By Rio Duran
What does Halloween represent?
What does Halloween represent?
Every other holiday is a holiday for a reason, usually related to religion and celebration. Christmas and Easter are for Christians. Hanukkah and Passover have meaning in Judaism, and Valentine’s Day is a celebration of love based on Saint Valentine. All of these holidays value something that has meaning and that people respect.
But Halloween has no significant meaning in our society, and like many popular holidays has just turned into a pathetic excuse to take the population’s money and to make girls dress provocatively.
America is one of the greediest countries in the world, so it isn’t surprising that they jumped on the opportunity to cash in on the so-called holiday. The message in America is to buy candy and to buy costumes. Not to mention our society focus on horror entertainment. All of these are new industries can’t have any correlation to the origin of the holiday because they are relatively new. If you ask people what does Halloween represent, they will answer with something like,” it’s about getting candy”. In my opinion that isn’t a good enough reason to have a holiday.
There are holidays like Day of the Dead that are similar to Halloween. They still manage to have a cultural meaning to a culture. Halloween’s meaning has strayed so far away from its initial intent that it’s basically something completely new. Originally it was used to define the time when fall was to transition to winter at which time the Celtic people would try to ward off roaming ghosts. Over the centuries Halloween has been molded into a totally different beast.
Today people just use Halloween as an excuse to gorge themselves with sugary treats and to get scared. Every other significant holiday has meaning, and the world respects it. Significant holidays get people time off of work and school so that they can enjoy time with friends and family. No such events take place for Halloween. The world doesn’t stop to acknowledge this holiday reject so life goes on as usual. Thus proving that it’s not an actual holiday.
