History & The Arts
Mastering our fear of death with the Jack-o’-lantern
...manageable way. Festival can be understood like this: as a temporary suspension of our usual rules or ways of coping; a time when familiar oppositions – such as life and death, inside and outside, self and other – become uncertain. Halloween may delight us in this way. Yet our thrills likely depend on how we know the costumes will soon be replaced by everyday clothes....