The Enuma Elish Literary Elements

Ancient Creation Myth; Religious Text

Written in Babylon in either 1800 or 1100 BCE; Set in primordial times in the realm of the heavens

Third-person omniscient narrator; The point of view relates to the religious nature of the text. The text makes no claim to be divinely revealed to a prophet, but it likely has its origination in oral tradition.

Epic, melodramatic, violent, gory.

Marduk is the protagonist; Tiamat is the antagonist

Tiamat regrets helping her children overthrow her husband. So, she raises an army to wage war against them and make a push for control over the heavens.

Marduk is raised as the epic hero to fight Tiamat. He devises an ingenious plan to snare her in his electric fire and once she is incapacitated, to finish her with a spear. When he does this, he also creates reality as it exists.

When Marduk is raised as a hero, he foreshadows that he will reign over the heavens as the king of the Mesopotamian gods by saying that he wants everyone to proclaim that his 'fate is preeminent.'

Also, the first depiction of Marduk includes the manner by which he will kill Tiamat, namely by trapping her in fire.

Marduk's claim that his 'fate is preeminent,' is an understatement, in that what he actually means is that he will become the lord of the gods, and that his will will be dominant.

The myth contains allusions to other religious texts, especially the ancient Sumerian texts, but most notably, it corresponds directly to texts in the Hebrew creation account. Because both have their roots in oral tradition, which came first is not clear, although what is more likely is that they share a common ancestor.

This myth is one of the most powerful uses of elemental imagery in any near-eastern myth. The primordial, chaotic gods are shown as water, Marduk is shown as fire, the body of Tiamat becomes the heavens and seas, the imagery of the deicide are highly pronounced, there is imagery of divine serpents and gory battles. This text could be studied solely for its use of imagery.

The entire setting of the myth is paradoxical in nature. Because the human mind understands that order descends into chaos, the myth paradoxically suggests that actually, the creation of the world happened the other way around. Also, the text paradoxically suggests that fire defeats water, even though the commonly understood imagery is the other way around.

The parallel accounts of the fall of Abzu at the hand of Ea and the fall of Tiamat at the hand of Marduk are quite clear. There is also parallelism in the creation of the world and the elemental forces of the heavens.

An argument could be made that the gods themselves are metonymous, although that would preclude the Babylon religious worship of these gods. But the gods are seen to be one in nature with the elemental forces, so they are metonyms.

The story is synecdochic as well, in that it particularizes the relationships between the elements that resulted in the creation of matter, order and life.

The gods are personified, because they are shown to have human qualities, even though in form and nature, they are obviously much different than humans. They are shown to partake in marriage and political alliances, and they are shown to have human emotions and motives.