Odyssey and O' Brother
The movie O Brother, Where Art Thou? has many parralels drawn from Homer’s The Odyssey. The epic poem is a story of a journey home just as the movie is and both contain several stories evolving from the trips themselves. There are several aspects of the movie that are borrowed from Homer’s classic tale. As the movie opens, Ulysses Everett McGill has just escaped from a prison chain gang in the Deep South with two buddies, Pete and Delmar. They want to make it across the state to dig up some treasure that George buried before he was caught. They only have four days to do it because after that the state will be flooding the valley in which the treasure is buried in order to create a man-made lake to support a new dam and their treasure will be at the bottom. Throughout the film the boys meet an array of interesting characters. The first is the elder blind man on the railroad when the men escaped from prison. The others are the three beautiful singing women at the river who seduce Pete, The bible salesman, Big Dan “T”, the baptism group at the river, and Sheriff Cooley, the policemen with the sunglasses. The elder blind man on the railway was referring to Tiresias. This mysterious character is in reference to Tires
During the Odyssey the only time Odysseus really gets angry is when Penelope tests if he truly is her husband.() At the end Odysseus must prove his identity to his wife Penelope by the stringing of the bow and shooting an arrow through rings was a feat only he could accomplish. Which proved to Penelope that is was in fact her husband after all those years. Penelope also identifies Odysseus by his knowledge of their bed being made from an oak tree that the bedroom was built around. ias the blind prophet. The blind man told the group many odd things about their journey to come. He told Everett that he would not find the treasure he seeked. There was no way they could have found the treasure Ulysses told Pete and Delmar existed because it did not exist. He told the others that there was a hidden treasure that he seeked and they were damming a river. The treasure would be covered by this river if they didn’t get there in time. In the end of the movie, the treasure he seeked was his wife’s wedding ring and he had to get there before the river flooded the area. He got the ring but it turned out to be the wrong one, so he never received the treasure he seeked. The movie written by the Coen brothers is based on the poem by Homer and there are references from the poem visible throughout the movie. They are both stories of a long journey home. In the film Everett, Delmar, and Pete recorded a song for money. The song talks of a man of constant sorrow which in fact also d
Some topics in this essay:
Pete Delmar,
Bottom Boys,
Sirens Homer’s,
Sheriff Cooley,
Odyssey Odysseus,
Lotus Eaters,
Delmar Pete,
Homer’s Odyssey,
John Goodman,
Cyclops Odysseus,
treasure seeked,
sheriff cooley,
pete delmar,
lotus eaters,
bible salesman,
bible salesman dan,
real name,
journey film,
salesman dan,
john goodman,
salesman dan “t”,
baptism river,
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Approximate Word count = 1006
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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