Discussion Post
Personally, my favorite story line is the troubled journey home, first undertaken by Gilgamesh but then made the most famous by Odysseus and, later, Aeneas. In more modern times, the Coen Brothers’ film O Brother, Where Art Thou?, which details the travails of Ulysses Everett McGill in the days of the Great Depression. The reason that this story line appeals to me is that while the main character is heroic, he is also flawed, which makes him more realistic. It is his own hubris that has landed him in this particular pickle, and he must learn to use his talents and live more humbly in order to return home. If I were going to make a contemporary version of this story, I would start with a famed businessman, or former political leader, who through some prideful act of his own has ended up unable to use the normal transportation network (although I would come up with something more problematic than Alec Baldwin’s addiction to the games on his tablet), and he must get back to his home through a series of difficulties with transportation modes (faulty buses, missed ferries) to distractions (running into an ex late at night at a rarely used train station) before he can finally make it home. I might even work in that same leather bag that held the Aeolian winds in some way. No matter what, the fact that hubris can keep us from home is a theme that transcends time.
