A Man of Constant Sorrow

The biggest thing that struck me while watching O Brother, Where Art Thou? was it's incredible soundtrack. Without the music, the movie would be pretty generic and not as memorable. "A Man of Constant Sorrow" itself was the thing that made the movie great for me.

From the very first time it was played in the movie it caught my attention. Maybe it was George Clooney's amazing voice combined with the awesome harmony by Tim Blake Nelson and John Turturro, but I no longer felt satisfied with any dialogue and just longed to hear the song again.

The first verse reveals Everett's background and gives the audience some insight into his character and puts his character into context without any cheesy dialogue.

I am a man of constant sorrow

I've seen trouble all my days

I bid farewell to ol' Kentucky

The place where I was born and raised

The second verse, though, brings in a deeper meaning which is later confirmed with the plot of the movie.

For six long years I've been in trouble

No pleasure here on earth I've found

For in this world, I'm bound to ramble

I have no friends to help me now

Here the audience learns how long Everett has been in jail and again the idea of a man in constant sorrow is supported. The last line ends up being a major plot point in the movie; when Everett reveals to Pete and Delmar that there is no treasure and in fact, he tricked them because they were chained together. Before Everett revealed his deception, Pete exclaims, “You boys're true friends! … You're m'boon companions!” But as soon as Pete realizes how selfish Everett is, both Pete and Delmar plan to abandon Everett, leaving him friendless.

The next three verses are seemingly addressed at Penny and foreshadow the plot of the movie.

It's fair thee well, my old true lover

I never expect to see you again

For I'm bound to ride that Northern Railroad

Perhaps I'll die upon this train

You can bury me in some deep valley

For many years where I may lay

And you may learn to love another

While I am sleeping in my grave

Maybe your friends think I'm just a stranger

My face you never will see no more

But there is one promise that is given

I'll meet you on Gods golden shore

In these lines, Everett addresses his lover, Penny, and he almost seems to know that she has moved on and told everyone that he has died. The fourth line is quite ironic therefore, because Penny tells everyone Everett was run over by a train. The second of these stanzas describes Penny’s infidelity while Everett “is sleeping in his grave” the “deep valley” being the fake story of his death. The final stanza brings all of the foreshadowing and irony together into one scene when Everett sings the song in the climax of the movie, and gives a quick tug to the fake beard as he sings the word “stranger” making sure that Penny knows that no matter what, he will come through.

“A Man of Constant Sorrow” plays a major role in the plot of O Brother, Where Art Thou? and reveals a lot of the plot in an obvious yet obscure way, and it is also extremely catchy and brings a fun and upbeat tone to the movie.

A Bad Hero

Is Odysseus really the hero in the Odyssey? The book is named after him so he must be, right? As the book progresses, it becomes increasingly clear that Odysseus, even though he experiences a Hero’s Journey, is not a good hero. At his best, he cleverly docked his ship separate from his crewmen, but at his worst, he literally made a God vow revenge on him.

One of his most unrevealing traits, is his narcissism, a hero should not be someone who goes around bragging about his achievements, but instead going out and achieving more. In book 8 Odysseus asks the bard to sing him the story of the Trojan horse and sack of Troy, and then once confronted with his own great heroism, Odysseus is moved to tears, “Great Odysseus was moved to tears, running down from his eyes to wet his cheeks” (8.586-587). Not only does he ask bards to sing about him, Odysseus goes on and on about his own life and brags about how great he is, like in book fourteen when Odysseus brags about his journey to the swineherd.

In addition to his narcissism, Odysseus is extremely selfish in his journey. First, he does not really fight to keep his crew alive. Odysseus doesn’t warn them to shore their ships away from the harbor and does not provide them with food when he decides that he wants to sleep with Circe for a year. While he sleeps with Circe he does not think about Penelope and what she must be facing back home, “there is no more hope of my father’s homecoming. I believe no messages any more, even should there be one, nor pay attention to any prophecy, those times my mother calls some diviner into the house and asks him questions” (1.413-416). Odysseus only thinks about the fact that he is having fun and so he delays his trip some more.

Odysseus’ most unheroic, but very characteristic trait, is impulsive. Odysseus seems to never be able to control his emotions or actions. For example, after already outwitting the cyclops and escaping, decides as the ultimate end note that he will reveal his real name to the Cyclops, delaying his trip another seven years. The cyclops, Poseidon's son, angrily tells his father, “Hear me, Poseidon who circle the earth, dark-haired. If truly I am your son, and you acknowledge yourself as my father, grant that Odysseus, sacker of cities, son of Laertes, who makes his home in Ithaka, may never reach that home” (9.528-536).

All in all, Odysseus does not turn out to be the best hero, he has all the outer characteristics of a hero--pretty, strong, brave, clever--but he knows of his greatness and tends to brag about it, he lacks any sort of motivation to make life better for his comrades, and he does not think before acting a lot of the time.

The Writer's Perspective

I was never the kid who confirmed to the norm. I never sought someone that I could relate to in books and TV shows, I sought for exactly the opposite in fact.

I've always been interested in exploring people's minds, inside and out, learning how different people think and why. But as I watch TV shows, I find that I don't worry about why the characters themselves are doing things, I wonder why the writer has written the character to do this. Because part of being a writer, is first creating a character that could be real and then entering their mind and doing everything as they would do. And try as they may, writers always put pieces of themselves in their characters. And finding those pieces that show up time and again in each episode is extremely satisfying, making me want to predict their next move based on what I've learned.

I think because of my view, I tend to connect to characters whose psychology interests me. In series like Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, and Divergent, the protagonists' drive is pretty clear, it's the right thing to do and it's for the greater good. And while I'm all for the greater good, when the character is someone I hate, psychoanalyzing them and the writers' choices in writing them becomes all the more interesting.

In Orange is the New Black, for example, I despise Piper, the main character. I find everything she does to be extremely agitating and backwards of what a logical person would do. At the beginning, Piper, we get a glimpse of her normal life and then she heads straight for prison. It is clear that Piper is not going to belong here and she quickly learns that the rules on the inside are very different than out. From Piper's first few lines, she manages to both offend the most powerful woman in the prison and establishes herself as a clueless know-it-all. Piper's psychological journey in the show is an extremely intriguing one; she has been forced into a whole new universe, put in close quarters with people she would have never met on the outside, and the only thing that isn't controlled is her social life. The longer that Piper lives in this new world, the more her oxymoronic characteristics show. Jenji Kohan, the show's creator and writer, has manufacture a gold mine of psychological depth with Piper's character, and so far she has explored many possibilities that lay in Piper's mind as she enters this uncharted territory.

Recently, I've started reading scripts of the shows that I've been watching on repeat. With every read the scripts reveal a sentence that I never thought twice about when I was watching, a character trait that I never noticed, or an action description that transforms a plain filler scene into the backbone of the episode.

I think that viewing things from the writer's perspective has made me think more of why people do the things they do, in real life. A small glance or a certain word said instead of another can tell an entire story that goes on in someone's heads, both in the real world and the fictional one.