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Odysseus and O Brother Where Art Thou Have you ever spent 20 years from home before? Odysseus has and is on his journey home. His journey has a lot in common with the movie O Brother Where Art thou. The events that happen in the book of Odysseus are very similar to the events that happen in O Brother Where Art Thou. At the beginning of the book and the movie start of with the same fraise, “He is a wanderer harried for years on end. They are talking about their main characters who have been away from home wondering for a long time. In the odyssey the lotus eaters are these laid back drunk like creatures eating the lotus plant. The plant put you in a delirious state and time flies by without you knowing it is. In O Brother Where Art Thou however there are these people that are being baptised and are very unaware of what is going on around them, so Everett's two counterparts join in. The movie’s main character is Everett he is the Odyssey’s version of Odysseus. They are both leaders of a group trying to go home. …show more content…
It is a big one eyed creature in the Odyssey, that the men have to stab in the eye to defeat and hid under sheep to illud. Only after he is defeated does the Cyclopes wish a very horrible trip home to the crew. In the movie however, the boys go to a cousins house that they think they can trust. The cousin ends up turning them in and they are awoken in the middle of the night to the cops outside the barn they were sleeping in. just like the cyclopes the boys had to escape the cops and after doing so the boys meet a very kind gentle man rowing his way down the railroad. The boys hop on and try to talk to the man but he turns out to be blind. He then just starts to ramble and the boys figure out that he is talking about their way home. It is a very long, strenuous, and horrid way to go home just like in the
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.
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.
Brother, Where Art Thou? These stories share crucial components of the hero’s journey whether it be “crossing the first threshold,” where the main characters of both stories begin their long adventure that transforms them into heroes; “the supreme ordeal,” where the main characters are both deprived of the opportunity to get home sooner; or “return with elixir,” where Odysseus and Ulysses both return to their homes alive from the comfort of their wives. In their major plot points, the novel The Odyssey and the motion picture O Brother convey obvious similarities in key elements of their heroes’ journeys such as “crossing the first threshold,” “the supreme ordeal,” and “return with elixir.” Firstly, the main characters of both stories, Odysseus and Ulysses, share qualities of the “crossing the first threshold” that quite clearly show the similarities in these stories.
“O muse! Sing in me, and through me tell the story...Of that man skilled in all the ways of contending...A wanderer, harried for years on end…” (Homer). These are the opening words of The Odyssey. This is also in the opening scene of O Brother Where Art Thou?. O Brother is a reception of the revered story of Odysseus’ journey with a bit of a twist. The works have similarities that only a person well informed of the Odyssey could see. The Odyssey and O Brother highlight the trials of the main character’s journeys. While the Odyssey was written in the eighth century, O Brother is set during the 1930s in the deep south. Each of the trials that the characters face is supposed to make them quit their journey, but they proceed with greater determination.
O Brother, Where Art Thou is loosely based on the Odyssey, written by Homer. This was clear from the very start because in both the epic and the movie, they begin by saying “O Muse..”. There is other evidence in O Brother that connects it to the Odyssey through character, conflict, relationship, and theme. Many of the characters have the same characteristics as in the Odyssey and O brother. An example of this is found between Odysseus and Everett.
What are the key points you will want to emphasize in your online profile for Character 1 (3-4 sentences)?
...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.
One archetype the two stories have in common is the hero. The heroes, Odysseus and Everett, try to reach their family, no matter the risks. Both have the same goal and will do anything to keep their loved ones again. Also, both of the heroes are extremely loyal to their companions. Like whenever Odysseus tried to save his crew, or when Everett went to rescue Pete from jail. However, they can also differ in ways like character. In the face of an obstacle, Odysseus faces the problem head on and uses strategy at the same time, while Everett uses excuses to try to avoid the problem. On the other hand, Everett has his friends throughout his quest, while Odysseus’ companions all die except him. These examples show how the heroes of the Odyssey and O Brother! are different.
Have you ever been away from home for a long period of time? The main character Odysseus from Homer’s The Odyssey has been away from his kingdom fighting in Troy and sailing from island to island for twenty years. While at sea, Odysseus deals with both alienating and enriching experiences as he is surrounded by monsters who want to eat him and his men, and women who want him to love them. Odysseus survives the troubling situations and finally realizes how much he misses the love of his wife who is caring loving, and patient. She gave birth to his son who he has not yet met, which makes him anxious to return to his kingdom. Sometimes being away from what you think are the little things can give you a better perspective of what is around you.
The film O Brother, Where Art Thou? is a reinterpretation of the epic poem The Odyssey. The Coen brothers, writers and directors of the film, did not over analyze their representation. “It just sort of occurred to us after we’d gotten into it somewhat that it was a story about someone going home, and sort of episodic in nature, and it kind of evolved into that,” says Joel Coen in Blood Siblings, “It’s very loosely and very sort of unseriously based on The Odyssey” (Woods 32). O Brother, Where Art Thou? contains ideas from The Odyssey for the sake of modernization and entertainment of an audience that comprehends the allusions to the epic. The Coen brothers utilize elements of Homer’s The Odyssey to improve and to give direction to O Brother, Where Art Thou?, a reinterpretation which was made simply to show that an epic-adventure such as The Odyssey could be modernized to apply to modern times.
The Odyssey tells the story of Odysseus and his both literal and figurative journey home to Ithaka. When the great king, Odysseus travels to Troy on the account of war, many obstructions hinder him from returning home. During his absence, his deprivation of being a father to his son, Telemachus, causes great disappointment. Without a father, his son strives to grow and mature yet he has not the slightest idea of where to. However, as Telemachus struggles to reach manhood and his father struggles to return to Ithaka, their seemingly separate journeys are connected. They both learn values that turn a boy into a man and a great man even greater. In the epic poem the Odyssey, Homer uses parallel rites of passage with Odysseus and Telemachus to develop the importance of the father son-bond.
In Virgil’s The Aeneid, there are many parallels found in Homer’s The Odyssey. In each epic, the heroes, Aeneas and Odysseus, are on a journey “home.” Aeneas is on the search of a new home for he and his companions to settle since Troy has been destroyed, Odysseus on the other hand is attempting to return to his home he left years earlier to fight the Trojan War. They both have Gods against them and helping them, both Aeneas and Odysseus are both held back by women, both voluntary and involuntarily, and they both have experiences visiting the Underworld. Despite these similarities, there are differences between the two characters and it reflects their values and the society they live in. Aeneas relies on his strength as a warrior, where as Odysseus uses his deception to survive which reflects how Aeneas is truly Roman is versus Greek.
Leo Buscaglia, a motivational speaker and American author, once stated, “Life is uncharted territory. It reveals its story one moment at a time” (thinkexist.com). The quotation reveals that anyone can have an adventure because life is an adventure. Homer’s the Odyssey and Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quixote tell the stories of Odysseus and Don Quixote. The two men’s lives are full of adventure, but they are two completely different adventures. Odysseus continually fights for his life, whereas Don Quixote simply fights for chivalry. Odysseus and Don Quixote are different adventure heroes because of the reasons for their adventures, their accomplishments, and their bravery.
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.
Can two things ever truly be exactly the same? When it comes to epic heroes, I’m not sure. In both the Iliad and the Odyssey, written by Homer and translated by Robert Fagles, the journey of two epic heroes are depicted for us. Achilles, hero of the book The Iliad, is fighting in the Trojan War. Odysseus, hero of the book The Odyssey, is simply fighting to get home. Although both the epic heroes are put through some of the same very tough and difficult situations, it doesn’t mean they are quite the same person. An analysis of The Iliad and The Odyssey will show three similarities and three differences between Achilles and Odysseus.