"For six long years I've been in trouble
No pleasures here on earth I found
For in this world I'm bound to ramble
I have no friends to help me now."
Especially the last 2 lines of this really remind me of Odysseus constantly having to restart and "ramble" and always losing his crew or the blessing of any friends that try to help him. I also liked the lines "Maybe your friends think I'm just a stranger, My face you never will see no more" because it speaks to all the characters in the book that doubted Odysseus' return at one point or another, which was most of the characters since he'd been gone 20 years.
While reading The Odyssey, I was a little put off by how gruesome the slaughter in the hall was, and although O Brother, Where Art Thou paid homage to that scene with the little brawl Everett and Penny's fiance had, I thought the real slaughter in the hall scene was when Everett and his friends win the love of the public by revealing themselves as the Soggy Bottom Boys. I think it was kind of funny that the way Everett wins back Penny is through this song as opposed to fighting people (as we saw in the film, he is not a very good fighter!). It's like he's still sort of a mess, but she'll marry him again because he's famous now and she knows he can actually do something. There was a lot of great music in this movie and especially this song and the idea that Everett won back his respect through singing, really made it an enjoyable story for me.
While reading The Odyssey, I was a little put off by how gruesome the slaughter in the hall was, and although O Brother, Where Art Thou paid homage to that scene with the little brawl Everett and Penny's fiance had, I thought the real slaughter in the hall scene was when Everett and his friends win the love of the public by revealing themselves as the Soggy Bottom Boys. I think it was kind of funny that the way Everett wins back Penny is through this song as opposed to fighting people (as we saw in the film, he is not a very good fighter!). It's like he's still sort of a mess, but she'll marry him again because he's famous now and she knows he can actually do something. There was a lot of great music in this movie and especially this song and the idea that Everett won back his respect through singing, really made it an enjoyable story for me.
I also really liked the music (and recently played the entire soundtrack while studying for a history test!). I'm glad that you wrote about this topic, because while I knew that "Man of Constant Sorrow" had parallels to The Odyssey, I didn't know how many there were! I really liked the connection you made about the "your friends think I'm just a stranger" and how people thought that Odysseus would never return.
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