"What are you selling?" Delmar asks, approaching the one-eyed salesman. “The word of God, that, let me tell you, there is damn good money in these times of pain and need.” The Bible has been misused, misquoted, and misrepresented by history's best enemies. Crusaders, for example, chanted "God wills it" as they raped, pillaged, and pillaged entire villages. It has also been used as a source of wealth and fortune, as seen above with the Bible Seller. The abuse of the Bible and Christianity is not a new concept in our world, and the Christianity we see and know today is very different from the Christianity of 100 years ago. ago, not to mention when it started. We have always mystified religion and have become accustomed to treating it more like a mythology than a theology, that is, treating it more like epics and legends of supernatural beings than as an actual practice of believing in and worshiping a God. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The Movie O Brother, Where Art Thou? sheds light on comparisons between Christianity and mythology, particularly Homer's epic The Odyssey, the Coen brothers' film is full of evidence of both texts, some more obvious than others. Let's start with our protagonist, Ulysses Everett McGill (George Clooney). Although Odysseus is the protagonist of Homer's Greek myth, his Latin name was none other than Ulysses. Not only do the two protagonists share names, but their spouses do too: Ulysses has Penelope and Everett has Penny. Everett is a witty and intelligent man, but he uses such devices to mask a strong sense of arrogance that serves as his downfall. From the beginning he makes it clear that he is a bit of a hypocrite when it comes to religion. He ridicules his two companions for seeking baptism, but quotes the Bible when one of them shows signs of negativity. The mockery, however, is justified: the men are alone in an old cemetery and are suddenly overwhelmed by a mass of men and women dressed in white, who seem a little hypnotized and strongly attracted by the water. When they arrive, they form two lines and take turns being baptized. Delmar runs to the front, is dunked under water by the preacher, and returns to the men repeating what appears to be a checklist to be run down to prove they are believers. “Well, that's all, guys. I have been redeemed. The preacher washed away all my sins and transgressions. From here on out it's all straight and narrow. And the eternal sky is my reward!” This hypnotic oddity is compared to the lotus eaters of the story of Odysseus. In the Greek epic, Ulysses' men are stranded on an island and find the natives, the lotus eaters, who offer them the flowering lotus fruit which seduces them to the point of forgetting the journey and wishing to remain on the island forever. island with lotus eaters. Likewise, once Pete and Delmar are baptized among the Christians, they wish to stay with them forever and forget their plan to find the treasure with Everett. This type of comment makes an interesting statement about the toxicity and mysticism of modern Christianity and the harm that blind faith can evoke. If Delmar superimposes concrete facts on abstract solutions – such as claiming to be free from sin only because a man dressed in white dipped him in a lake – he gives in to the occultism of the moment. This does not mean that it is the true form of the religion at hand, it is simply the form of that religion which, at that moment, he was choosing to take upon himself. Soon after being baptized, the first person the three men encounter is Tommy Johnson, a young manAfrican American who sold his soul to the devil the night before. This stark contrast in spiritual experiences relates the two in their staged and overly dramatic nature, both dealing with souls in their three possible stages – saved like Pete and Delmar's, in limbo like Everett's, or damned like Tommy's. The fugitives' time with the Hogwallop family contains an exorbitant amount of religious references that prove useful to move the action forward, as well as excellent examples of ironic and faith-related proclamations. Pete's cousin, Washington Bartholomew Hogwallop, was given a middle name that corresponds to the name of one of the twelve disciples. After handing over the three men in exchange for a bounty, Pete threatens to kill him and calls him Judas Iscariot Hogwallop, referring to the disciple known for betraying Jesus. When everything goes wrong and the men try to escape from the police who are waiting for them below, Everett shouts St. Christopher's name with a breathless exclamation. St. Christopher is the patron saint of long journeys, fitting the three wanderers perfectly. Before the three men are hanged, Pete proclaims, “Damn. God forgive me!” The process of condemning God and then asking for his forgiveness provides a wonderful example of religious irony in the film. Everett's use of biblical references is sparse, but still very present. It seems to begin as a sort of mockery of the other two men, making fun of their naive faith. When Pete becomes pessimistic about the prospects of their journey, Everett tells him to “consider the lilies of the field,” quoting Matthew 6:28. He mocks the boys for their baptism and immediate salvation thereafter. It's only when they are about to be hanged and the sheriff tells the boys to say their last prayers that we see Everett in a vulnerable and intimate moment with his God. He gets on his knees and asks God to forgive his wrongdoings. Pray that God will take care of his Penny and his girls if he can no longer do so. Shortly afterward, the dam collapses and the three nearly drown, but they find a coffin where one of them was supposed to be buried and cling to it like a raft. Pete and Delmar claim that the flood was a miracle, while Everett believes that it was an obvious accident with coincidental timing and that the dam would have been blown that day no matter what had happened to them. When Pete retorts that Everett must have prayed a lot for a scientific explanation, Everett retorts that "any human being will get agitated in a moment of stress." Everett sees the Christian God as a superhero, anxiously waiting for a distress call so he can swoop in and save the day, then disappearing into the shadows until he is needed again. Music plays an important role in the connection between the film and Christianity. The first song in the film, Little Lazarus, is the story of a sheriff who asks his deputy to look for Lazarus and bring him back to the sheriff, dead or alive. The sheriff decides to recover Lazarus himself and shoots him, then takes him back to the drug store, leaving him on the ground to die. Lazarus is also the name of the man in the Bible who lay dead in a tomb for four days before Jesus was taken from Mary and Martha and resurrected Lazarus. This reference alludes to some sort of resurrection or rebirth, so from the beginning of the film we expect a reformation on the part of the characters, most likely in some religious form. Songs like "Down to the River to Pray", "I'll Fly Away" and "Angel Band" are all gospel-like in their verses and form, all alluding to heaven and the Lord in hopes of seeing them both one day. The name Ulysses means "a man who is in constant pain and sadness", and since.