Darkness is displayed in many ways, including hopelessness and death, but the Great Depression shows the finest of it. This horrible time had a negative effect on people’s thinking, such as actual depression and the feeling of loss. Sounds can remind people of death as well. On the contrary, even reading words can scare anyone to death. O’brother Where Art Thou directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, and The Odyssey written by Homer and translated by Robert Fagles are arts that use words and sounds to scare. Odysseus in The Odyssey, and Tommy in the KKK scene of O’Brother Where Art Thou, both equally use language to show that they are at a dark point in their story. The KKK scene with O’death(by Ralph Stanley playing in the background) shows Tommy
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O’death in that scene inputs a flashback to how Odysseus is very similarly, close to death in the scene of Ino and Odysseus. The realization that death is near can instill a type of fear never felt before in life. Odysseus feels this dark emotion because he realizes he is “doomed to die” a “wretched death” very soon (Fagles.5.335). This emotion felt by Odysseus introduces a fear of the hero dying back in the readers and it goes to show how dark darkness can really get. When contemplating on whether someone will survive, it sways emotions back and forth. Uncertainty of life is fully shown when Odysseus screams that he could “plunge” to his “death” in a “flash”(Fagles.5.337). From a good to a bad day, the power of literature can get to the heart of the reader 's emotion drastically when written correctly. Like literature, lryics in O’death help us realize that Tommy is going to die in the scene of the KKK rally. Stanley sings in the eyes of Tommy about how “Death” is close to his “soul” and that “time and mercy” is no longer in his “reach”(Coens). In Tommy’s eyes he sees that the KKK is going to kill him, and when Stanley sings about Tommy’s feelings and mood on life at that moment, anyone who has read the scene with Ino and Odysseus thinks back to how Odysseus was close to death as well. Maybe the saying that actions speak louder than words is not true. It’s beautiful how lryics and literature connect back to each other graciously, and can leave anybody’s emotion swayed and mood
O’death in that scene inputs a flashback to how Odysseus is very similarly, close to death in the scene of Ino and Odysseus. The realization that death is near can instill a type of fear never felt before in life. Odysseus feels this dark emotion because he realizes he is “doomed to die” a “wretched death” very soon (Fagles.5.335). This emotion felt by Odysseus introduces a fear of the hero dying back in the readers and it goes to show how dark darkness can really get. When contemplating on whether someone will survive, it sways emotions back and forth. Uncertainty of life is fully shown when Odysseus screams that he could “plunge” to his “death” in a “flash”(Fagles.5.337). From a good to a bad day, the power of literature can get to the heart of the reader 's emotion drastically when written correctly. Like literature, lryics in O’death help us realize that Tommy is going to die in the scene of the KKK rally. Stanley sings in the eyes of Tommy about how “Death” is close to his “soul” and that “time and mercy” is no longer in his “reach”(Coens). In Tommy’s eyes he sees that the KKK is going to kill him, and when Stanley sings about Tommy’s feelings and mood on life at that moment, anyone who has read the scene with Ino and Odysseus thinks back to how Odysseus was close to death as well. Maybe the saying that actions speak louder than words is not true. It’s beautiful how lryics and literature connect back to each other graciously, and can leave anybody’s emotion swayed and mood