Halloween
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Hallowe'en
An Evening of Treats and Tricks
The history of Halloween can be argued by many; although the traditions have been altered over the years many of the legends are still present today. It is said that people believed that the spirits of the dead would come back to possess living bodies to survive for the afterlife. To prevent this from happening, people would dress up in costumes and become destructive to the neighbourhood in order to frighten the spirits away. In Ian Adam's poem Hallowe'en, evil practices based on holiday legends are compared to the lives of a group of young adolescents in a small town.
Adam begins by showing how younger children see Halloween for the treats and the childish pranks. The children are out without parental supervision roaming the streets under the bright light of the evening moon. Without supervision the children are involved in some mischievous behavior such as the "topless outhouse towers toppled"(Wascana Poetry Anthology, 5) and running as if they were being chased by "dogs or wolves"(6). He displays the innocence of the children in this manor to allow the reader to relate back to personal childhood memories of Halloween night.
By displaying the innocence of the younger children, Adam is able to show the contradiction as the children grow up comparing it to the evil that grows as the night goes on. By displaying the "cigarettes and swearing"(9), readers are able to understand that the children have aged and moved to a different stage in their life...