Watching O Brother
Where Art Thou it was initially kind of hard for me to pick up on a lot of
similarities between that the The Odyssey
but eventually a lot became apparent to me. One of the most striking
similarities I noticed was of Odysseus and Everett as characters. They are both
the leaders of their groups, have a persuasive way with words, take fall in
their pride, and are on a journey to reconnect with their wife before she
marries another man. However, even though they resemble each other in many ways
I found that I liked Everett as a character but I’m not a big Odysseus fan.
I started thinking of some possible reasons for why this may be. I considered that it might have been easier to sympathize with Everett because I was seeing him portrayed in a movie whereas I was just reading about Odysseus, but then remembered the countless book characters I have related to and decided this wasn’t the case. It’s also possible that because The Odyssey is so long, I simply had more opportunities to get annoyed at Odysseus. Everett also lied and made dubious choices, but it was on a smaller scale than Odysseus which possibly made him more likeable to me. Maybe I just loved his rendition of “Man of Constant Sorrow”.
However, I think the main reason why I related to Everett and not so much Odysseus was the contexts in which they lived. In class we discussed a lot of moral judgements that Odysseus made (killing 100 men for example) and often explained them by saying that was acceptable at the time. Odysseus kills all the suitors because that was how he got revenge in the society that he lived in. However I, living in a different society, can’t really accept that. The setting for O Brother Where Art Thou is pretty far from my life, but it’s more similar to me than Ancient Greece. Breaking out of jail is still a moral dilemma, as is assisting a bank robber, lying to your friends, and other things that Everett does. Although I don’t agree with all these decisions I think it was easier for me to support Everett a little more than Odysseus because we function within vaguely the same set of morals and societal norms. Everett did do some bad things, but I don’t think he would have killed 100 men like Odysseus did.
I too found Everett to me a much more relatable character than Odysseus. A major part of it is that Everett lives in a society much closer to ours. However, I think another important thing that makes Everett more relatable is the fact that his story/journey/epic is much smaller in scope.
ReplyDeleteInstead of wandering across the entire Mediterranean for decades (and several weeks in real time to read it), Everett wanders within a single state, and his journey takes a few hours, real-time.
Similarly, Odysseus is a legend in his own time, a war hero, guest of kings, invincible and a genius, etc., etc. Everett on the other hand is a nothing more than a small-time con man with an inflated ego. Everett's flaws are also easier for us to understand: vanity and fast-talking his way out of (but mostly into) problems versus the massive arrogance/pride and murderous rage of Odysseus.
I agree. Odysseus' story is much more large-scale than Everett's, and as people who most likely will never undertake a huge journey, his story seems a little more down-to-earth (even more so when you consider that in The Odyssey, we literally at times look down on the Earth from a god's-eye point of view). The time and morality gap also makes it difficult to relate with Odysseus, at least with Everett still maintains most of our social boundaries.
DeleteI think most of us found Everett more likable. Everett was a lot more relatable than Odysseus. Although he lived in a society extremely different from ours, ancient Greece is much more different. For example: escaping a nymph's island and sailing across the Mediterranean vs. escaping prison and hitchhiking in the middle of cornfields (something we see often).
ReplyDeleteAlso, "O'Brother Where Art Thou" is a comedy, and we normally find things more likable if they make us laugh. Everett had many humorous moments throughout the movie, whereas Odysseus rarely cracked a smile.
Finally, I feel that Everett is portrayed as an imperfect person, while Odysseus was described as the best at everything. In the modern world, we find this vulnerability more attractive than a perfect person.
I'm someone who loved Odysseus as a character (because I'm a twisted human being) but I like the point you brought up about social norms defining a society. Everett's decisions can make him into an "anti-hero" who does the wrong things for the right(ish) reasons, because we can understand the life he's living. Odysseus' decisions however, have be morally judged by a completely foreign set of rules, which make him harder to relate to.
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