The Coen Brother’s Film & The Trickster Myth in The Odyssey

O’ TRICKSTER WHERE ART THOU

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THE ODYSSEY IN “O BROTHER WHERE ART THOU?”

• Joel and Ethan Coen brothers based their movie on Homer’s Odyssey

Odysseus the TricksterOdysseus is often the prime mythological story used to illustrate Campbell’s monomyth, “The Hero’s Journey.”

Yet, mythologists also see Odysseus as a classic trickster character.

What is a Trickster?A Trickster is a mischievous or roguish figure in myth or folklore who typically makes up for physical weakness with cunning and subversive humor. The Trickster alternates between cleverness and stupidity, kindness and cruelty, deceiver and deceived, breaker of taboos and creator of culture. (americanfolklore.net)

What is a Trickster?Lewis Hyde: “Trickster is a boundary-crosser" He (or she) is often a traveler, breaking societal rules. Tricksters cross lines, breaking or blurring connections and distinctions between "right and wrong, sacred and profane, clean and dirty, male and female, young and old, living and dead.“

Hyde, Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth, and Art. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998, 7.

Michael Webster, faculty.gvsu.edu/websterm

ODYSSEUS THE TRICKSTER

• Hyde:

• Odysseus is a master of the art of lying

• He is referred to as “polytropic,” by Homer: wily, versatile, much-traveled, “turning many ways.”

ULYSSES EVERETT MCGILL: ODYSSEUS

• (IMDB) McGill is the leader of a trio of escaped convicts in pursuit of treasure stored at McGill's family cabin.

ULYSSES EVERETT MCGILL: ODYSSEUS

“Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns

driven time and again off course, once he had plundered

the hallowed heights of Troy.

Many cities of men he saw and learned their minds,

many pains he suffered, heartsick on the open sea,

fighting to save his life and bring his comrades home.”

Opening lines of The Odyssey:

Odysseus/ McGill as TricksterHyde:

A trickster, polytropic man is: “shifty as an octopus, coloring himself to fit his surroundings, putting on a fresh face for each man or woman he meets, charming, disarming, and not to be trusted.” (35)

Odysseus/ McGill as the Trickster

Hyde:

“The trickster is amoral, not immoral, He embodies and enacts that large portion of our experience where good and evil are hopelessly intertwined.” (10)

Odysseus/ McGill as the TricksterTommy Johnson: “I had to be up at that there crossroads last midnight, to sell my soul to the devil.”

Ulysses Everett McGill: Well, ain't it a small world, spiritually speaking. Pete and Delmar just been baptized and saved. I guess I'm the only one that remains unaffiliated.

ODYSSEUS/MCGILL: “BONA FIDE” TRICKSTER

TRICKSTERS: QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER• The tricky role of tricksters:

• Why do the trickster characters vary from culture to culture, and what do tricksters say about the boundaries within a particular society?

• Why do tricksters act mainly on physical appetites, and what can this tell us about people?

• What do trickster figures teach humans, if anything?

• Tricksters in contemporary popular culture

• Who are some characters from film, TV, plays, etc. who could be considered tricksters?

• How do they embody "all of the infinite ambiguities of what it is to be alive in this world" (Myth & Knowing, p. 250)? Be specific.

• Is the Devil a Trickster? Why or Why not?