Human to toad. Beautiful sirens. Homer’s text and the video “Oh Brother Where Art Thou” are similar in some ways and different in many. There are multiple versions of one story. People think differently, so when they read something they may get two completely different things from it. Both Homer’s text and the video “Oh Brother, Where Art Thou” exhibit many similarities. First, the sirens are very harmonious and irresistible. Also, there is a character in the two sources that has his hand bound. Similarly, the stories are both set by a body of water. Homer's text states that “with their polished blades whitened the deep.” Despite the multiple similarities, they also have differences. In the video “Oh Brother Where Art Thou”
Every story uses archetypes, including the Odyssey. Since the movie Oh Brother! was based on the Odyssey, they both share and have differences in archetypes. They use the same archetypes in the form of the hero, the temptress, and the fall. These archetypes are used the same and differently in these stories as seen in these examples.
Written by Ethan and Joel Coen and released on DVD by Touchstone Pictures and Universal Pictures in 2001, O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU? is supposed to be the first professional film in history to be digitally enhanced, in its entirety. The movie is a loose adaptation of the epic poem The Odyssey in which three escaped convicts; Everett Ulysses McGill (George Clooney,) and his two partners Delmar (Tim Blake Nelson) and Pete (John Turturro) experience the adventures of “Ulysses” (Homer) in varying ways. The actors meet along their way: “the Blind Prophet, the Cyclops, and the Sirens,” (Homer) all members of The Odyssey. This is intermixed with characters from the 1930’s including Baby Faced Nelson (Michael Badalucco,) a KKK mob, and a Governor (Charles Durning) running for reelection, which sets the period of the film. The period depicted, the Dust Bowl, gave Joel Coen director of the film rise to the need for digital manipulation of the production to achieve consistency in appearance and feel. The idea of using digital manipulation, and digital mastering of an entire film, has allowed the process of creating a film to be forever changed enhancing the pleasure of the viewer.
Pop culture’s mythology theory is used in many forms of media today, from The Legend of Zelda in video games to “Harry Potter in books. One example of usage of the mythology theory is the 1996 movie, O Brother, Where Art Thou? directed by Joel Coen. This movie is based off Homer’s epic poem, “The Odyssey.” There are many similarities between the two, yet at the same time, there are many differences.
Homer’s Odyssey is the iconic story of a man’s episodic journey home. The film, O Brother Where Art Thou, is a justifiable homage to the Odyssey because of the many parallels between some of the major characters depicted in the movie and the epic poem. The movie is set in the 1930s in the state of Mississippi, changing the characters in social demeanor, but retaining their motivation and major plot points.
Both these poems do indeed have unique interpretations, depending on the reader. However, the methods that the two great poets used to make send those powerful messages are sometimes similar, but in this case largely different. Once one looks past the similarities of man entering water, the two poems have entirely different stories to tell, in very contrasting ways. Each poet has used effective diction, as well as very striking symbolism and imagery. The fact that they are different just shows how many ways there are to write a great poem, the only thing needed in common is the desire, feeling and will.
The film begins with a summoning of the Muse taken from Homer’s summons in The Odyssey. The writers pray to a higher power to tell them the story “of that man skilled in all the ways of contending…A wanderer, harried for years on end” (O Brother, Where Art Thou?). This is a direct and purposeful quote from Robert Fitzgerald’s 1961 translation of The Odyssey. By opening O Brother, Where Art Thou? with the same invocation of the Muse as Homer, the Coens creates a direct correlation between the two works early on. This tells the audience that they should expect the direction of the plot to mimic that of The Odyssey.
There are occasions in both works where characters make the mistake of using their personal manner in inappropriate settings. In The Odyssey, Odysseus incorrectly assumes that the Cyclopes, Polyphemos, would be welcoming of him.
...journey that is taken by a man. Throughout both tales, the audience is habituated with the sense that both characters are on this journey. The journey, in both cases, is fought for family, which is indeed quite noble. Of course, human nature is a key similarity as well, as both of these men go great lengths in order to finally make it back to where they came from and to find true happiness. And as said before, both “The Odyssey” and “O Brother Where Art Thou?” can be thought of as stories of a man coming home, with all of the characters playing their parts to create a true epic. The small details are not what make these two tales similar. Instead, the creators used broad, yet powerful concepts about friendship, hardship, and love. And in the end, this pays off very well, giving the audience a great opening into a true world where human emotion and nature rule all.
Have you ever been so focused on achieving your dreams that you become unaware of your current situation? When we focus on the goals ahead of us, we fail to see the obstacles and dangers that are in front of us. In order to achieve our goals we involuntarily put ourselves in an unwanted situation. Connie, herself, struggles to achieve her goal of being a desirable girl that turns heads when she walks into the room. She becomes so set on being this girl that she doesn’t realize the danger of the situation. In “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” Oates utilizes metaphors, diction, and imagery to show how Connie is in a constant tug between her reality and her dreams, and how this confines her freedoms in a world that is surrounded with malevolence.
Everyone faces obstacles in their daily lives which try to restrain people from prospering. However, these obstacles never stop them from succeeding. This idea is used in The Odyssey by Homer and O’Brother, Where Art Thou by the Coen Brothers. The epic poem and the film revolve around two protagonists who desire to return home to their wife and children. On their journey, they face several challenges. Each of these obstacles that slow the protagonists down are shown in different ways between the two stories, but they are related. These relations are shown in the Odyssey and in O’Brother Where Art Thou through the Lotus Eaters being the people in the river, Charybdis representing the KKK, and King Aeolius symbolizing the blind man in the
Some of these differences include the men driving a truck rather that rowing a boat. In the text, Homer states “My gallant bark approached the Siren’s Isle” while in the movie clip, the three men are driving a truck when they hear the Sirens. Another difference is in the movie, the men went to the Sirens, while in the text, the Sirens approached Odysseus and his squadron stating “avoid the dangerous song.” Lastly, a third difference between the text and the video is that Odysseus fills his men's ears with wax. “A waxen cake, chafed it and moulded it between my palms…with that liniment I fill’d the ears of my companions, man by man” explains how Odysseus stuffed wax in his men's ears contrasting to “O Brother Where Art Thou” in which none of the men have wax in their
The Odyssey, a poem written by a man named Homer, who is illustrating the approach of Odysseus’ traveling home to grasp back his sovereign power as king in Ithaca, for ten years following the Trojan War. In the poem, Homer maneuvers numerous amounts of diction to add gruesome and agonizing tones to demonstrate the complications Odysseus’ and his crew mates go from the beginning to the end of the journey in southern Greece and cross the Indian Ocean. As a result of diction being applied from start to finish in the story, it establishes an understanding of the poem in an experiential approach for the audience.
On the other hand, the two poems share some similarities. Blake referred to nature in both poems. Moreover, he alluded to the Bible in each. Both poems have the quality of a song and have a rhyming scheme, although different
Moore’s “The Fish”, was written in 1921 while Bishop’s “The Fish” was written over twenty years later (1945). The most obvious similarity is that of their choice of subject. Additionally, each poem has elements of war and that is only
The Odyssey by Homer is a story that has been told countless times over several thousand years with many different versions. O Brother, Where Art Thou? is one of these versions. Even though this movie is considered to be one of the better adaptations of The Odyssey, it has some details that make it undeniably American. The main parts of the story are there, such as the Cyclops, and Odysseus escaping Ogygia, but things such as the Klu Klux Klan (KKK), and the music played throughout the movie make it distinctly American.