The History of Halloween and How it is Presented Nowadays.

by mmicozzi (student)

The Halloween Project

The History of Halloween:

The idea of Halloween started with the Celts, who celebrated the “End of Summer” on October the 31st. This occurrence was referred to as “Samhain Time”. People believed that around this time maddened fairies and monsters lurked in the woods, freezing and killing off plants that hadn’t been harvested and abducting villagers. It was also on this occasion that the boundary between the living and the dead was particularly blurred and weak, allowing druids to make more certain predictions. They often built huge bonfires in which they burnt plants and animals as sacrifices; villagers would wear the sacrifices’ skin as costumes.

During the Samhain/Halloween celebrations, many unmarried women believed they would be able to come in contact with their future husbands through a series of spells. Most of them were quite simple and required everyday objects, such as seeds or candles, and were believed to show the face of your future spouse, or at least reveal their name. The following spell is just one of many practised on October 31st: “Take a candle, and go alone to a looking glass; eat an apple before it,(…) you should comb your hair, all the time; the face of your conjugal companion, to be, will be seen in the glass, as if peeping over your shoulder.”

Later on, around the second half of the 18th century, a wave of immigrants hit America, resulting in people pulling inspiration from English and Irish traditions to celebrate Halloween. Here, men and women would dress up and go from house to house asking for food or money; this would eventually turn into what we now know as “Trick-or-Treating”. During the early 19th century, the holiday lost most of its scary and religious aspects, and turned into a celebration for neighbours and communities, which was mainly aimed at young children.

The Key Elements of Halloween

When thinking about Halloween, many immediately picture young “trick-or-treaters”. While handing out candy was once used as a way to prevent vandalism between the 1920s and the 1950s, it has now become a main part of Halloween celebrations. A quarter of all candy bought in the US every year is purchased for this particular occasion. These are often themed, with skull-, ghost- or pumpkin-motifs.

Many superstitions have survived from the days when Halloween was a simple pagan holiday marking the end of the year, many concerning animals. Black cats, bats and spiders are frequently used ...

This is a preview of the whole essay

The Key Elements of Halloween

Many superstitions have survived from the days when Halloween was a simple pagan holiday marking the end of the year, many concerning animals. Black cats, bats and spiders are frequently used in visual representations of the holiday due to their significance in the Middle Ages. Back then, these creatures were associated with witches, as they represented the witch’s deceased family members, and the cat was supposed to be Satan’s incarnation. It is also still considered valid that if you spot a spider on Halloween evening, a deceased loved one is watching over you. Not many people still believe in the power of spells and their “full potential” during Halloween, but some still practise them for fun.

Another symbolic image of Halloween is the widely known Jack-O’-Lantern. This too can be attributed to the Celtic beginnings of the festivity, as the idea of the lantern is based on one of their legends. According to the story, a soul to whom both the gates to heaven a hell were closed, hollowed out a turnip and burnt a coal the devil had thrown at him inside. Since turnips were somewhat harder to come by in America during the immigration flood of the late 19th century, they were substituted by pumpkins.

Visually, Halloween has to main colours: orange and black. The orange once symbolised the harvest and the changing colour of the leaves, while black stood for the upcoming darkness of winter and death. Nowadays, purple, green and even yellow are sometimes included.

It is in such colours that most costumes are fabricated in. While they change every year, girls usually opt for a witch costume; boys however traditionally choose vampires or werewolves. The first two are often designed in a somewhat more classic style; this is to say medieval-princess-style witch dresses with lace up detailing in the front and long to the floor and velvety jackets with ruffled shirts for the vampires.

Iconic Elements of Halloween (Media and Pop Culture)

Halloween is often used as inspiration for TV shows or movies. The most famous one is perhaps the “Treehouse of Horror” series, which features the cast of The Simpsons and features one new episode each year around the time of Halloween since the show’s second season in 1990. Plot-wise, they tend to parody well-known horror stories such as The Exorcist and are more violent than regular episodes.

Another example for Halloween on TV is the made-for-TV movie “Halloween With the New Addams Family”. It was a spin-off of the original 1960s comedy and even featured some of the original cast members. The focus is on the preparation the family puts into the celebration of Halloween.

The scary aspects of the festivity often present themselves as a great source of inspiration for horror movies; the first full-length feature to be based completely around holiday is the aptly named 1978 movie “Halloween”. The story follows a murderer who has broken out of his mental institution and stalks a girl and her friends through the streets on Halloween. Due to its huge success, a sequel was released in 1981. This one however was not as well received.

Halloween was also seen as an opportunity to make children’s films. Disney started the trend with “Halloweentown” in 1998, about a young, thirteen-year-old witch who helps her grandmother defeat evil in the magical city that is Halloweentown. Three years later, the sequel premiered; “Halloweentown II: Kalabar’s Revenge” had a very similar plot. In 2004, “Halloweentown High” came out, and in 2006 the story came to a conclusion with “Return to Halloweentown”.

Halloween isn’t as popular for songs as it is for TV or movies. However, a few songs are based on the festivity. The most popular one is “This Is Halloween” by Danny Elfman, which was featured in Tim Burton’s “The Nightmare before Christmas”. Other examples include “The Scream on Halloween” by The Browns and “Halloween” by The Misfits.

The Haunted House

Haunted houses have been around for at least two centuries. These buildings are perceived to be inhabited by the souls of deceased past residents; there is usually a gruesome story about how the ghost came into being, mostly featuring murder or suicide. While there is little physical evidence that support such claims, such beliefs tend to come from misinterpretation of noises, shadows or even hallucinations.

The concept has since been adapted and made into an attraction featured at fairs and amusement parks. Such haunted attractions will typically take place indoors, where the visitors will experience scenes of terror, created using special lighting, sound effects and costumes. Many have themes, such as zombies, abandoned hotels, hospitals, etc. Around 80% of all haunted house attractions in the US are run by charities, with all profits going to their cause. The ticket will cost on average somewhere between $5 and $25; the experience itself could take anywhere between 5min to 60 min.

There are other types of haunted attractions similar to haunted houses. These can be outdoor experiences such as haunted hayrides at farms or walks through the woods, or indoor occurrences such as ghost trains or midnight spooks.

Sources:

A Halloween Anthology, Lisa Morton (2008)