The Big Lebowski: The Dude’s Journey Through Hades

The Coen brothers have said The Big Lebowski is a movie reminiscent of Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep with a plot that goes nowhere, but The Big Lebowski is also much deeper: The Big Lebowski is The Dude as Dante and his journey through Hades.

The Stranger is Virgil, narrating the story of The Dude's journey.

Walter is Charon, the ferryman. When the Dude picks up Walter, Walter immediately insists on driving. Walter driving the Dude's car over the wooden bridge represents Charon ferrying a soul across the river Styx. The money-filled briefcase the Dude gives Walter represents the ferryman’s toll. When the briefcase is stolen, Walter leads the search efforts to retrieve it. Walter also arranges and pays for Donny's cremation, and scatters Donny's ashes at Oceanus: Charon delivers souls from the land of the living to the land of the dead.

Uli and the nihilists are Cerberus, the three-headed dog guarding the entrance and exit to Hades. When the nihilists visit The Dude in the bathtub, the camera shot is angled so they appear to have one body with three heads. After Walter throws the ringer off the bridge and the nihilists speed off on their motorcycles, the revving engines sound like growling, howling dogs. When the money is revealed to have never existed, Charon has been denied his payment, so Walter escorts the Dude back to the land of the living and is confronted by Cerberus.

Bunny is a Siren. Bunny is repeatedly shown next to water: the Dude first meets Bunny at the pool, and later watches her in Logjammin' with Sherri, another Siren who "just came over to use the shower.” Later, Bunny crashes her car into the fountain after “visiting friends in Palm Springs.”

Maude is Melinoë, the bringer of nightmares and madness. Maude appears in both of The Dude's dreams and hallucinations. In the Dude’s first dream, the Dude chases Maude while flying, but the dream becomes a nighmare about falling. The Dude's second dream also features Maude and ends with a terrifying nightmare. Melinoë is a moon nymph, so Maude always appears at night, in dim light or shade, or in The Dude's dreams.

Jackie Treehorn is Hades; his thugs are Thatanos and Hypnos. The Dude meets Jackie at his beach party with a fire in the background; the beach and crashing waves represent Oceanus, the border between the lands of the living and the dead. Jackie's cave-like house represents Hypnos's cave, where Jackie puts The Dude to sleep. Another possibility is The Big Lebowski himself is Hades, since Melinoë (Maude) is his daughter. Bunny could be Persephone, the consort of Hades, but… aw hell, I'm ramblin' again.

I am not aware of any discussions in which the Coen Brothers have confirmed or discussed making allegories and allusions to Greek underworld mythology and The Divine Comedy in The Big Lebowski, but I am certain the Coens made them intentionally. The Coens are deliberate, meticulous, and thoughtful about making movies. All of their movies prior to The Big Lebowski have cohesive literary allusion and allegories via writing, art direction, and cinematography.

I neither believe The Big Lebowski is careless writing or lazy filmmaking, nor do I think the Coens sought only to make a pointless movie as they've claimed elsewhere. Rather, I believe The Big Lebowski was made to seem like an oddball comedy, but contains enough subtlety and clues to its deeper meanings, forcing the audience to question, discuss, and analyze it, like all of the other films by the Coen Brothers.

A wiser fella than myself can and should write more about the allegorical connections between The Big Lebowski and Greek underworld mythology. I didn't think Donny havin' a Greek last name was a coincidence. But it’s a pretty good theory, don’tcha think? Well, thatabout wraps ‘er up. Catchya later on down the trail.