After last year’s Halloween was very much plagued by doubt and worry thanks to a global pandemic with no clear end in sight , Halloween 2...
After last year’s Halloween was very much plagued by doubt and worry thanks to a global pandemic with no clear end in sight, Halloween 2021 may feel especially exciting for those ready to celebrate it. Thanks to ongoing vigilance and continuing vaccination efforts, many people in the United States are now fortunate enough to feel cautiously optimistic after all those awful months that have passed since March 2020.
I am a historian of pandemics. And yes, Halloween is my favourite holiday because I get to wear my plague doctor costume complete with a beaked mask.
But Halloween opens a little window of freedom for all ages. It lets people move beyond their ordinary social roles, identities and appearances. It is spooky and morbid, yet playful. Even though death is symbolically very much present in Halloween, it is also a time to celebrate life. The holiday draws from mixed emotions that resonate even more than usual during the Covid-19 era.
Looking at the ways survivors of past pandemics tried to celebrate the triumph of life amid widespread death can add context to the present-day experience. Consider the Black Death – the mother of all pandemics.
New death culture
The Black Death was a pandemic of plague, the infectious disease caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis. Between 1346 and 1353, plague rampaged...
