The Odyssey by Homer is a Greek Epic based on its main character Odysseus and it took place in the classical Greece. The book was composed in the eight century B.C.E, centuries after the events it describes, and narrates several adventures with the objective of its main character to return home. Moreover, the movie O, Brother Where Art Thou was published in 2000 and also narrates the adventures of its main character Ulysses, a prisoner that escaped from jail with two partners. Consequently, the film and the movie have its similarities and differences, but at the end the movie was absolutely based on the book.
The similarities between the movie and the book are revealed in the whole story. In …show more content…
Consequently, Ulysses is a modern novel that establishes a parallelism between The Odyssey of Homer and the novel itself. Furthermore, both were supposedly victims of a disaster, since Ulysses was believably hit by a train and Odysseus killed in the war. So, the association between the movie and the book it is clear from the very beginning in those details like the invocation to the Muse and the name of the main characters of each story.
In the third place, there is a character backstory similarity. In the movie Ulysses is a prisoner who escaped from jail with two prison colleagues (O, Brother Where Art Thou, 0:58-1:02) and Odysseus was also a prisoner that escaped from the nymph Calypso (Homer, The Odyssey, p. 61-63, Book V) and various other monsters. Actually, the connection it is not only that both of them were convicted, but both were also trying to find their way back home with their wife. Therefore, in the movie Vernon T. Waldrip is trying to court Ulysses wife and in the book the suitors are courting Odysseu’s wife in his …show more content…
There is an important phenomenon in The Odyssey, which it is the occasion when Odysseus and his man land on the island of the Cyclops (Book IX). Once on the island, he and several of his crew settle into the Cyclops’ cave and feasted all the cheese and goat that the Cyclops had hoarded. So, when the Cyclops went back home and realized of everything that happened, he began to eat them all. In response, Odysseus gets him drunk and blinds him with a flaming spear. Moreover, this event of the book it is related in the movie with the character of the pastor, Big Dan, which has also one eye. Furthermore, Ulysses and Delmar anger Big Dan, just like Odysseus anger the Cyclops, and the pastor end up killing the toad they had which was supposedly Pete, their partner from jail (O, Brother Where Art Thou, 0:58-1:02). So, at the end Big Dan ends up killing their friend, in a figurative way, and he was also almost stabbed in the eye just as the Cyclops. At the end, it is clear the similitude between the Cyclops and Big Dan in a figurative