Ryan Larson - Kerouac and Gilgamesh

 I recently read Kerouac's On the Road, and I thought I might draw parallels between the character of Enkidu and the character of Dean Moriarty.

To start, I'd better summarize. In The Epic of Gilgamesh, Enkidu is a character created by the gods to be a sort of equal and opposite power to Gilgamesh-- Gilgamesh is too energetic for the people of Uruk to handle, so the gods make Enkidu to divert his exertions. Though they wrestle at first, the two quickly become friends. Enkidu, who comes from the wild, inspires Gilgamesh to go out into the cedar forest with him and kill a serpent/dragon creature of some sort named Humbaba. After the two insult the goddess Ishtar, Enkidu (spoiler alert) is cursed with some sort of wasting away disease that eventually kills him. In grief, Gilgamesh goes on an adventure to try and find the an escape from death.

On the Road is a semi-autobiographical novel, loosely based on Kerouac's adventures on the titular road across America and Mexico. Dean Moriarty, who could either be the guide or the villain depending on your interpretation, is a wild and intellectually impressive younger friend of Sal Paradise (the narrator and protagonist) who encourages him to go on many wild escapades. (Again, spoiler alert:) Over the course of the story, Dean transforms into less of a visionary and more as an object of pity and ridicule as his madness that originally inspired him to greatness eventually takes more of a hold on his mind.

The most obvious parallel between Enkidu and Dean is that both are a sort of wilder version of their story's protagonist. Enkidu literally comes from the wild, having been raised with animals, while Dean's wildness comes from the inside, as a sort of madness. Both characters encourage the hero to do things that both help and harm them in the long term. Enkidu diverts Gilgamesh's attention away from the townsfolk and encourages him on adventures, but as an indirect result of their victory in the cedar forest creates their eventual doom by hubris. Dean invites Sal along with him to the west, which 'opens his mind' and gives him many experiences to write about, but also hurts many side characters along the way (such as his many wives and girlfriends, and Sal himself near the end, in Mexico City) which leaves one wondering if he is too self-centered to be truly good. (However, Neal Cassady, the real-life inspiration for Dean, did inspire Kerouac's unique style of prose that we see in On the Road, so I suppose he can't be faulted for literary genius despite his shortcomings.)

 Though the match isn't perfect, it is interesting to see how the 'second self' concept from Gilgamesh shows itself (probably unintentionally or unconsciously) in other works of more contemporary writing.

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