"Odysseus McGill" - A Man of Constant Sorrow

My excitement to watch Oh Brother, Where Art Thou for this class was very high thanks to my already developed love for the movie. This having been approximately the fourth time I've watched the film, I can confidently say that it is a timeless classic and the story never gets old. Maybe that is because the story itself is indeed loosely based off of Homer's "The Odyssey". I am familiar with the story of "The Odyssey", but until the connection between it and Oh Brother was discussed in the article, I had no knowledge of the connection and had not noticed it in the film until now. But thankfully it all makes sense now and heightens the beauty of the film for me even more so.

A particular theme of the movie that has always captivated me was the concept of The Man of Constant Sorrow. Not only was I hooked by just how catchy and song was, but I was amazed by the way that Everett McGill actually filled the role of the man of constant sorrow through the story and his part of the adventure/journey. Just like Homer's Odysseus, Everett was forced upon a great and perilous journey just in the hope of returning home to his family. I will avoid diving into why Penny is an awful character compared to Odysseus's Penelope, but I will say that Penny definitely contributes to Everett's constant sorrow. The hope of Everett's journey is that he will be reunited with Penny and remarry her, but even when he finds here, she does not accept him. She even renounces him, tells their daughters that he was hit by a train, and engages herself to the "bona-fide" Waldrip. Everett will never satisfy Penny no matter how hard he tries (aka. "she counted to 3!") which adds to his sorrows. And by "constant sorrows" it doesn't mean that Everett is a depressed man, but that he is a man struck with constant misfortune but always manages to survive and slowly journey on. It just so happens that the Soggy Bottom Boys hugely popular song captures the true nature of Everett's and Odysseus's struggles. For example, the song lyrics, "For 6 long years I've been in trouble, no pleasure here on earth I found. For in this world I bound to ramble" are a perfect description of their connected perilous journeys. The fact that whenever they sing "A Man of Constant Sorrow", the entire state of Mississippi goes crazy with excitement is only an ironic reaction that the protagonist will never truly receive for his efforts and survival. Therefore the man of constant sorrow is always destined to journey on as a stranger through life.