Mirroring in stories are usually used show the same person from contradicting perspectives. Even when looking in a broken mirror, the person stays the same, however, when looking from the mirror’s view it’s a distorted image. The story Gilgamesh, edited by Stephen Mitchell, uses duality to convey how the same person reacts to being exposed to two opposite scenarios. Gilgamesh is a telling of a lonely king with god-like powers, until one day, the gods finally make him a companion named Enkidu who is equal to him. Within this epic, there are many examples of duality, but there are three main ones which are: Gilgamesh and Enkidu themselves, Gilgamesh and Enkidu's battle against Humbaba and later the Bull of Heaven, and the contrast between Gilgamesh at the beginning of the story and at the end.

In the epic, Gilgamesh has no one to rival him which causes him to do whatever he wants to his people. His suffer from his tyranny, so then they pray to the gods for help. The gods hear their cry and decide …show more content…
In their fight with Humbaba they won. However, during the battle against the Bull of Heaven, they win the fight but it causes Enkidu’s to be condemned to death. ““I dreamed we had offended the gods, they met in council and Anu said, ‘They have slaughtered the Bull of Heaven and Humbaba, watchman of the Cedar Forest. Therefore, one of the two must die.’ Then Enlil said to him, ‘Enkidu, not Gilgamesh, is the one who must die’””(141). The death is so grave to Gilgamesh that it might as well have been a loss. The victory over Humbaba mirrors the loss caused by the Bull of Heaven. Since the situations reflect each other it demonstrates duality, when Gilgamesh wins it makes him glorious and immortal in some sense but, losing makes him think of his own mortality. This conveys how two different outcomes of the same situation can cause two extremely