Fun?

By Rhiannonw

Tue, 27 Oct 2020
  • 3046 reads
23 comments
 

Why make light of evil dark?
and laugh at fright
parodying leer and fear
mocking menace spooky, shocking
provoking shaking, quaking, shrieking
to tease, poke fun, embarrass.

Children coerce, bully –
threats for treats
intimidate – retaliate?
really jolly?
but may be really scared –
fears buried
should be shared.

All bad taste,
and plastic waste.

[IP: Halloween]

[last year I put on https://www.abctales.com/story/rhiannonw/light-parties-oct-31 as the IP was ‘what not to do on Halloween’. This year there probably wont be parties of any sort, and probably Trick and Treating discouraged]

 

Certificate U
Poem
Christian, Biblical
Inspiration Point (work that responds to our weekly writing cue)

Comments

Submitted by Di_Hard on

The waste upsets me more as a grown up than any of the images. The wrongness of wasting money on one use, ugly  stuff that will never rot down. I can see why children love it, since it feels like their celebration, but I wish it could be centred round misrule rather environmental horror. Plastic is the real nightmare

Also, your internal rhymes are brilliant!

 

Submitted by Rhiannonw on

Thanks about the rhymes!

I would like the empahsis to be on Light, Truth, Goodness, Love — I can see that children enjoy pretending to be frightened and show horror, but some don't know what the answer is to real fears, and are embarrassed to say so, show, ask. Rhiannon

 

Submitted by Di_Hard on

yes, agree completely. is also about trying to be grown up, not seen as a baby/sissy, isn't it? Boys wanting to look tough have to go for the most horrific grotesque thing they can get. Which is not really about fun

 

Submitted by Nolan on

In SA we don't do this Halloween at all, it looks and sounds stupid if you ask me. Only once dogs in our street were poisoned but our dogs made it.

Didn't it originate as the witches sabbath? Hope I'm wrong. Also of course it is dangerous to go outstide at night especially for children.

Keep well &

 

Submitted by Rhiannonw on

Hopefully usually they are supervised, but i think there is concern not to do it this year with the corona virus restrictions anyway. There is a tension between realising that old people really get frightened by the 'trick or treat' 'threat', and the fact that many adults think it is all fun for the children, and that they hope people understand, and don't let their own children 'trick or treat' strangers.

But I'm always aware that these days so many children when 'enjoying' horor and witches don't know about the One who is good, can hear and will help all who are frightened about real or fictional things.

I think Halloween developed from a Christian time of remembering those who had died in recent months, but may have pagan roots really.

Rhiannon

 

Submitted by Nolan on

Also then, Rhiannon I didn't know that in England you also have this tradition of Halloween? I have always believed it to be a very “american” thing &

 

Submitted by Rhiannonw on

It's come over more from America in the last few years! Rhiannon

 

Submitted by hilary west on

I used to love to get my turnip hollowed out and lit by a candle, unlike the pumpkin of today. Somehow it is the smells of childhood that linger, not thoughts of bad taste or threats, but yes if things get out of hand it is very bad indeed!

Nicely expressed,

Hilary  frown

 

Submitted by Rhiannonw on

 My daughter-in-law and her kids were simply decorating, painting a couple of pumpkins on the back door-step by putting elastic bands around them and painting in different colours the gaps left between the cross-over bands. Still there as a nice doorstep decoration. The youngest simply got sitting in a puddle of painty water!

I wonder if long ago in people trying to cut eyes etc out of pumpkins to make them into lamps, it proved so difficult that the resulting eyes and nose were sort-of triangular shape, and so looked unintentionally  a bit grotesque! Rhiannon

 

Submitted by Ed Crane on

It's been around for eons, long before the USA existed. Mexicans honour their dead with skeleton images. Belgian, France and Holland honour their dead with Crysanthemums on November 1st. Which is a national holiday in many Catholic countries. 

Selling Chrysants is big business in Europe, but at least  they aren't plastic. 

 

Submitted by Rhiannonw on

Thanks, Ed. I think I said it seemed to have developed from festivals to remember the dead, both Christian and pagan. The modern Halloween here with its empaphasis on witches and fright and 'Trick and Treating' seems to have come over from US in recent years – certainly I don't think 'Trick and Treating' was around here much until a few years ago. And of course, cheap plastic masks and clothes are quite recent! Rhiannon

 

Submitted by Di_Hard on

That's very interesting, Ed, didn't know about the chrysanthemum day, it sounds wonderful, completely different sort of celebration, gentle and beautiful

what a lot of information has come from your poem, Rhiannon! I bet you are right about the triangle shapes of pumpkin faces, too. And, as pumpkins are from America, guess before they became available here people would have had to carve faces in big turnips, which are aweful even to cut up for stew!

 

Submitted by Ed Crane on

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trick-or-treating#:~:text=Rhodian%20lawgiv....

Sometimes I think we Brits blame too much on the Americans wink

 

Submitted by Rhiannonw on

I noticed the following paragraph when scanning down the article. I don't remember anything to do with ET at the time, but that fits with my recollection of it seeming a big 'new' thing taking off of the idea here, and it seemed much more popular at the time in the US, and there was concern about the development, even by the police I think, especially for the elderly.

Despite the concept of trick-or-treating originating in Britain and Ireland in the form of souling and guising, the use of the term "trick or treat" at the doors of homeowners was not common until the 1980s, with its popularisation in part through the release of the film E.T.

Rhiannon

 

Submitted by Ed Crane on

Trick or Treat, Bob a Job, Penny for the Guy, Carol singing at people's doors 

 

pretty much the same thing in different guises

 

Submitted by Nolan on

Most certainly not. They are all completely different, in nature and in spirit.

There is no free lunch.

 

Submitted by Ed Crane on

 

 

Submitted by Rhiannonw on

The others don't give threats, or certainly shouldn't. Also they are supposedly doing something to earn their reward.! Rhiannon

 

Submitted by Ed Crane on

in the dark (except maybe for B-a-J but they often go into stranger's houses)

Harmless enough once, but if people these days worry about trick and treaters they should worry about the others also.  Sadly the world has changed.

I don't see how trick of treat is a threat. It's supposed to be fun. 

 

Submitted by Rhiannonw on

Yes, any children out should be supervised, in all of the things you raise..

I recognise that Trick and Treat is meant to be fun, but I have reservations about calling threats fun. And a householder, possibly elderly, who doesn't know the children may not realise a responsible parent is hovering the other side of the road. Also, knowing the ignorance today of the Saviour, I do think some children deep down have fears about the pretend and the real evil around, and need to hear of him. Rhiannon

 

Submitted by Nolan on

Hear Hear !

 

Submitted by Ed Crane on

I have no intention of getting into a theological discussion.

 

Submitted by Rhiannonw on

!smiley Thanks for the conversation! Rhiannon