Killing Death: The Cultural Significance of Halloween

By Karen Sternheimer 

If your neighborhood is anything like mine, yards are filled with skeletons, foam tombstones, and other ghoulish décor. Some homes even have orange and black flashing lights and giant inflatable skulls. One house is lit up by strobe lights and has the 80s song "Ghostbusters" playing on an endless loop. 

Our annual embrace of the macabre began as my family and I had to deal with the real thing: the loss of my grandmother. Tombstones aren’t fun and festive when you’ve just buried someone in an actual cemetery, one that doesn’t get put away on November 1st. 

In many ways, Halloween exists as a ritual to confront death during a time when most of us (fortunately) don’t have to deal with death on a regular basis. We fight wars overseas so they seem to happen to “other people,” and when people do pass away they tend to be in hospitals. Before the twentieth century, most people died at home and families were often responsible for preparing their bodies for burial. 

When my grandmother was born in 1911, death was all around her. Born in Russia, she was a child during the battles of World War I. Her father died in the Influenza Pandemic soon after, and her village was attacked and civilians were killed after the Bolsheviks took power in Russia. She hated to remember these times, but in her later years would tell us stories about hiding up on a hill and returning to her village to find bodies everywhere. Once she hid with her family in a neighbor’s home, only to have soldiers find them. “There are only women and children here,” her mother told them, pleading for their lives. 

They later escaped into Romania, crossed a river in the middle of the night, made their way to France, and sailed to Ellis Island. They never looked back, always preferring to focus on happy times in America. After her harrowing escape, my grandmother hated the ocean and rarely went in the water, even when she retired to Florida. 

But she really loved Halloween, and even when she was an adult she would dress up to celebrate. She loved to tell a story about when she and my grandfather dressed up and rang the doorbell of friends, demanding candy. They were so well-costumed that their friends didn’t recognize them and slammed the door in their faces. When they took off their masks, they and their friends were overcome with fits of laughter. 

I don’t think it’s an accident that she took such pleasure in Halloween, a chance to mock death. She cheated death many times in her life; in spite of a heart attack and cancer in her 50s, as well as several serious health complications in her later years, she lived a full 96 years. 

And that’s really what our contemporary Halloween ritual is all about: laughing in the face of death. 

Halloween began as a Celtic holiday to ward off evil spirits. In its early incarnation, instead of giving away candy people would provide gifts in  exchange for the promise that the recipients would pray for their dead relatives. 

The holiday came to the United States courtesy of the large influx of Irish immigrants in the mid-nineteenth century. Far from a celebration for children, it began in the U.S. as a night of mischief for teen boys and young men. According to historian Gary Cross, treats were offered as bribes to assure that property was not the target of pranksters. 

Cross argues that this holiday became infantilized as cities grew and the idea  of young men “blowing off steam” seemed more menacing. According to Cross, it wasn’t until the 1940s that children began wearing costumes and going trick-or-treating. 

Halloween is a night when the boundaries of acceptable behavior are turned upside down. People of all ages dress in costumes, sometimes hyper-sexual, occasionally gender-bending, and sometimes challenging conventional standards of good taste. Children are allowed to dress as powerful and scary creatures, demand candy (often from strangers) and are allowed to roam the streets after dark (albeit usually with a parent in tow). And rather than fearing death or trying to pretend that it doesn’t exist, we laugh at the idea. 

Adults actively try to scare children with haunted houses or by dressing up in a  scary outfit to answer the door for trick-or-treaters. I remember we had a Halloween festival at my elementary school, where we were encouraged to walk through a dark room while scary music played in the background. The teachers were dressed in costumes and tried to scare us (and often succeeded). We were told to put our hands in a box filled with cooked spaghetti and were told it was filled with brains. 

Of course, the people who really get scared now are parents, afraid that their kids will come home with poisoned candy. As sociologist Barry Glassner notes in The Culture of Fear, there is no documented case of a child’s Halloween candy being poisoned by a stranger. But the belief that this is a real threat seems to add a dangerous mystique to Halloween. It’s a bit ironic that Halloween fears run so high that some communities don’t even have trick-or-treating. The truth is, most American children have never been safer: crime in the United States is way down compared to the early 1990s, and children are unlikely to die of disease or in infancy compared with past generations. 

Yet the fact that we have come so far in “curing death” means that we need Halloween even more. This is the same reason that every other network drama takes place in a hospital, police station, or crime lab. For most of us, this is the only way we deal with the idea of mortality on a regular basis. Rather than “desensitizing” people, as critics sometime suggest, these rituals are a way of allowing us to face death from a safe distance on a regular basis. 

Laughing at death can be very cathartic. My grandmother had a wonderful sense of humor, and recounting the funny things she said was a tremendous comfort in the days following her death. Likewise, Halloween gives us a chance once a year to poke fun of death.

Of course, no matter how clever we think we are, death always has the last laugh.

Comments

[Kodi Keller]

this is crazy morbid.
however, i would like to see an article regarding halloween's costume origins. if halloween is a chance for us to laugh at death, why is it that little girls dress like princesses and boys dress like firefighters? what caused the growing trend of the older, 16 - 25 year old crowd dressing in incredibly revealing and often scandalous outfits? i think that would be a very interesting topic to cover.

[Sarah]

I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don't know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.

Sarah

http://www.clpostingguide.info

[Ashley]

This was very interesting article to read, especially with the biographical aspect of it. Ms. Sternheimer's grandmother seems to have exhibited a vibrant personality.

Another interesting aspect that I feel that should be added to this article is the religious origin of Halloween and All Saints' (or Souls') Day on the following day, November 1. Ms. Sternheimer neglected to include the religious implications of the holiday. I am not saying that she needed to beat the religious meaning of it to death and apply it to the sociological but it would expand the scope of this sociological commentary.

[bhiser]

This article made me think of how different peoples veiws are and how certain things in life begin one way just to loose the meaning all together. Personally, I think today people use any reason they can find to celebrate. Also I feel that companies use these "holidays" commercializing them for their gain. Come on, so many kids today just want to dress up and get some candy-they don't care why.

[Khameed]

Mexican people have a day where they recozine death. A reminder to soften the heart. To respect the people who have pass on to another world. They dress like kids on Hallowen take food to the graves, have a party in the streets and people set and visit the dead. it is similiar to Hallowen, yet the meaning behind it is so much more powerful than getting candy and acting silly or even warding off evil. It can be an silly or a serious things. I just think they change the meaning of the day and it has less meaning now.

[dthomas6104]

In John 1:5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. Cultural significance of Halloween i feel is all around. we look to may different source to expland what we do not know or can not explain. in the city of new orleans they dance after putting someone to rest its a celebration. cultural fix on celebration of things beyond makes a promise that we will look to the sometime silly but, American consumers are expected to spend $4.75 billion on Halloween
"Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other."Sir Francis Bacon, Essays of Death

[Ethan Turner]

I think that Halloween has become a vital event for many Americans. It allows us to forget about dying and things like that, and to just have fun with the idea for a day. We take so much seriously today, so I think it is good that we are able to laugh at something that normally would never be laughed at. Without a day like Halloween there would be no release from the fear of murder, death, and other things of that nature. I think that it is good that we have a day like Halloween, especially in the times we are in today.

[Sarah Connell]

I just think of Halloween as a fun Holiday. It is a holiday where you can dress up and just have fun, the candy part doesn't hurt either. It is more gothic in nature then other holidays. I don't really think about death and all that during the Holiday. My mom wouldn't let me and my brother dress in scary costumes for fear that it would scare younger children so we were mostly had nice non scary costumes. Maybe that is a reason why I don't really think of death all that much during the holiday.

[Rodney Watts]

I think that Halloween is okay but I also think that we should know the difference between real and unreal.I also think that halloween is okay for kids.

[Matt Ritten]

I think that Halloween is a major part of American culture because people like to have fun and tease around. I do not think that the contemporary Halloween ritual is a way to laugh in the face of death because this event is a night to have fun with families and friends.

[Neil]

I think Halloween is alright and can be fun in many ways. At the same time this holiday can be very dangerous for young kids to just roam the neighborhoods at dark. I mean you should atleast check out the type of people you live around before just letting your children run off in the middle of the night.

[Kimberly King]

I grow-up loving Halloween. We would go to our neighbors' house and would get all types of cookies, cakes even money. It was something that the whole neighborhood would participate in. Everybody knew everybody and we would have so much candy we eat on it for weeks. Communities have changed now. We don't know our neighbors anymore. We only know a few by name. I think there is a underline fear.

[Dustin C. Patterson]

I love Halloween it is my favorite holiday. I love it because it is a day that you can shake the normal taboo associated with death and evil. On Halloween you can turn you house into a haunted house and it is totally accepted. You can scare the hell out of people and they laugh about it because it's halloween. You can dress up as your favorite horror movie monster or a super hero and no one looks at you like you are crazy. I believe this is why halloween is still so accepted in America.

[npullum]

well, I've never associated halloween with death but after reading the article I kind of see it now. But personally I think halloween is just for kids, just like the tooth fairy and and santa claus.

[A. Santillan]

I think that most Americans celebrate Halloween because it the only day of the year you can be a different person. Costoms these days are not just scary anymore you can be anything you wish. I dont think that Halloween is about laughing in deaths face. I think that its accepting it and losing the fear of it as well as remembering the ones you have lost.

[Wes Johnson]

Halloween is a holiday that doesn't mean anything. Don't get me wrong, I think its a fun time. But there is no significance in it. Little if any. It is a good time of the year to use your imagination and nothing more. It's a good holiday for kids.

[karie wooten]

Halloween is celebrated in all parts of the world, it is also prohibited in others. For some Halloween is preceived as "worshiping the devil" to extremely religious people. In America, Halloween is celebrated in our culture because it is the one time children as well as adults can act and dress up like they normally would not.
Some people believe that in todays world, Halloween riturals are about laughing in the face of death. However, this not true. Yes, we do use tombstones, skulls and much more to decorate but these are not for death. Just as pumpkins, spider webs adn todays movie decor, it is all made to scare people.

[AMclester]

Halloween to me is agreat holiday.It lets the kids dress and pretend to be something plus the walking doesnt hurt after recieving so many treats.However depending on where you were born halloween is also a time when you show respect to the dead and what they have contributied to society.

[mhunter1569]

Halloween is not at all a holiday to me, it's just a day when people get to waste alot of money on custumes and candy. Alot of people have moved away from the door to door treats and moved halloween into the churches. I think halloween is just for kids and the scary stuff is demonic.

[J Johnson]

I think people celebrate Holloween because they are ignorant and do not know the true meaning. I think it was something they were taught as a child and enjoyed getting the "free" candy yet comes with a price such as health. I do not believe it is to "laugh in deaths face" I watched a documentary on it, on Holloween little babies are sacrificed and satan is worshiped. I used to celebrate it when I was younger but now I'm older and wiser and I have done my research.

[Karen Lane]

Halloween has been celebrated for centuries with kids dressed up to scare others and have a good time. I do not think that it was really originated to laugh at the face of death. I agree with you Johnson. I watched part of a documentary on it as well. Halloween is the day to worship the devil.

[aThomas]

Children love halloween and as a result it remains an important aspect of American culture. Besides children love holidays and halloween is the perfect excuse to celebrate something. Its lots of fun and the time of the year is perfect. Right before thanksgiving and christmas. As far as laughing at death i dont think so. Besides the occassional skeletons you see from time to time death is not a big aspect of halloween. At least not for me. Scary movies around the holiday may portray killing and therefore death but other than that its just an excuse for childern to dress up and eat candy.

[K. Stovall]

I think that Halloween is simply, to most people, just a night to dress up and be somebody or something that you could not be otherwise. I don't necessarily believe that it is laughing in the face of death. Sure, people do set up cemetaries and such in their yards, but I dont believe those people are mocking death by any means. It is simply a night to step outside of the norm, waste money on expensive costumes, aquire some cavities, and have a little fun.

[Christopher Mosley]

I feel like people should have their own interpretation of what Halloween is. Who's to say I look at Halloween the same way another man looks at it. Halloween is a game consisting of taunting death and bringing mythical evil spirits and representations of darkness to life.

[Amanda Finley]

I feel Halloween is a big part of having fun as a kid and yes i see it as laughing in the face of death because it's an easier way of dealing with death. And people always go the easy way.