Perspective

The perspective of these myths alters with each story. In most cases, the tale is told from a third-person perspective, as a witness to the actions of the gods. The narrator rarely appears to be a first-hand witness of the proceedings, but appears instead to be retelling a tale that has been told to him. Since history now shows a tradition of oral storytelling among the people of Mesopotamia, this method works well to transfer the oral story to written dialog. In a few rare cases, a tablet will appear written by the god or person of whom the tablet speaks, making portions of the tale nearly first-person. However, it is an unwritten assumption that those portions are merely written in first person view from a third party to elaborate the feelings and emotions of the gods. The biases of the narration are specific to the myth being...