What Are The Differences Between The Odyssey Book And Movie

“The arrow struck Antinous in the throat, and the point went clean through his neck, so that he fell over and the cup dropped from his hand, while a thick stream of blood gushed from his nostrils.”(267). There are many similarities and differences between the book, The Odyssey, and the movie. The Odyssey starts out with ody stuck on an island with a goddess, Calypso. He escapes this island and begins the journey home. He faces many trials and obstacles in this journey. As his journey comes to an end a new adventure begins. His house is filled with rude suitors, trying to marry his wife and eating all his livestock. He takes his revenge on them and slaughters them all. The movie is a bit different out starts out with 3 men, Everett, Pete,

and Delmar, escaping from a prison farm to retrieve the treasure that Everett buried before he was imprisoned.

The warden from the prison is tracking them and makes their journey harder. They meet many people along the way. It turns out that Everett never really had any treasure, he just need to break out because his wife was getting remarried, and he felt the need to stop her. There many similarities, such as the plot characters, characterization, and motifs. Overall, there are many similarities and differences between the book, The Odyssey, and the movie, “O Brother, Where Art Thou?, but the movie tells the story better.

Next, there are many similarities between the Odyssey and “O Brother Where Art Thou?”, some including characters, characterization, and plot. First, The characters are alike in many ways. Odysseus and Everett are meant to be the same character. Pete and Delmar from the movie, are supposed to represent Odysseus’s crew, although they do not always act like the crew did. Next, the plot is similar to the book, The Odyssey. The three women singing are meant to be the sirens from the Odyssey. They draw the men into their trap, although it may not be killing them in the movie, but they turn Pete in for the bounty.

Thirdly, the characterization is similar. Odysseus has great pride, which is represented through Everetts pride for his hair in the movie. He takes great pride in his hair and hair treatment. This is shown through him wanting a hair net, arguing with Pete and Delmar about it, and many other things. Odysseus takes great pride in his power and how everyone likes him. He just has to be the best of the best. He isn’t happy with great, it has to be excellent. For proof look no further than the scene with the cyclops, “We soon reached his cave, but he was out shepherding, so we went inside and took stock of all that we could see.”(105). This quote proves that Odysseus had excessive pride because he could have easily left the cyclops alone but NOOO they must mess with him, which ends up getting people killed. Odysseus loses some of his pride when he comes back and the people are going crazy over him and he basically tells them to stop. This is represented in the movie by when the are fixing to be hung and the wave comes and the cans of pomade (which represent Everetts pride for his hair, which represents Odysseus’s pride) floating around in the water. These cans of pomade floating in the water represent Everett losing his pride because his hair and hair treatment is his pride. In, conclusion, there are many similarities between The Odyssey and “O Brother Where Art Thou”.
Next, there are many differences between the movie and the book, such as characterization, characters, and plot. First, the plot is different. For example, in the movie, there is no bag of winds to take Everett and his “crew” back home. Another difference is that there was only 2 men following Everett rather than a whole crew. Next, there is a very large difference in the characterization of the crew. In the book, the crew is always following Odysseus and never questions him a single time. They follow him into everything. This is very different in the movie because right from the get-go, Pete and Delmar are questioning Everett every step of the way. For evidence of this in the book, look no further than when they were at Circe’s island for a LONG time. They never once questioned Odysseus until the very end. Everetts “crew” questions him all the time. Overall, there are many differences between the movie and the book.

Lastly, the movie is more effective at portraying the story.

First, it is much more entertaining, therefore it is much easier to pay attention instead of getting sidetracked. It is much more entertaining to watch because it adds humor to the story. Another reason it is more entertaining is because the plot is changed and so it makes it much more interesting. The book was hard to follow and stay focused because it was so boring. It really can’t get any more boring than this: “With this he got up and made a bed for Odysseus by throwing some goatskins and sheepskins on the ground in front of the fire. Here Odysseus lay down, and Eumaeus covered him over with a great heavy cloak that he kept for a change in case of extraordinarily bad weather.”(178). It is because of this like this that the Odyssey is so boring. Overall, the movie is much better at portraying the story than the book, though

entertainment.

In conclusion, the Odyssey and “O Brother Where Art Thou?” have many similarities and differences, but the movie is more effective at portraying the story, mostly because it is much more entertaining. There are many similarities, including how pride was represented, plot and characters. There are also many differences, such as the crew's attitude towards their leader, plot, and characters. However, even with all these differences, the movie is better at portraying the story, plot, characters, and characterization, through humor, and some changes to the story-line. Overall, this book is almost a perfect match with this movie, even through all its differences.