fog, all support fog being a representation of death itself.
When comparing this to Tangled, fog is seen specifically only in times
of fear and foreboding whenever Mother Gothel is there. This is
because Mother Gothel represents death. Going back to the lines from
I See the Light, with the lines of and at last I see the light, and its
like the fog has lifted, this is a direct reference to how Rapunzel has
left the tower on her own and how shes been without Mother Gothel,
as in the fog hasnt been there to blind her like Gothel did for years
with tales of horror about the outside world. As Mother Gothel has
been absent, Rapunzel is now able to see clearly, like how Gilgamesh
wakes up from his sleep and the fogs been lifted and he sees clearly
how mortal he really is. Other moments where fog completely encases
around Mother Gothel can be seen during her first attempt to take
Rapunzel back to the tower, fog fills the air and leaves quickly after

Gothel disappears away after a swish of her cloak. Also its only when
Gothel is there that fog is all around the edges of the seashore,
significantly making it hard for Rapunzel to see that Flynns actually
tied to the wheel of the ship and hes not sailing away like Gothel tricks
Rapunzel into thinking. Again, here we see support of how Gothel,
representing fog and death, blinds the sight of Rapunzel, tricking her,
in the same way that Gilgamesh was so blinded by his own fear for
death that his quest was like him trying to escape it.
Another example of themes and motifs supporting the almost
mirror similarity between The Epic of Gilgamesh and Tangled is the
idea of immortality in the physical form of a magical plant. In Tangled
the plant that Mother Gothel coveted all to herself which later became
infused into Rapunzel, specifically her hair, was created when a single
drop of sunlight fell from the heavens. In The Epic of Gilgamesh the
flower is described in the quotes of and let me tell you the secret of
the gods. There is a plant whose root is like camel-thorn, Whose thorn,
like a roses, will spike [your hands]. If you yourself can win that plant,
you will find rejuvenation. Physically, both plants are flowers. In
Tangled its depicted as an actual flower, and in The Epic of
Gilgamesh with comparisons to having thorns like a rose and the
snake being attracted to its fragrance, easily to be connoted with the
images of flowers, both are physically similar, although, beyond that,
both flowers represent everlasting youth. While in Tangled it was

Rapunzels mother who digested the flower, which infused into

Rapunzel, in The Epic of Gilgamesh it was the snake that digested
the plant, and both Rapunzel and the snake took in the plants magical
abilities. For the snake, this is an example of aetiology where because
the snake took in the magical plant, thats why snakes shed their skin
because theyre shedding away the old; signifying renewal of youth.
Interestingly enough, thats exactly how trickster Mother Gothel used
Rapunzel, to infuse herself with the magic and becoming young and
beautiful over and over again. More support can be seen in He took
the plant himself: it spiked [his hands]. He cut the heavy stones from
his feet. The sea threw him up on to its shore Urshanabi, this plant is
a plant to cure a crisis! With it a man may win the breath of life By
saying the breath of life that gives readers the idea of life being
given as easily as breath similar to how in Tangled whenever Gothel
sings to the magical plant or Rapunzels magic hair, her skin becomes
supple, her shoulders relax, and she inhales, breathing in new life in
the exact same way that its described in the quote above from The
Epic of Gilgamesh.
In conclusion, The Epic of Gilgamesh and Disneys Tangled,
released in 2010, scarily hold alike characters and symbols and motifs.
Even in the composition of the two works, they both contain ring
compositions. The movie begins with Eugene narrating and ends with
him narrating, opening with This is a story about how I died and

closing with the marriage of him and Rapunzel, and in The Epic of
Gilgamesh the walls of Uruk are mentioned and in the end of the
story, again, the mighty walls of Uruk are mentioned with Gilgamesh
saying Go up on the wall of Uruk inspect the foundation platform
and scrutinize the brickwork! Testify that its bricks are bake bricks, And
that the Seven Counsellors must have laid its foundations The walls
signify the legacy of Gilgamesh, though physically to the story, it is the
example of the authors use of ring composition; the same as in
Tangled, where its also interesting that Eugene in the beginning the
movie is Flynn Ryder stealing from the royal castle, and in the end of
the movie, hes back at the royal castle as Eugene Fitzherbert, a
changed man married to the princess who wears the crown he stole in
the first scene.