Foucauldian Power as a Means of Transformation : Gilgamesh’s Journey to Immortal Deeds

الملخص

This paper investigates the epic of Gilgamesh's profound moral and behavioural transformation, utilising Michel Foucault's theory of power. The study rejects sovereign or episodic models of domination and instead examines power as pervasive, relational, and productive, operating through discursive formations, techniques of subjectivation, and power/knowledge networks. The interactions with other subjects, divine actors, and cultural discourses lead to changes in Gilgamesh's selfhood and practices of rule, as evidenced by close readings of key episodes (the confrontation and subsequent friendship with Enkidu, Enkidu's death, and Gilgamesh's quest for immortality). The analysis demonstrates that Enkidu serves as both a site of resistance and a formative agent of subjectivation, while Gilgamesh's ethical horizon is reconstituted by encounters with the gods and the recognition of mortality. The paper contends that Gilgamesh's final transition toward legacy-building and just governance is most effectively interpreted as the consequence of distributed power relations that reshape his potential for action, rather than as a straightforward inward moral epiphany. This Foucauldian interpretation elucidates the productive operation of power in ancient epic narrative and contributes to the broader discourse on subject formation, authority, and resistance in classical texts.