Odyssey Vs O Brother Where Art Thou Analysis

Htet Aung Hlaing Win
English Block H
Ms. Cice
October 15 2015
Odyssey vs. O’ Brother, Where Art Thou Both Odysseus and Everett are considered epic heroes. The film “O’ Brother Where Art Thou” is based on the adventures of Odysseus from “The Odyssey”. They both have similar challenges, but also have differences in the details. Such as, the enemies they face, the time they are from and how they try to fix their relationship with their wives. Both the poem and movie are similar to each other, but they aren’t absolutely the same. “The Odyssey” is an epic poem, so it’s natural that it’s less realistic than “O Brother, Where Art Thou”. For example, in “The Odyssey”, Homer describes that Odysseus faces the Sirens who have the bodies of fish on their lower body and eat men (bad description of sirens). “O Brother, Where Art Thou” does have Sirens in the movie, although it is more realistic. The Sirens in the movie have beautiful voices and seduces men with it just like the Sirens in the epic poem. Though the difference is that the Sirens in the movie don’t have bodies of fish nor do they eat men.
So even though the Sirens in the movie are somewhat like the Sirens in the epic poem, they are more realistic than the Sirens in the epic poem. Time setting is one major difference between “The Odyssey” and “O’ Brother Where Art Thou”.
First off, “The Odyssey” is an epic poem based on Ancient Greece and “O Brother, Where Art Thou” is a movie based on the Mississippi from the 1900s. In “The Odyssey”, there are gods and mythical creatures involved such as Zeus, Cyclops, etc. On the other hand, for “O Brother, Where Art Thou” there are government officials and criminals involved, instead of fictional creatures. There are some resemblances in the movie and the epic poem, for example there are Cyclops in both the movie and the epic poem. But the Cyclops in the epic poem is a mythical creature while the Cyclops in the epic poem is just a thief with a blind eye. Both the epic poem and the movie have the same sort of characters in the story but the time setting is different and that leads to some differences in the
characters. “The Odyssey” and “O Brother, Where Art Thou” have protagonists, Odysseus is the protagonist in “The Odyssey” and Everett is the protagonist in “O Brother, Where Art Thou”. Both have a huge similarity; they have broken relationships with their wives. On the contrary, Odysseus has ‘bonded’ with other women and questionably unfaithful to his wife Penelope while Everett has stayed true to his wife. Odysseus has spent time with Circe and Calypso, while Everett has spent time with no other women. (Don’t forget the beautiful women) Even though both Odysseus and Everett got their wives back, Everett seems to be the one that stayed true and faithful to his wife. In conclusion, both Odysseus and Everett are epic heroes in their right. They both have their flaws and their strengths and also they both have overcome grueling challenges. Both have gotten their problems from the Cyclops, both have gotten troubled by the Sirens and both have gotten their wives back. So in conclusion, both are similar and different, but both have gotten the happy ending they so hardly deserve.