When the film O Bother Where Art Thou first started, I was unable to make any correlation between that and The Odyssey, but as it progressed I soon was able to follow the plot and match creatures to their ancient Greek counterparts. As Odysseus encountered many monsters, mystical creatures, and gods, Ulysses (the main Odysseus like character in O Bother Where Art Thou) had many of his own encounters with Odyssey like creatures. While O Bother Where Art Thou is based on The Odyssey they still have there similarities and differences in the way the various creatures are portrayed. Because of the way the different creatures are portrayed, it also gives them different symbolic relevance to the viewers.
There are many similarities between the creatures of The Odyssey and that of O Bother Where Art Thou, the main creatures that have a counter part in The Odyssey are the sheriff (Poseidon) The "traveling bible sales man" con artist (Cyclops) the 3 women by the river (the sirens), the KKK (Laestrygonians), and the Baptists (the lotus eaters).
Odysseus and Nausicaä by Charles Gleyre (19th cen...
English: 18th-century French engraving of Odysseus...
Ulysses at the court of AlcinousThere are many similarities between the creatures of The Odyssey and that of O Brother Where Art Thou. First as in The Odyssey when it was Poseidon who blew Odysseus off course, and gave him the tasks that he had to deal with to get home, the sheriff was the character who was making it difficult for Ulysses and his "crew" to get home. Poseidon and the sheriff were also introduced in a similar manner. Poseidon was introduced when he found out that Odysseus was allowed to leave Calypsos Island and from then tried to drown him. In a similar way the sheriff was introduced to the story after he got wind of the escape of Ulysses from the chain gang,