Halloween is a holiday that is practiced in America today with a multitude of activities that elicit deviant behavior and traditions that are different from any other celebration that we participate here in the United States. The origins of Halloween can be traced to Celtic celebrations of Samhain which was an observation of the harvest as well as the Celtic New Year’s festival and a day of celebrating the dead. American’s didn’t celebrate Halloween until the influx of Irish immigrants came to the United States after the Potato Famine in 1840. Many aspects of Halloween still follow the traditions that were practiced in the Celtic celebrations, but they have altered in order to evolve with modern society. Urban legends have circulated through our culture and Halloween in our society is becoming more accommodating to the adult population and alternate activities are being offered for younger generations because of scares of poisoned candy. American culture heavily emphasizes Halloween, it has a participation rate that almost rivals New Year’s when it comes to partying and 93% of children under the age of 12 participate in trick-or-treating. In 2012, 7 out of 10 Americans participated in the holiday. It is interesting to observe the premises of this holiday because norms are broken on purpose on a widespread scale and yet here is involvement by all members of society in a multitude of different aspects of enjoyment.

Halloween by the Numbers Interactive Chart

 

Halloween is a night of social norm breaking and role reversal. Children are encouraged by their parents to dress up as scary demonic icons and walk door to door, demanding candy from strangers with a threat of “Trick or Treat.” Children greedily compete to collect the largest stash of sugary candy which they are allowed to eat too much of, an expression of gluttony and parental approval of normally off limits foods, as well as acquisitiveness. This holiday is also a time of role reversal for children in which they take on a higher status than they normally would, an inversion of the power structure. Normally, children wouldn’t dress in costumes of adult personas or demand candy from an adult stranger. But during Halloween, the boundaries between good and bad, young and old are eliminated. Parents give their children the decision of what costumes to wear, from a superhero to a monster to a super villain in order to let the children express what status the children want to be in.

 

Halloween behaviors are also against the norm in purposefully celebrating symbols of evil, such as witches and vampires and death such as skeletons and mummies, which are normally considered taboo in America. What’s strange is that many adults normally wouldn’t want their children to experience the death of a loved one in a funeral because they believe that it would have a lasting negative effect on the children. Yet they eagerly show their children symbols of death during Halloween, even decorating their houses with tombstones, skeletons, and zombies. Adults treat Halloween as fun and amusing and are willing to show these symbols to their children. For example, dressed in scary costumes adults sometimes hide in bushes to scare unsuspecting children or adults play the role of a murderer for trick-or-treaters. Adults themselves break social norms on Halloween, many dressing up as provocative characters that would normally be offending, or taking on roles and statuses different from their usual. Many adults like to dress as celebrities, a much higher status than they take on every day, and gender roles forgotten as adults dress in drag. Partying and other taboo behavior is more freely accepted on Halloween than every other night of the year.

 

If the annual practices that create Halloween are so strange and counter-normative, why does our culture embrace and encourage this holiday to such a high degree? Society is run off countless informal rules of what behaviors are acceptable every day, we have a highly structured society divided by stratification, and each day we are forced to accept and conform to the social norms that oppress us. Halloween is one night when these norms can be thrown out, and our culture is allowed to engage in organized disorder. Costumes allow role play where all ages can experience being someone of a different status, personality, or even gender and laugh at authority and the things that normally frighten and constrain our behaviors. Trick or treating allows expressions of greed, gluttony, and inversion of the power structure, with children commanding and threatening adults. The ghosts, graveyards, zombies, and gore are all expressions of our cultures deep fears about death which are normally suppressed and internalized. But on Halloween these fears are let out, and associated with lighter images like children, candy, and parties. Fear is met and expressed in a context where safety is likely, and children help to lessen the horror of it all.

Halloween is a symbolic time to upset the social frameworks that define the other 355 days of the year and let out into the open closeted fears in a carnival atmosphere. Sociologist Bakhtin defined the “carnival” atmosphere of holidays as “temporary liberation from prevailing truth and from the established order that marked the suspension of all hierarchical rank, privileges, and norms…” This is why our behavior is so counter normative on Halloween; there is a loss of the established order that defines the rest of the year. Halloween is a night where fears can be met yet dismissed through the projection onto the context of a children’s holiday. Our culture’s heavy emphasis on Halloween shows that we live in a heavily structured society and need an outlet for this structure and the subsequent social strain.

In recent years, Halloween participation by adults has significantly increased. This can be explained in that Halloween is a night for adults to let loose and express social anxieties and reject norms in a safe, masked environment. Adults can relieve the tensions of social rules and explore what it is like to be another status, personality, or gender and engage in taboo behavior at parties. Evidence for this purpose the holiday can be found in observing that participation in Halloween has historically increased as other carnival holidays that allowed the same adult norm-breaking behaviors have declined in past decades. Another way adults participate in Halloween is scaring children with themes of death, and evil, and generally being facilitators of fear. They are in control what themes to bring out that are normally considered to be socially taboo. They read scary stories to children, help children walk from door to door for candy, and decorate their homes symbols of death. Themes such as spiders, witches, ghosts, bats, scary pumpkins, etc., are perceived by adults as approachable and entertaining when, on the other hand, children may actually perceive these icons as threatening and terrifying. Adults may feel nostalgia for childhood which is expressed in their involvement with scaring children. For example, adults in a Pennsylvania survey expressed sorrow over the loss of contemporary Halloween compared the holiday of their childhood. During Halloween adults utilize these icons of death, evil, and monsters to cope with the fear of death. Adults in American culture typically avoid the topic of death as much as possible and consequently it’s very unusual to talk about this to another person. During Halloween however, adults treat death icons as laughable and harmless. By laughing at death and associating it with children’s activities like trick or treating, fear is greatly lessened through facing the strong expressions of death that Halloween provides.

 

Every child who has gone trick or treating has heard from some form of adult a stern warning beforehand, “don’t eat any open candy.” This warning is a product of stories of Halloween sadists, who poison candy before handing it to innocent trick-or-treaters every Halloween. What most people do not realize is this is an urban legend, sociologist Joel Best researched this phenomenon extensively and reports no actual cases of candy poisoning or other sadistic acts by strangers on Halloween. Actually, these myths have been circulating since the 1970’s when reports of razors hidden in candy apples surfaced, and this caused hysteria among protective parents. Our society has responded to these Halloween urban legends with politicians, PTA groups, and media coverage of the danger, and a new cycle of stories and articles resurface each October leading up to the 31st. There have even been programs created that x ray children’s candy in particularly hysterical years. But if there has been no actual evidence of this candy poisoning, why has our culture been so eager to latch onto these baseless reports? Halloween’s purpose in our culture can also be analyzed through studying the stigmas associated with the holiday.

Sociologist Joel Best Discusses the Myth of Halloween Candy Poisoning

 

 The legends illustrate the principle of the construction of social problems. Halloween is a holiday that allows our culture to face dark fears of death and horror one night a year, and over the past few decades the previously sinister and evil roots of Halloween had become more and more tame. Although children still used the phrase “trick or treat” when going from door to door collecting candy, they no longer actually meant the threat of a trick. Whereas it used to be the expected norm on Halloween night of vandalism and violence, candy and parties have taken their place. Costumes have become less about gore and the supernatural and more commercialized, with celebrities, cute animals and icons becoming more common. The problem is that Halloween has become too tame, and it no longer served the purpose of invoking fear one night a year. Halloween is a brief respite from the oppression of societal norms, a celebrated period of disorder, and Halloween was becoming too orderly. This societal “issue” resulted in rumors of the candy poisoners, who were twisted, evil strangers that took pleasure in poisoning the innocent. Recognizing these myths as constructed social problems once again proves the ultimate cultural function of Halloween: to scare adults and children for one night each year. As soon as the sun rises on November 1st, there is no longer any threat and the urban legend has served its purpose, one night of fear and uncertainty. Evidence of Halloween’s function as an outlet for social strain can be seen when analyzing the holiday through a historical perspective.

Before the Great Depression, Halloween was a relatively tame holiday and participation was limited to certain groups and areas. But during the Depression and immediately following, Halloween celebrating increased as did the dangerous nature of it’s activities. Vandalism grew more destructive, physical assaults increased, and acts of violence became associated with the holiday. This increased mischief can be linked to the increased social strain of the Great Depression . Similarly, The Trick Or treating urban legends emerged during the 1970’s: a period of increased uncertainty, distrust in government, and rapid social change which all contributed to heavy social strain. America had just lost the unpopular Vietnam War, there was an oil embargo, increased crime and protesting, and the media was filled with stories of child abuse which was suddenly recognized as a social problem. The emergence of the legends during this time proves Halloween served the purpose of allowing society to let go of its fears and tensions that were hidden or compartmentalized the remainder of the year, and release them into the open. By creating an urban legend about something that could be prevented, through parents closely supervising their child’s trick or treating and monitoring candy consumption, this allowed fear to be focused on one specific issue, the Halloween sadist, and allowed parents control over it. They could face the threat of death and disorder and by supervising on Halloween, parents could conquer the threat of death and protect their children, allowing temporary relief from social strain.

From birth children are acculturated in order to be fully functioning members of society through methods usually brought on by their legal guardians. Halloween provides a specific instance where there is a role reversal between children and adults alike. They choose a temporary status that inverts the power structure of our culture and unintentionally mocks maturity when they dress up as adults. When children dress up and take on the role of the character being presented they are displaying the front stage act of Goffman’s dramaturgical theory. Halloween on the individual level is a public performance of a private persona and participation in a group experience with the use of props and scripts brought on by personal experiences. Children are allowed during this holiday to be whatever or whoever they want to be and self-expression is not repressed, but rather encouraged. This is a time for children to explore adult roles such as a firefighter or policeman and girls tend to dress as images of mature beauty (Princess, Beauty Queen, etc.)

 

 As mentioned before, children display unintentional acts of maturity in the forms of trick-or-treating when they go up to strangers doors and demand for candy when their parents may not be in sight. Halloween is not only a time for maturing but also a time to face fears, be assertive and develop a stronger sense of courage. There is a development of courage over time as a child learns through socialization from previous experiences of Halloween which allows them to participate in Trick-or-Treating without the guidance of parents. Also the fears that some children overcome can be seen as a development of courage by approaching the things that scare them with a sense of comfort due to the idea that Halloween is meant to be a scary holiday.

 

Halloween is a night when almost every cultural norm that constrains our society is temporarily off limits. The mass participation in this night of disorder illustrates our culture’s need for social relief, and expressions of usually suppressed fears. Trick or treating urban legends that have emerged in the past few decades are evidence of a cultural need for fear. In addition, the night serves as a period of socialization for children as they take on adult roles and learn to face fears of death and gain courage. For adults, the partying allows them to break from the status they are limited to in everyday life and explore alternate statuses, gender roles, and break away from normative behavior. At first glance, Halloween may not appear as anything more than a night of fun, but when analyzed through a functionalist perspective, the holiday is an essential component to the function of modern American society.