The Odyssey by Homer is an epic of Odysseus’s 10-year struggle to return home after the Trojan War. Throughout the story, Odysseus battles mythical creatures and faces the wrath of the gods. In the meantime, his wife Penelope and his son Telemachus fight off suitors begging for Penelope’s hand and Ithaca’s throne long enough for Odysseus to return. In the beginning, while Odysseus is fighting until his last breath, he rather arrogantly ignores the advice of different characters. He does what he thinks is best without thinking about the consequences of his action and what might happen to both himself and his men, as a result. The best example of this is when he says, “‘Cyclops, if ever mortal man asks you the story of the ugly blinding of your eye, say that Odysseus made you blind, the spoiler of cities, Laertes’ son, whose home is Ithaca.’” (pg. 115) Odysseus was so focused on gaining glory that he deliberately revealed who he was to the Cyclops.
As a result, he brought down calamity upon himself and his men because of Poseidon’s special relationship to the monster. However, by the end of the story, when he reaches Ithaca, the way in which he deliberately bides his time and disguises himself as a beggar instead of rushing into his home and declaring who he was in front of a group of extremely hostile individuals shows how he has developed and changed. In fact, it wasn’t until after Odysseus took the trial of the bow that he ditched his disguise and revealed his true identity, “He spoke, and flung his red cloak from his neck, rising full height. Then wise Odysseus threw off his rags and sprang to the broad threshold, bow in hand and quiver full of arrows.” (pg 271) Instead, he remains anonymous until he confirms that his men are loyal to him and that he is ready to strike. The text, therefore, confirms that Odysseus, as an individual, definitely learns from his mistakes and develops during the course of the epic.
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The Odyssey And The Movie O Brother, Where Art Thou?
The Odyssey and the movie O Brother, Where Art Thou? Have some similarities. In the movie O’ Brother Where Art Thou and on The Odyssey, we can see that Everett and Odysseus are similar. They both, Everett and Odysseus, believe that they are smarter than everyone else and that they have more power as the others. At the beginning of the movie, they show how three prisoners are working together. Everett tells Delmar and Pete that there is a treasure somewhere. Everett convinced Delmar and Pete and they all decide that they need to escape and go look for the treasure.
But at the middle of the movie Delmar and Pete find out that there was never a treasure and how Everett lied to them. In the Odyssey, they show how Odysseus lied to his crew most of the time and that’s why mostly everything went wrong when he was trying to go back home. In both the movie and the book, they tell us how Everett and Odysseus were trying to hide things from their friends so that their plans wouldn’t get ruined. When everyone finds out about that there is no treasure and what Odysseus had in the bag when they were almost getting home, in both the movie and book everyone starts blaming Everett and Odysseus about everything that has happened to them. In the O’ Brother, Where Art Thou? Delmar and Pete feel betrayed, because Everett deceived them and because they only had some time left to get out and be free. After they find out about there being no treasure, they are mad with Everett and they don’t trust him anymore. Another comparison would be the railroad homeless man, whom is a blind fortune teller. On the Odyssey Tiresias is a blind prophet who helps Odysseus see everything that will happen to him on his way back home.
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In O’ Brother, Where Art Thou? Pete notices that there are three women washing clothes in a river, and he tells George and Everett to stop the car. When they go talk to them the three women are singing and washing clothes, but when they see them, they stop, and they start walking towards them. On the Odyssey, Odysseus was trying to get back home, but he had to cross the sea, and he will hear the sirens. They say that whoever hears the singing of the sirens will suffer, because their wife’s and children will never welcome them home again. When Odysseus has to pass these sirens, he puts wax on his men’s ears so that they won’t hear anything. On O’ Brother, where Art Thou? After they see the women singing and washing their clothes, they wake up hours later and realize that Pete is gone. They see his clothes on the rock and they also see a “horny toad” who George thinks is Pete. On the Odyssey, Circe drugs Odysseus’s men and turns them into pigs.
In both, the movie and the book of the Odyssey they are turn into animals when they hear the singing of the sirens. Another comparison is that on the movie the pastor Big Dan has only one eye, and, on the Odyssey, cyclops has one eye too. Cyclops is the son of Poseidon. Cyclops killed two of Odysseus’s men and kept them captive and Odysseus ended up killing the Cyclops. There are a lot of different comparisons between the O’ Brother, Where Art Thou? And the Odysseus, for example two more comparisons are that Everett has a wife and children’s but since he was in a penitentiary his wife was going to get marry to another man and on the Odyssey, suitors were courting Odysseus’s wife while he was not there. One of the suitors was supposed to marry Odysseus’s wife if they could string Odysseus’s bow and fire it through twelve axes. One last comparison is how Everett dresses as a hobo to be able to see his wife and Odysseus also dressed as a homeless person to be able to see his wife as well.