This article is about world literature before 1660. I hope the professor who teaches ENG2205 help me.

Here is all of my teacher’s requirements.

Format: MLA-style documentation

For the paper in this class, you will create a close reading of three texts that explicates and interprets both texts through a common theme. Your goal is not simply to show how they differ; in a survey of World Literature, there are very few texts that are going to be similar in style or language. Rather, the goal of this paper is to create an interpretive argument about the works that is both unified and illuminating through careful study of a theme that develops over the course of the works.

For example, one could look at role of leadership in The Illiad, Gilgamesh, and The Art of War or the images of women and femininity in Metamorphoses, 1001 Nights, Tales of the Genji, and Gilgamesh, or the role of imagination and stories in Don Quixote, Metamorphoses, and The Thousand and One Nights. Please check with me regarding your theme before you begin the paper.

Your goal in examining a theme is to: 1) Identify the theme and 2) Show how exploring this theme allows the reader to gain a deeper understanding of the two works.

I submitted my draft to my professor and he gave me a feedback on my file. I hope u can according to his comment to modify my article.

I will give the links of my textbook.

A thesis for this paper should show your familiarity with the works and that your thoughts go beyond the surface and into the themes and issues raised by the works. No matter your choice, you want to approach the work as if there is deeper meaning beyond what is on the page.

Two external sources must be used in this paper, and these sources must be drawn from the MLA International Bibliography, accessed through the Troy Library here (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.. (The Prospectus Assignment will detail four potential sources you’ve identified that may help your paper–you must use two of those.)

From that link, scroll down to ‘Select a Database’ and go into the MLA Bibliography, Project MUSE, or JSTOR (check all three databases for your research). There will be more information forthcoming on doing literary research on the discussion boards. DO NOT just go to the Internet and do a Google search; there are countless on-line papers on these works. Using them will generally be a detriment to your work as they are generally awful papers and can lead you into a plagiarism case. Literary criticism is not history—it may be historical, but the goal of this paper is to explicate the texts in question, not examine their histories or the histories of the peoples and places that may have existed in antiquity.

Surname 1 Xinzhao Li Research Paper 07/21/2018 Women in Gilgamesh Women have been used by men for so long; they also have been deprived of their rights and privacy. There are many stories revolving around this topic of women being oppressed by the male gender. This is evident in the stories of Gilgamesh, The Thousand and One Nights to The Tale of Genji. In these narratives men use women to serve them and make decisions for them as they are seen more of objects and not people who can make decision on their own. Women are also used as sex tools as it is seen in the narrative of Gilgamesh where the king Gilgamesh chooses to kill Humbaba in order to win over Ishtar, the goddess of love and sex. This doings and acts are diminishing the impacts of women in the society as they degrade and look down upon and also according to (Lerner, p. 43) “Woman, in precivilized society, must have been man’s equal and may well have felt herself to be his superior”. This kills the self-esteem of the feminine gender and makes them not contribute their minds even in positions when they have a better perspective of a solution to some problem since they know they will be ignored and they do not get the chance of expressing what they know to the public. Gilgamesh story originated from the city of Uruk in Mesopotamia which is currently known as Iraq located in the Middle East region. Gilgamesh was a powerful king who ruled the city and he had many dimensions of ruling his kingdom but I am focusing on his life in regards to the aspect of women. Surname 2 The woman who is used to portray the conception of women in the story is Shamhat, she is described to be the priestess of Ishtar. Shamhat is given the role of instilling civilization into the wild man Enkidu by the reigning king Gilgamesh. The civilization that she was to make Enkidu included drinking and eating as quoted by Shamhat “Eat the bread, Enkidu, it is the staff of life. Drink the beer; it is the gift of the land” (MacKinnon, p. 88). Despite Shamhat being presented as a prostitute, she successfully managed to transform the life of the wild man Enkidu from worthless to a civilized man who can fit in the society. She is not molding Enkidu for herself but rather she is trying to make him a better person who can be able to make something nice out of his life. This act is extraordinary as no one can imagine a prostitute can shape someone into realizing himself without sexual involvement. Prostitutes are perceived to be sexual oriented people and that they cannot love and care genuinely. From the narrative, even the king himself did not expect as the quote explains “Enkidu became weak, unable to run as before, but his mind was filled with new wisdom” (Gale, p. 89). Shamhat made Enkidu discover the potential in him and this is a demonstration of true love that people do assume that prostitutes cannot possess. She finally presented Enkidu with the opportunity to change his life for the better and to discover what the world has to offer to him and by that “Enkidu became a man”. Women Another woman in the life of the heroic king is Ninsun who is described as the mother to the king Gilgamesh .Ninsun is portrayed in the story as a loving, caring, tender and nurturing goddess as the quote describes when king Gilgamesh tells his mother Ninsun of a dream he had about her; “Mother, I saw a dream in the night. There were stars in the sky for me. And (something) like a sky-bolt of Anu kept falling upon me! Surname 3 I tried to lift it up, but it was too heavy for me. I tried to turn it over, but I couldn’t budge it. The country (men) of Uruk were standing over [it]. [The countrymen had gathered (?)] Over it, The men crowded over it, The young men massed over it, They kissed its feet like very young children. I loved it as a wife, doted on it, [I carried it], and laid it at your feet, You treated it as equal to me.” The heroic king Gilgamesh is a descendant of a family of kings as described in the following quote “Two thirds of him was divine, and one-third mortal” and “Son of Lugalbanda, Gilgamesh, perfect in strength, son of lofty cow, whilst from his mother”. (Marzolph, p.75). Gilgamesh is portrayed to love his mother and this tries to expound that the relationship of a man with his mother is very different with the relationship of a man with other women. This two women describes how powerful women are despite of how they are pinned down by men. They have an undeniable strength that plays major roles in man’s life which is to show compassion and love which is hard to find from man to man instance. Life can be better if women were given the same treatment of respect and power like that or men. In the story, it is evident that women use their bodies as tools and means to control the thought process of a man This is depicted in the epic of Gilgamesh in “places of encounter, pp 85-99) and also they are portrayed to be in control of the men yet men control them when they are described as lustful spirit. We find that women had been struggling for power using all means Surname 4 and from my judgment I think men used that as an opportunity to take advantage of exploiting what women had to offer “their bodies” when they want access to what is presumed to belong to men in the story, things like power. In fact, the Epic reads, “Who is there can rival his kingly standing, and say like Gilgamesh, ‘It is I am the king?’ (Puchner)” The Epic reveals that “the Lady of the Gods drew his form of his figure, while his build was perfected by divine Nidimmud (Puchner).” There is no difference in the narrative of the Tale of the Genji and the thousand and one night’s narrative as the feminine gender is portrayed as always under the man gender. The difference between the two narratives is that the story of the thousand and One Nights describe the modern day lifestyle and view of a woman in the society unlike the Tale of the Genji where the feminine gender used to be viewed as inferior to man in all aspects of life. This includes the intellectual aspect, social aspect, political aspect and ownership of resources. In the one thousand and one nights, women are described to be running for power, participate in voting and even doing office jobs; there are no such things in the tale of Genji where women are described to be working for men, get married to men and obey rules set by men. Women can share a man and they cannot object anything men order them to do but the men cannot share a man. It even sounds disgusting to imagine men sharing a woman but women sharing a man sound normal, all this aspect were brought up by the women oppression in the ancient times. Genji is described to be a loving person as he cares of his son so much and also he is described to never lose respect to women who he had created bonds with. In a way he is portrayed as a successful politician as he reigns as an emperor in the narrative, he faced no opposition for longest time as he ruled. Surname 5 The narrative in the Tale of Genji generally tries to describe the positions that women hold in the society in terms of their abilities and their intellectual capabilities (Hosoi, et al. N.p) The story reveals that even if tales refer to women as manipulative and servants to men, there is hope that women will gain balance in the society and be in a position to make choices of their own and act freely as the men around them without feeling inferior. The best example comes from the Epic of Gilgamesh where Ninsun brings a better feeling of advice and light to the family and community at large. The image of the woman is not lost regardless of the numerous negative issues that happen to them. The text helps in redefining the need for a woman in the world. Also in the story of the Iliad, the mortal women are treated as objects rather than being treated as human beings. This is universal and is a common practice even in the superior beings in the narrative as it is described that even when the gods try to treat the goddesses equally they quickly assert themselves and claim equal power. This demonstration itself shows how women have subjected themselves into the idea of being inferior to men such that they still fight for power even when they have the glory (Gale, p. 75). In the story of the Iliad, we see that even though men worship goddesses they still treat the women as objects and are considered to be the lesser beings as they are talked about as “prizes” of “gifts”. This is clearly portrayed when Chryseis father brings “a rich treasure to ransom his daughter” (Marzolph, p.75). This statement to the father of Chryseis is described to be an act of love where he considered her more valuable than all the other riches and treasures. But on the other hand Agamemnon views her as a property and as his prize and he will not let her go because according to him Chryseis does not mean anything more than that he was able to take her which in other words is the price he paid for the equivalent prize the father to the girl received. Surname 6 Agamemnon is portrayed to represent the kind of men in the society who treat women as just property and do not consider that they are human beings and they have feelings too. The story goes on using Agamemnon to show how women are looked down upon by men when he eventually agrees to give back Chryseis for the greater good, he gets mad at those people who remind him or talk to him about the incident of giving her back. This shows that according to him, it was up to him to choose if the girl was going back or not and the girl did not have a choice of opting to go back home at her own will (Hosoi, p. 1). The woman in this narrative is deprived powers and made powerless to the extent they have no choice but to obey and suffer when they are subjected to harsh conditions which they do not feel happy about. The looking down and despising of women goes on in the story when Agamemnon takes Achilles “prize” just to disrespect him, and prize in this context is a woman .He also goes ahead and tells Achilles that he is going to take Briseis himself “to show how much I am stronger than you are” (MacKinnon, p. 90). This act shows that women are used as the objects to measure strength amongst men, the strong man have many women as they please. Agamemnon is also described to offer many different objects to Achilles in order to get him to fight including “seven women skillful in women’s work, the most beautiful women in the world”. In conclusion what stands out in the narrative is gender equality, as there are some cultures in the modern day that women are still being oppressed and given no rights which equals those of a man and also the timelessness cannot be given the blind eye as the narrative can fit in into the modern day political hierarchy. Surname 7

Works Cited Gale, C. L. (2015). A Study Guide for The Epic of Gilgamesh. Gale, Cengage Learning. Pg. 6898 retrived from https://ung.edu/university-press/books/compact-anthology-worldliterature.php Hosoi, H., Yamagata, T., Ikarashi, Y., & Fujisawa, N. (2014). Visualization of Special Features in “The Tale of Genji” by Text Mining and Correspondence Analysis with Clustering. Journal of Flow Control, Measurement & Visualization, 2(01), 1. MacKinnon, A. (2018). The Epic of Gilgamesh.