Why Water?

          While I was doing research for my allusions project, which happened to be “Noah and the flood” I found that great floods have been a common theme among many literary works through out history. Much like a creation myth many civilizations and societies all had a story pertaining to a great flood that destroyed many lives. Many of these stories began with a god or multiple gods being angry with mankind and punishing them for whatever the reason be, and they all have a hero.

     The story of Noah and the flood began when god realized the wickedness of mankind and the people of the earth. He decided he had no other choice but to destroy them all and wipe them off the face of the earth. In all of these stories however there is an exception to the destruction of all the people. In the bible it was Noah and he built the ark that saved his family and the animals of the world. In the Epic of Gilgamesh the god Enlil is the destroyer and is punishing the humans for the excessive noise they make. The Hero in this story is Ut-napištim. In the Greek tail Zues gets angry with people for their sinning and Deucalion has to save the human race. The examples go on and on the stories are like a formula. A destroyer, usually a god of some sort gets angry with mankind and makes them pay for their wrong doings. There is a hero who saves the race of mankind and usually the deity or deities come around to say they will not try and wipe mankind out again. However this pattern constantly showing up through out history made me wonder, why flooding? Or rains? Why is the destruction constantly caused by water and not anything else? Why of all the ways to destroy the mankind do these god or gods choose water?

     The explanation I came up with is that water is a necessity for living, so maybe the gods found it ironic that something that is essential for all life could also destroy it.  Also with the destructive force of water comes the ark and all that it encompasses. The ark is a universal symbol for safety and protection. This could mean the protection from god or the gods. This could lead one to believe that even though in all these stories the god or gods is angry with humankind and trying to punish them that faith in humanity was never fully lost. The god or gods providing the hero with instructions to build an ark mean that he/she/they never gave up on humankind entirely and there is always room for forgiveness, (which many of these stories end with). If water was not the destructive force in attempting to wipe out human kind then there would be no use for an Ark. And if there is no ark then does that mean that god/gods have entirely given up on the human race? I don’t know. This is just the explanation I came up with I’d like to know your take on it though.