Post #9 - O Brother Where Art Thou? Mythological References

Review the movie O Brother Where Art Thou? using mythology as your guide. How many mythological references could you spot? List them and comment on two of them. (Post #9)

The movie O Brother Where Art Thou has many mythological references. One reference I noticed when watching the movie was in the beginning of the movie when the three main characters encounter a blind man. The blind man gives them a ride through the field and tells them about their fate. The blind man also tells them that they must go on a journey to get their “fortune”. This blind man reminded me of Tiresias in Homer's Odysseus. In Odysseus, the main character, Odysseus, must meet wit the dead in order to achieve his goal of returning back to Ithaca. Eventually, Odysseus learns of his fate from Tiresias and of the nature of death. Similarly, the three men, who are trying to find treasure, encounter a blind man. The blind man, who cannot see, in my opinion symbolized meeting with death because blindness causes one to only see darkness. Death is also symbolized by darkness. Also, like Tiresias, the blind man tells them of their fate.

There is also a scene where the three main characters are found by the police in a barn they are staying in to hide. The three main characters refuse to come out of the barn and surrender themselves to the police. Thus, the police set the barn on fire. The three main characters are in trouble and get very scared about their fate. However, unexpectedly, the young son of one of the main character’s cousin comes bursting into the barn with a car and rescues them all from death. The son reminded me of multiple characters in myths we have read in class that have saved others from death. One character the son that saved them all reminded me of was the angel of the Lord in Abraham and Isaac. Isaac’s father, Abraham, is about to burn and kill Isaac as an offering to God. However, just as Abraham is about to kill Isaac, the angel of God appears to Abraham and tells him not to kill Isaac but to offer a burnt ram instead. The angel of God, just like the cousin’s son, saves a main character from death. Another character the son reminded me of was Hiiaka in the Polynesian myth we read last week. Hiiaka, like the cousin’s son, saves her goddess sister’s lover, Lohiau, from his fate of death.