The Odyssey And O Brother

The Odyssey and O Brother, Where Art Thou are similar movies in various ways. Although they are made five years apart they share similar acts, characters and scenes. First off, The Sirens (washing women) that seduce the three main characters in O Brother, Where are Thou are the Sirens that attempt to seduce Odysseus and his crew while they are headed home. Also, the sheriff is similar to the god Poseidon, who torments Odysseus and prolongs his journey home. While in The Odyssey, Odysseus and his men blind the Cyclops with a spear in his one eye, “Big Dan” shares almost the same experience with Polyphemus and similar traits. The strongest connection between The Odyssey and O Brother, Where Art Thou is the seducing call of the Sirens and the powers of the witch goddess Circe. This connection is the strongest similarity because each story that describes the Sirens is the same. Odysseus and Ulysses both use wax to avoid the Sirens. Ulysses hair smelling like wax and Odysseus telling his men to put wax in their ears is enough to avoid the Sirens mystical song in each movie. Avoiding the Sirens allows Odysseus and Ulysses to continue on their journey to get home. Another similarity is the witch goddess Circe. In The Odyssey, Circe turns a man from Odysseus crew into a pig which is similar to O Brother, Where Art Thou because one of Ulysses men was supposedly turned into a frog. The sheriff and Poseidon both opposed what each main character in the movies was doing. The sheriff didn’t like how Everett didn’t obey the laws. Poseidon didn’t like how Odysseus thought he didn’t need the god’s help. Also, the sheriff and Poseidon both tried to push the main character. Poseidon was almost everywhere that Odysseus was and the sheriff followed Everett too. Even Poseidon killed some of Odysseus’s men while the sheriff almost killed Pete! In the end, Odysseus and Everett were both just made to suffer and as the films ended, Poseidon and the sheriff weren’t bothering the main characters anymore. The Cyclops encounter is the same in both movies. The Cyclops, in The Odyssey and O Brother, Where Art Thou has obvious physical traits that weren’t hard to recognize that connected them to each other. The Cyclops in each story is a large man, who technically has only one eye. The encounter of the Cyclops shows a good similarity in both of the movies. Odysseus and Ulysses are technically taken hostile and then attacked. You could say they were about to have a good day until they are overtaken and then become imprisoned or robbed. Odysseus got came across a big tunnel if you were to call it so he and his crew decided to relax and start eating and drinking until the Cyclops comes back into his “home”. They didn’t know of a Cyclops or who even lived there. They were just at the wrong place at the wrong time. Then the Cyclops puts a rock in front of the opening of the tunnel, which made it difficult to get out of there. He then started torturing some of them. In both movies they ended up fighting back even if it wasn’t at that time which they were being attacked but they both eventually defeated the Cyclops. Also, between each movie, they made an attempt to blind the Cyclops which offered a distraction to escape. The Odyssey and O Brother, Where Art Thou were very good movies that I would watch again. It was easy to spot the similarities and the makers of the films did an amazing job at making certain parts the same and noticeable to tell it was from the original Odyssey movie. In conclusion, the movies started with the main characters trying to find their way home but stumble across some obstacles but at the end it all turned out the way they wanted and they continued their lives back where they were originally from.