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Homer Simpson TM and FOX and its related entities In this article, we consider some of the ways in which Homeric rhetoric has traveled from The Odyssey to The Idiocy by way of America's favorite cartoon character. Let's journey to Springfield to review 20 classic figures of speech. "English? Who needs that? I'm never going to England!" Woo-hoo! The immortal words of Mr. Homer Simpson--beer-guzzling, donut-popping patriarch, nuclear-power-plant safety inspector, and Springfield's resident rhetorician. Indeed, Homer has contributed far more to the English language than just the popular interjection "D'oh." Let's take a look at some of those rich contributions--and along the way review several rhetorical terms.
Simpson Repeats
Like the great orators of ancient Greece and Rome, Homer employs repetition to evoke pathos and underscore key points. Here, for example, he inhabits the spirit of Susan Hayward in a breathless anaphora: I want to shake off the dust of this one-horse town. I want to explore the world. I want to watch TV in a different time zone. I want to visit strange, exotic malls. Im sick of eating hoagies! I want a grinder, a sub, a foot-long hero! I want to LIVE, Marge! Wont you let me live? Wont you, please? Epizeuxis serves to convey a timeless Homeric truth: When it comes to compliments, women are ravenous blood-sucking monsters always wanting more . . . more . . . MORE! And if you give it to them, you'll get plenty back in return. And polyptoton leads to a profound discovery: Marge, what's wrong? Are you hungry? Sleepy? Gassy? Gassy? Is it gas? It's gas, isn't it?
Homeric Arguments
Homer's rhetorical turns, especially his efforts to argue by analogy, sometimes take odd detours:
Son, a woman is a lot like a . . . a refrigerator! They're about six feet tall, 300 pounds. They make ice, and . . . um . . . Oh, wait a minute. Actually, a woman is more like a beer. Son, a woman is like a beer. They smell good, they look good, you'd step over your own mother just to get one! But you can't stop at one. You wanna drink another woman!
You know, boys, a nuclear reactor is a lot like a woman. You just have to read the manual and press the right buttons. Fame was like a drug. But what was even more like a drug were the drugs.
Yes, Mr. Simpson is occasionally word challenged, as in the malapropism that punctuates this distinctively Homeric prayer: Dear Lord, thank you for this microwave bounty, even though we don't deserve it. I mean . . . our kids are uncontrollable hellions! Pardon my French, but they act like savages! Did you see them at the picnic? Oh, of course you did. You're everywhere, you're omnivorous. Oh Lord! Why did you spite me with this family? Consider as well Homer's eccentric (or perhaps dyslexic?) use of hypophora (raising questions and answering them): "What's a wedding? Webster's dictionary describes it as the act of removing weeds from one's garden." And now and then his thoughts collapse before he can make it to the end of a sentence, as in this case of aposiopesis: I won't sleep in the same bed with a woman who thinks I'm lazy! I'm going right downstairs, unfold the couch, unroll the sleeping ba--uh, goodnight.