Unveiling the Shadow
Lessons From the Myth of Gilgamesh
How do we confront the hidden parts of ourselves that we are taught to deny?
The ancient myth of Gilgamesh, one of the oldest stories known to humanity, offers ancient insights into this question. This epic is one of the foundational pieces studied in Depth Psychology, one that introduces a concept we know in modern times to be the shadow. Through the journey of Gilgamesh and his encounters with various characters, we explore the Jungian concept of the shadow—the unconscious aspects of our personality that we repress and project onto others.
The Jungian concept of shadow is defined as any of the unconscious material or personality that one has learned and worked to push to the back of the psyche.
“We all are born whole but somehow the culture demands that we live out only part of our nature and refuse other parts of our inheritance.”
– Robert A Johnson
What remains in the foreground is the ego, and what is shown to the outer world—the persona. Projection goes hand in hand with shadow as a concept. Most of us walk around very unaware of the parts of ourselves that have been hidden for cultural survival, so when we happen upon someone who exhibits even the smallest bit of these hidden traits, it triggers a reaction. Jungian psychologist, Marie-Louise von Franz, pointed out that this process is mostly unknown. She said in her book Projection and Re-collection in Jungian Psychology,
“Jung defined projection as an unconscious, that is, unperceived and unintentional transfer of subjective psychic elements onto an outer object.”
People also do not want to see that these traits actually lie within them, and so they assume this is the character of the other person because projecting is easier than assimilating.
The Epic follows the adventures of Gilgamesh, the king of Uruk, and his companion Enkidu. Gilgamesh is a powerful and arrogant ruler who oppresses his people, leading them to pray to the gods for relief. In response, the gods create Enkidu, a wild man who becomes Gilgamesh’s friend and equal. Together, they embark on various quests, including the slaying of the monster Humbaba and the Bull of Heaven. The story explores themes of friendship, mortality, and the quest for immortality. Throughout the myth, we see both shadow and projection within the village people, Gilgamesh and Enkidu, and even the gods and goddesses. The villagers of Uruk see an unencumbered selfishness in Gilgamesh; he oppresses the young people of the village and they beseech the Gods for their aid.
Yet, is there not a hidden piece in all of us, one that longs for or encompasses the ability to rule?
“It is not the monsters of the world who make such chaos but the collective shadow to which every one of us has contributed”
– Robert A Johnson
While the villagers are disgusted by many of Gilgamesh’s traits (and thus, their own unconscious desires), they also still revere him as a hero and God in his own right. Robert A. Johnson, said that there is shadow and projection in the hidden positive qualities of ourselves as well, that
“our hero-worshipping capacity is pure shadow; in this case our finest qualities are refused and laid on another”.
It is almost as hard for people to accept the amazing, and sometimes hero-like qualities, they each possess and, in turn, these pieces are also forced into our shadow. Our admiration for heroes often reflects our own unrecognized potential and greatness.
The relationship between Gilgamesh and Enkidu is steeped in shadow and projection. Enkidu is a wild man created by the Gods to be a counterpart to Gilgamesh. Enkidu is created by the Gods as a literal embodiment of Gilgamesh’s shadow side.
“Two-thirds animal to Gilgamesh’s two-thirds divine . . . Where Gilgamesh is arrogant, Enkidu is childlike; where Gilgamesh is violent, Enkidu is peaceful”
– Stephen Mitchell
Anu, father of the Gods, asks Aruru, the mother Goddess, to create a mirror-image of Gilgamesh in order to create balance.
“Create a new hero, let them balance each other perfectly, so that Uruk has peace”
–Stephen Mitchell
If Gilgamesh is faced with a physical version of his shadow, will he then learn to accept and integrate it into his consciousness? In the first meeting between the two heroes, there is more projection than integration. Both of them are stirred by the other’s perceived offensive differences and fight, and yet those offensive pieces are alive in each of them, completely unknown to them. It is not until after Enkidu’s death and Gilgamesh’s grief-fueled wandering that we see Gilgamesh beginning to incorporate the traits in Enkidu that we, as the readers know, have potentially been in him all along.
The myth also explores the dynamics between Gilgamesh and the goddess Ishtar. Although translator and author Stephen Mitchell discussed the lack of an adequate explanation for the vicious treatment of Ishtar by Gilgamesh and Enkidu, when looking at it through a depth psychological lens it has the quality of more shadow and projection. During the exchange between the goddess Ishtar and Gilgamesh after he and Enkidu return from slaying the beast Humbaba, Ishtar makes a romantic advance at Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh’s response is intense and incredibly insulting. He saw in Ishtar elements of himself, and it caused him to pull back and react in disgust. Rather than sitting with the question of why, he leans into his shadow-side as he verbally assaults her, throwing projection after projection of himself onto her. According to Johnson,
“unless we do conscious work on it, the shadow is almost always projected; that is, it is neatly laid on someone or something else so we do not have to take responsibility for it”.
In Ishtar’s case, Gilgamesh’s shadow was not neatly laid on her, but rather thrown in her face as both insults and as the ripped off thigh of the beast Humbaba.
The myth of Gilgamesh is rich with themes that challenge us to look within. There is so much in this myth that triggers strong reactions: prostitution, murder, arrogance, selfishness. These elements force us to confront the parts of ourselves we are not willing to examine and own as part of our own shadows. The myth of Gilgamesh has stood the test of time as a story about a man losing and then finding himself, about friendship and love, the perils of violence and selfishness, and about the importance of working toward wholeness of self. True shadow integration is nothing but a pipe dream for most people, but the desire to reach that truth runs deep in humanity.
“To own one’s own shadow is to reach a holy place-an inner center- not attainable in any other way. To fail this is to fail one’s own sainthood and to miss the purpose of life”
– Robert A Johnson