Huge monsters, ghouls, and skeletons crowd the yard of a neighbor a few blocks away. Some are 10—15 feet tall. Zombie and skeletal babies crawl across the lawn between the plastic skeletons of dogs. If prizes were given for Halloween decorations, this family’s house would win. All the images are, however, of death and evil. Nothing is cute.
I have an odd and persistent desire to smash all the decorations to smithereens with my hefty walking stick. Not as a sneaky Halloween prank; I would do it in broad daylight—a frightening juggernaut of arthritic kung fu. When confronted I would simply say, “From all your decorations I assumed you would like some real evil—some devilry. I thought you would like some of the real stuff.”
I would not go on a rampage out of anger or any puritanical rage against pagan traditions, but as a thought experiment. Do we really want all the evil and death that many (not all) Halloween decorations celebrate? I think a real zombie would be heart-breaking. I have known and loved heroin and meth addicts. I have sat between the graves of my mother and father and prayed for God to save the life of my son. Despite all the celebration of death in his yard, I doubt my neighbor would want the real thing in his house.
The owner of the house seems nice. I complimented him on the cool turtle skeleton he had—even though anatomically incorrect. I have noticed he puts up no Christmas decorations, but that could be out of exhaustion and a lack of storage space. Perhaps it is out of religious conviction or the lack of it.
But here is the point of the thought experiment. Unlike Christmas, Halloween decorations of this sort do not represent anything we want—only what we fear. We cannot threaten Christmas decorations in the same way. We cannot say, “So you are celebrating light and beauty and love—take this! More lights, wads of tinsel, and piles of presents!”
We also do not want Halloween to bleed into the rest of the year. On the other hand, we hope the kindness and love of Christmaswill last throughout the year. Every charity wishes people’s Christmas spirit would last. And although we put away the decorations in January, it is always with some sadness—it is never with the feeling that we have had enough beauty and joy.
Perhaps the paradox of celebrating death and evil at Halloween and yet not wanting real death or real evil, explains why masks of real monsters (like Hitler or John Gacy) are not popular. And to be charitable, perhaps playful celebrations of death and evil serve to disarm monsters of their power. For one night we tame our monsters and play with them. After all, I, and the boys in my neighborhood, played war all day long in the summer, turning every stick into a rifle and every pinecone into a grenade. We, of course, would have hated real war.
But these decorations seem more like celebration than play; the monsters and skeletons flirt with evil and give the adrenaline rush that fear brings. I think our culture celebrates too many things we do not really want. Pop music often celebrates sexual promiscuity and drug use that no one would want for their kids. (I could be overestimating the parenting skills of Cardie B. and Nicky Menaj.) Movies romanticize adultery and divorce which in real life are all misery. Aging counter-cultural professors urge students to challenge authority but, oblivious to the irony, bristle when students challenge their authority. In this web of lies, the worst may be that we can sin and evil and avoid all the consequences.
There is a kind of dishonesty in all this posing. We should want for ourselves, and for our children, whatever we celebrate. The poet Byron, like so many rock stars after him, discovered that cultivating his image as a tragic bad boy sold more poetry. So it may be that there is money to be made in all this posing. It is estimated that as a nation we will spend 13 billion on Halloween. Adult Halloween parties are becoming more popular, so this is not just money spent on candy.
I love autumn and even love the fun of Halloween. I like seeing the kids in costumes and I think the play is healthy. It is regrettable that as our society has become more secular that the day’s connection to All Saints Day has been lost. We owe a debt to the dead, and today we too easily regard those who came before us as dead weight in our march to Progress. Skulls and bones can remind us to be humble. Death and judgment await us all, but this is not the purpose of Halloween skulls and skeletons. In fact, it is undead that celebrated.
I once brought tears to the eyes of a student while discussing vampires. She had been reading the Twilight series which focuses, I believe, on a love triangle between Bella and a vampire and a werewolf. Her eyes brightened when I said I like vampires. But she teared up when I said, “I like the thought of driving a stake through their hearts.” I had just read Abraham Stoker’s Dracula which emphasized the heroism of those who hunted and destroyed Dracula. Stoker presents Count Dracula as “white maggot”, not a tragic hero.
For the same reason, I like the huge ghouls and monsters in my neighbor’s yards. But if all my neighbor’s decorations end up broken and torn, I promise, it will be the gusting Kansas wind that did it.
