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O Brother Where Art Thou Character Analysis

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The Coen Brothers’ film, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, is loosely based on Homer’s famous Greek epic, The Odyssey, in that certain features in the film resemble those found in Homer’s epic, but the film still reveals its own sense of originality by making it more relatable to the modern world. While The Odyssey is set in Ancient Greece and O Brother, Where Art Thou? is set in the southern part of the United States during the 1930’s, the works are similar in following a protagonist who encounters setbacks on his journey home. Through the heroes’ struggles, both pieces of work reveal similar themes of humility, loyalty, and perseverance. The Coen Brothers’ film’s lack of important epic elements sets it apart from The Odyssey. Class …show more content…

The physical length of Odysseus’s journey also furthers the poem’s grand scale. A few of Odysseus destinations include Circe’s Island, Land of the Lotus Eaters, Land of the Dead, Calypso’s Island. Within the ten years, Odysseus sails from island to island, visits multiple countries, and even visits the underworld. Finally, the amount of characters involved in The Odyssey contribute to the grand complexity of the story. Odysseus has a whole crew of shipmates accompanying him throughout his journey and his journey is influenced by a number of gods and goddesses.
In contrast, the Coen Brothers do not adapt the grand scale in which The Odyssey is told in O Brother, Where Art Thou?. The filmmakers depict Ulysses’s travels home at a much lesser scale than Odysseus’s journey. Even though O Brother, Where art thou? does not give the exact time it takes Ulysses to get home, the movie shows the runaway prisoners’ travels from day to day, possessing a shorter timescale. The distance the prisoners travel is also reduced. They spend most of their time traveling on foot within the state of Mississippi, visiting a bank, jail, radio station, restaurant. Compared to The Odyssey, O Brother, Where Art Thou? has less characters that impact

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