“The Raven” is a poem written by Edgar Allan Poe and The Simpsons did a reenactment of this poem. In this reenactment, The Simpsons use various characters to represent Poe, the Raven, Lenore, and the angels. The characters even fit perfectly into their roles. Homer’s son Bart plays the Raven. The Raven is this annoying bird that drives Poe crazy. Bart works so well because he is his son, who often drives him crazy and is always getting into trouble. Homer is playing Poe and he plays him with some contrast to how he acts in the poem. In The Simpsons version, he is way more erratic and actively running around. In the poem, Poe is still losing his mind and is terrified, but he writes as so he is calmer and freaking out internally. Poe is more in a state of hypnagogia, meaning that he is more in a state of dreaming. Although, this “dream” that he feels he is in, creates a lot of anxiety and panic. Homer shows this by running around the chamber and shaking out of fear. In addition to capturing the essence of The Simpsons characters into characters in the poem, The Simpsons version also adds small and important details.
In Poe’s written version, he pays attention to the words he uses to capture the fear and terror he feels. He also uses words to capture the feel of the room. In The Simpsons, they add in small details to bring his words to life. With the line “each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor”, The Simpsons show Homer being close to the fire and when the smoke is coming off of it, there are ghost outlines within the smoke (Poe 1). The use of ghosts as smoke adds to the creepy atmosphere that Poe has established. The Simpsons do an amazing job at adding to the frightening plot line that has already been established. Altogether, The Simpsons added elements that help bring to life Poe’s panic and fears that he wrote in “The Raven”.
Both Poe’s writing and The Simpsons share similar features. In summary, The Simpsons do an amazing job at capturing the lines written by Poe and the overall mood of the story. With added in details, such as the smoke ghost, and the cast of characters, such as Bart as the Raven, made the poem come to life and Poe’s words transfer so well with The Simpsons adaptation.
