What are some visual connections to the Odyssey?

Oh Brother and Odyssey connections?

• can you help me with some connections between the two?

• Answer:

  While the overall plot is only vaguely similar to that of the Odyssey, there are certain "episodes" that closely mirror the film's classical influence. References The only direct references are the line of text shown at the beginning of the film — "O Muse! Sing in me, and through me tell the story..." — which is one translation of the first line of The Odyssey, and also when Delmar refers to the washer women as "sirens", saying, "Caintcha see it Everett! Them sirens did this to Pete! They loved him up an' turned him into a horney-toad!" Many other characters and situations are allusions to Homer's epic poem, "The Odyssey" -Ulysses, the Latin form of the Greek name Odysseus, is the first name of the film's protagonist, Ulysses Everett McGill. -Delmar and Pete represent two aspects of Odysseus's crew: foolishness and mutiny. Specifically, the character of Pete is a parallel to Eurylochus, Odysseus' crew member who rebels against Odysseus's authority and is in the end the cause of the whole crew's folly. -Menelaus "Pappy" O'Daniel, who pardons the Soggy Bottom Boys at the end of the film, shares his first name with the King of Sparta, who fought alongside Odysseus at Troy. -Everett's wife is named Penny, a shortened version of Penelope, Odysseus' wife. -The washing women who seduce the heroes are similar to the Sirens who attempt to seduce Odysseus and his crew, as well as the Lotus Eaters, as they use drugs (alcohol, in this case) to seduce the crew. -The Blind Seer is Tiresias, the blind ghost prophet. -Daniel "Big Dan" Teague (John Goodman), with his one good eye, is an allusion to Polyphemus the Cyclops. While in "The Odyssey", Odysseus and his men blind the Cyclops with a spear in his one eye, Daniel "Big Dan" Teague stops a pole falling on him only a second before it pierces and kill him, before actually being struck by the Ku Klux Klan burning cross. -The Lotus Eaters are represented by the congregation walking trancelike to be baptized. Wash Hogwallop's son, who greets Everett, Delmar, and Pete with a rifle, is loosely parallel to Nausicaa, the young princess who is the first to greet Odysseus when he washes up on the shores of Phaeacia. -The blind man who runs the radio station and pays Everett, Pete, Delmar, and Tommy money for singing is a reference to the blind seer, Demodokos. Some scholars claim that Demodokos is a representation of Homer himself, who was also blind. Parallels with the Underworld -The scene in the theater, when Pete tries to warn Everett and Delmar, parallels Odysseus' descent into the underworld, Hades. Delmar, believing that Pete had died, mistakes him (and thus also the other people in the theater) for a ghost. In this scene, Pete parallels Tiresias in the underworld. -Odysseus sees a ghost of his mother in the underground world. -Following Everett's beating by Waldrip, Everett warns Delmar of the treachery of women. This is much like how Agamemnon, who had said he had been betrayed by his wife and killed by her new husband, warns Odysseus not to trust women. Miscellaneous parallels -The dialogue in a scene between Everett and his daughters also gives a nod to its ancient influence. Using Latin terms, one of the girls says that Waldrip is bona fide, and Everett responds that he is the pater familias. The girls also use the word "suitor" at least three times. -In the scene where the trio and George Nelson are sitting around the fire after the robbery at Itta Bena, there are Greek columns in the background. (The columns could possibly be meant to be Windsor Ruins, located outside of Port Gibson, MS.) -Everett also comes back to stop the marriage and fight Vernon, much as Odysseus comes back to kill the suitors. Everett, however, is badly beaten by Vernon, perhaps creating a parallel with Telemachus' inability to discharge his mother's suitors. -In one scene, Everett, Pete and Delmar disguise themselves as members of the Ku Klux Klan. In The Odyssey, the blind cyclops lets his sheep out to graze, trying to make sure that no one was attempting to escape by feeling the sheep's backs, but Odysseus tied his men and himself to the undersides of the sheep and so they got out. -Everett calls himself "The Old Campaigner" or "The Old Tactician" on various occasions, an epithet for Odysseus. -Everett has 7 daughters, a unique spin on Odysseus having only one son. Also, Everett has never seen his youngest daughter, much like Odysseus has never seen his son Telemachus. -Pete is thought by Delmar to have been turned into a frog, mirroring Circe's transformation of Odysseus' crew into swine. -The trio have an encounter with sirens, much like Odysseus and his crew did, at a pond, where they are entranced by their singing.