Week 3 - blog post # 3

                In the film O Brother, Where Art Thou?, three men (Ulysses Everett McGill, Delmar, and Pete) escape from a prison chain gang in order to find a large sum of money ($1.2 million). The treasure turns out to be made up by Everett, who escaped from the prison chain gang in an effort to get his wife back and stop her from marrying someone else. On their adventures, the three men encounter many characters and events that are reminiscent of those in Homer’s Odyssey. The blind man with the hand-powered railway car is reminiscent of the blind prophet Teiresias. He informs the three men that they will in fact find a treasure, but not the one which they seek – perhaps a reference to their future musical success as the Soggy Bottom Boys. Another important similarity between O Brother, Where Art Thou? and The Odyssey is the fact that Everret’s first name is Ulysses and his wife’s name is Penny (short for Penelope). In The Odyssey, Odysseus’s wife Penelope must deal with unwanted suitors, for it was presumed that Odysseus had died during the fall of Troy (in Everett’s case, Penny said that he was hit by a train). Additionally, in the Roman version of The Odyssey, Odysseus was known as Ulysses.

                Some other character parallels that could be drawn between the two stories include Big Dan and the Cyclops (both have one eye), the three women by the river and the Sirens (fairly obvious), & Sherriff Cooley (who is unnamed in the film but fits Tommy’s description of the devil/Satan) and Poseidon. In The Odyssey, Odysseus and his men escape from the Cyclops by tying themselves to the undersides of sheep being let out to pasture. In a somewhat parallel scene, Everett, Delmar, and Pete are able to infiltrate a KKK meeting and rescue Tommy from being lynched by dressing up in Klan robes and blinding Big Dan (the Cyclops) with a fiery cross. Throughout the film, Everett, Delmar, and Pete are being chased by Sherriff Cooley and his henchmen. Even after being pardoned by the mayor (somewhat analogous to Zeus) after their first public performance as The Soggy Bottom Boys, Sherriff Cooley still attempts to lynch the three men as punishment for escaping the prison chain gang. This draws direct parallels to Poseidon’s actions in The Odyssey, who spends the large majority of the myth making Odysseus’ journey home very difficult as a punishment for blinding the Cyclops (who was Poseidon’s son).