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Homer’s odyssey and the coen brothers’ o brother, where art thou
O brother, where art thou the odyssey comparison
How does oh brother where art thou compared with the odyssey
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O Brother, Where Art Thou, a film written and directed by the Coen brothers, is a modern day interpretation of Homer’s ancient epic the Odyssey. The opening credits of the movie quote the invocation of the Muse from the first lines of the epic: “Oh Muse sing in me, and through me tell the story of the man skilled in all the ways of contending, A wanderer, harried for years on end”. The film follows Ulysses Everett McGill (portrayed by George Clooney), a depression era Odysseus, and his men Delmar O’Donnell (Tim Nelson), and Pete Hogwallop (John Turturro). The three men are escaped convicts, running from the law through the Deep South in an effort to reach home and split a (truly non-existent) treasure. The leader of their group, Ulysses Everett McGill (from here on referred to as Everett), is a smooth talking self-professed lawyer with extreme egotistical issues. Pride is a theme in both the movie as well as the original epic. In both the Odyssey and O Brother, Where Art Thou his pride is the source of many dilemmas. The visual symbol of this pride throughout the movie is Everett’s Dapper Dan pomade. The character of Everett has many Odyssean qualities: his cunning, his intelligence, his mastery of words, and, most notably, his stubborn pride. Odysseus’ downfall in the Odyssey is his overwhelming need to be remembered in name and deed. As a hero this is his tragic flaw. By the time he is introduced in the epic he has already been wandering for many years. He then narrates how he ended up in such a sad state, unable to reach his home in Ithaca. It all started with his encounter with the Cyclops, Polyphemus, on his way home from the Trojan War. Polyphemus is the son of Poseidon, the god of the seas. He entraps Odysseus and his men ... ... middle of paper ... ...ett’s prayer- it is questionable whether or not either of the two heroes have truly changed their ways. But, as Everett says in his concluding lines, “All is well, that ends well” and both men are able to achieve their goals. Odysseus is able to reach his home and Everett is pardoned and reunited with his wife and daughters. Works Cited Fagles, Robert. "Book Nine: In The One-Eyed Giants Cave." The Odyssey. New York, New York: Penguin Group, 1996. . Print. O brother, where art thou?. Dir. Joel and Ethan Coen. Touchstone Home Video, 2001 "O Brother, Where Art Thou?." IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 1 May 2014. . Scott, Gabriel. "Analyzing the Coen’s O Brother! Where Art Thou? to Homer’s The Odyssey.”. N.p., 1 Feb. 2011. Web. 27 Apr. 2014. .
Homer, 12. 301-305. In O Brother, Where Art Thou, Everett also showed his perseverance. While trying to get back to his wife, he also faces many obstacles that he must overcome. There were many people and things keeping him from where he was going, but he pushed through and got there anyway.
Many of the characters in O Brother, Where Art Thou? are similar to characters in the Odyssey. Everett’s wife is like Penelope. Both of their husbands had been away and both had suitors. The difference though, is Everett’s wife was willingly engaged to a suitor, whereas Penelope never stopped believing her husband was dead. She told Odysseus “Ruses served my [Penelope] turn to draw the time out.” Ruses are tricks. That means Penelope tricked the suitors into waiting for her hand in marriage.
Homer, The Odyssey, The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces, ed. Maynard Mack, Expanded Edition, (New York: W. W. Norton, 1995), pp. 219-503.
In both Homer’s The Odyssey and the film O Brother, Where Art Thou? the audience is given an opportunity to experience a spectacular adventure, filled with not only the sense of journey, but also the senses of peril and excitement. A tale about a Greek hero being compared to a film set in Middle America starring three jail-escapees seems rather far-fetched. However, upon closer inspection, both actually share a lot in common. The Odyssey stars Odysseus, a man famous for his heroics in the Trojan War. O Brother, Where Art Thou? shows a bit of a contrast by starring Ulysses, a former convict who escaped and began looking for “A Treasure”. So by default, one would assume that that these two stories would be completely different. However, it ends up being quite the opposite. The two stories are so remarkably alike that it is almost staggering. However, it may not just be simple similarities that make the two so alike. The main reasons why the two characters are so alike are not so much the actions that they take, as oppose to the overall human emotional aspect of the two pieces of work. For example, we see that both Odysseus and Ulysses are invested in their lives with their families, and as such, they never have a moment where they stop thinking about the lives they used to live. Both characters are extremely alike in terms of thoughts, skills, and experiences. They are both profound tacticians, as well as being rather strong and good looking men. So in the end, both of these men have plenty in common on the emotional and psychological levels.
The Odyssey and O Brother Where Art Thou are considered a representation of each other in some ways and prove more similar than it is commonly thought. Although the overall persona of each portrayal is quite different, it still illustrates the same message. A good lesson to be learned from this comparison is to contemplate your actions to prevent bleak situations from occurring. The characters in these tales had to understand the consequences by experiencing it themselves. Acknowledging the time period that these voyages took place in, they didn't have anybody to teach them proper ways to go about situations.
Homer (Translated by Robert Fagles. Preface by Bernard Knox). The Odyssey. New York: Viking Penguin, div. of Penguin Books, Ltd. 1996.
Homer. ?The Odyssey,? World Masterpieces: Expanded Edition. Maynard Mack ed. Ed. Coptic St.: Prentice, 1995.
Lattimore, Richard. Introduction. The Iliad of Homer. New York: University of Chicago Press. 1961. 7–55.
Homer. “The Odyssey”. The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Ed. Martin Puncher. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2012. 475. Print.
Homer. The Odyssey: Fitzgerald Translation. Trans. Robert Fitzgerald. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998. Print.
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.
Heubeck, Alfred, J.B. Hainsworth, et al. A commentary on Homer's Odyssey. 3 Vols. Oxford PA4167 .H4813 1988
Odysseus is often times considered a hero for triumphing, for living through the many challenges that he has to face over the course of The Odyssey. He defeats the mighty cyclops, he braves years away from home fighting one battle after the other and makes it home alive. Many times he has the chance to give in to death, to end his suffering, however he doesn’t take his chance and he continues fighting. He survives. However Homer doesn’t put it in that light, he doesn’t centralize the idea of life in The Odyssey but rather the idea of death, and all that it brings, or fails to bring.
The challenges that Homer give the protagonist is all a test of character. Odysseus continues to pass the obstacles with flying colors, but his arrogance is the one flaw that is in dire need of correction. Some of the many challenges Odysseus overcomes on his voyage home is defeating the Cicones, surviving the Island of the Lotus Eaters, outsmarting the Giant Cyclops, saving his men from Circe, Traveling to Hades, passing between Scylla and Charybdis, escaping Calypsos’ Island and many more. Odysseus survives these obstacles and uses his smarts to escape near disaster. Often times he was the only one to survive these things and his crew often lost their lives due to their own stupidity. “‘We left the island and resumed our journey in a state of gloom; and the heart was taken out of my men by the wearisome rowing. But was our own stupidity that had deprived us of the wind.’”(P127 L75-79) Odysseus shows how he is an extraordinary man by being much smarter than his crew and the men that follow him. As a part of this stripping of Odysseus, Homer shows that Odysseus is a collective symbol of Everyman. On the one hand Odysseus is a great warrior, who is extremely intelligent, noble, and a great man. Although he has many god- like qualities he is still human. He shows that he is human and like every man, because of the fact that he still has major flaws. The
Heubeck, Alfred, J.B. Hainsworth, et al. A commentary on Homer's Odyssey. 3 Vols. Oxford 1988