The movie chronicles the struggle of one man to get home before his wife marries another man. In Homer's Odyssey, the basic struggle is Odysseus' seemingly futile efforts to return home to Ithaca before his wife is married off to a suitor. We can see that the basic plot of both stories is essentially the same. The only major difference in the two stories is the setting, or time and place in which the tale is told, “O' Brother Where Art Thou?,” (O' Brother), is set in the United States of America during the Great Depression, and The Odyssey is set in ancient times during the roman empire all around the Mediterranean Sea. “The film is a Homeric journey through Mississippi during the Depression--or rather, through all of the images of that time and place that have been trickling down through pop culture ever since. There are even walk-ons for characters inspired by Babyface Nelson and the blues singer Robert Johnson, who speaks of a crossroads soul-selling rendezvous with the devil.” (“O' Brother Where Art Thou?,” Sun-Times, online) The two literary works have many things in common, but one thing they couldn't be farther from is the author. O' Brother is written by two brothers, somewhat ironically, Joel and Ethan Coen, who based their movie off of a novella titled “A Dozen Tough Jobs,” by Howard Waldrop, whereas The Odyssey is, more famously, written by the blind bard Homer. The name for the movie, was taken from a satire of Gulliver's Travels named “Sullivan's Travels,” in which the main character wished to create a movie named “O' brother, where art thou?”
Ethan Coen is quoted saying, “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. It's very loosely and very sort of unseriously based on The Odyssey.” (“O' Brother Where Art Thou?,” Wikipedia, online)This quote suggests that writing elements present in The Odyssey and in O' Brother are common necessities to writing a piece of literary art.
We will first start with the character similarities between the two works. The main character of O' Brother is named Ulysses Everett McGill, and the main character of The Odyssey is Odysseus. Ulysses is widely accepted as a translation of Odysseus. Everett, as he prefers to be called, is often depicted as a well spoken and clever trickster throughout the film. Odysseus also displays these characteristics, consistently outsmarting his enemies and always thinking on his feet. Both display phenomenal intelligence in comparison to the average for their time and place, and both can talk like no other, rallying men with words of bravery or encouragement, or talking their way out of a tight spot. During one scene of the movie Everett needs to raise some money to continue their journey, and finds his way to a recording artist willing to pay handsomely for a pleasing voice. The song he then chooses to sing is titled “Man of Constant Sorrow,” Homer frequently attached the epithet of “man of many sorrows” to Odysseus, yet another parallel. During their long voyages, both men get deterred so much and so often that it seems almost as if there are higher forces at work to prolong their practically endless struggle to return to their humble domicile. In the case of Odysseus, Poseidon, god of the sea, consistently forces Odysseus off track of the path to Ithaca.
Everett also has a retarding force against him, but of a much more worldly anatomy, the police. To begin his journey, Odysseus leaves the war with troy; Everett on the other hand, escapes from prison, but must take with him two other convicts who are unfortunately chained to him. Whereas the men who follow Odysseus are not physically bound to him, they choose only to follow him out of a loyal devotion or perhaps slim chance at a return home. Both men also commonly awaken to disturbing scenarios in which a quick retreat is required in order to spare their lives. The two characters also have a common downfall to themselves, a certain pride or vanity about them. Such as when Odysseus reveals his name and home to Polyphemus because of his enlarged sense of self confidence, and when in O' Brother Everett constantly worries about the aesthetic appearance of his hair and relentlessly applies “Dapper Dan” pomade to it, which leads to their inevitable discovery by authorities just as the Cyclops in The Odyssey is able to ask Poseidon to cause trouble for Odysseus based on the egotistic information provided by Odysseus. The characters are so entranced with their own awesomeness that they fail to foresee the troubles that lie ahead of them due to their over-inflated self-love. The similarities between these two epic characters are vast and impeccable.
