London Carter
Professor Deshaies
ENG 111
13 April 2023
Compare and Contrast Essay
Many people come together with loved ones every year to celebrate Easter. Cooking, feasting, hiding Easter eggs, and playing games are all a part of the spring festivities that many families find themselves celebrating the holiday. But many people don’t understand the deep history of Easter and how the festivities change from culture to culture. When comparing America’s Easter background to England’s, you can find many similarities: the Easter Bunny, chocolate eggs, and home-cooked dinners. But if you look beyond the surface level, you will find many ways our past Easter traditions differ from England’s. Easter can be defined as a “moveable feast” because, unlike
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Easter seemingly has more theologically sound beginnings in America, where religious influence was extremely prevalent. The Resurrection story is commonly told in almost every denomination of Christianity and serves as the core of the Christian Gospel (Staff). The three-day period of Jesus’ crucifixion, death, burial, and revival is marked by Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday (Editors). In the Catholic Church, Easter Sunday marks the end of Lent, the end of Holy Week, and the start of the liturgical year (Catholic Online). In England, Easter did not originate from a Christian background. However, during the fifth and sixth centuries, the Saxons- a group of Germans who conquered southern England (Britannica)- shifted from Pagan worship to Christianity after missionaries entered the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms …show more content…
They specifically placed Easter following the Spring Equinox because it marked the end of winter and welcomed new life given to the Earth during the season (Thompson). The Saxons pointed to eggs and flowers as symbols of female fertility and prayed to Eostre for the fertility of the Earth (Thompson). Eostre’s companion was always a hare; recent archaeological research has confirmed that the hare was consistently her symbol throughout history (Thompson). On the contrary, this spring goddess was not worshipped as prolifically in America. Even if people didn’t celebrate Easter for reasons of their faith, Easter was still a time to come together with family and kick off the new spring season
This is an area of history that has rarely been explored in such depth and nuance. Similar to other chapters, there is a large amount of cataloging of the origins of different custom, their transformations through time, and intersections with historical events. In these sections we are treated to stories of the interior life of many communities and their tradition-making in an intimate and spontaneous fashion. Each anecdote contributes to a fuller picture of the meaning of Carnival in Louisiana. One such tale showcases the resilience of Mardi Gras, when in 2014 the commitment to celebration was tested in the St. Mary Parish.
For about 2 centuries America has celebrated Thanksgiving. It is a holiday for everyone to give thanks and the pilgrims. A very small ship called the Mayflower sailed across the sea far away from the Plymouth,England in September 16,1620.The pilgrims spent at least 66 days on the ship until on November 21 the Mayflower was arriving to land. hat do we eat on thanksgiving?
It’s evident lack of history is what makes the tradition so potent. It is almost like a holiday that has lost its meaning. the people of the village can't even begin to think about questioning it or trying to change
" The pagans in Rome celebrated their Thanksgiving in early October. the holiday was dedicated to the goddess of the harvest, Ceres and the holiday was called, Cerelia. Catholic Church took over the pagan holiday and it became well established in England, where some of the pagan customs and rituals for this day were observed long after the Roman Empire had disappeared. In England the 'Harvest Home 'has been observed continuously for centuries."
As studied by Janet Siskind, the American Thanksgiving celebration is actually a very detailed ritual that contains many symbols. Similar to other rituals, the holiday reinforces certain social structures and “…reaffirms values and assumptions about cultural and social unity, about identity and history, about inclusion and exclusion” (168). The Thanksgiving ritual is centered around a return home, as people traveled from their urban homes back to their rural home to meet with their larger family. As a result, “the household became the site of ritual performance…” (175). The goal of the Thanksgiving ritual was to reaffirm the family and renew traditional ties, especially as more people had started moving into the cities around the time that the holiday became popular in the United States (176).
The Christian body celebrates holidays but only specific ones such as Christmas and Easter, but not so much Halloween and mardi gras. Christians support Christmas and Easter because they both celebrate the birth and resurrection of Jesus. They do this by going to church on Sunday and gathering with family to remember the reason. However, this faith believes that during Halloween the devil is glorified, and they hold the truth that they should not fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness. Halloween falls over into the demonic nature of the holiday; the various spirits cast out into the open.
The British comedy Monty Python and The Holy Grail is the story about a man, King Arthur, and his knights on a mission to find the Holy Grail. On their quest they endure the many tough obstacles of the Middle Ages. Some of these obstacles being realistic and others on the more impractical side. The movie’s filmmakers were aiming to satirize every branch of the Middle Ages such as the medieval Catholic Church, learning and education, the knight’s code of chivalry, and feudalism. One example would be the use of coconuts to imitate the sound of the horses’ hooves hitting the ground.
Kasson viewed the growing interest in the Carnival as an explanation of the public’s deliverance of formal customs. Kasson also states “Carnivals and other seasonal feasts and festivals have served in a number of pre-industrial cultures...which customary roles are reversed, hierarchies overturned, and penalties suspended"(50). Coney Island revolutionized the familiarized roles and values in society that has been inflicted upon
The feast, defined as a communal celebration centered around food and drink, has been used commonly as the subject of great works of art since at least the Ancient Romans. Interestingly, it also can be used to establish the “group identity” of the illustrated. In the feasts of scenes four (figure 1) and forty-three (figure 2), the designers of the Bayeux Tapestry did just that. Using different visual elements, they were able to depict the group identities of both the Anglo-Saxons and Normans. However, these group identities paint two very different pictures.
A community is based on traditions, every family has their own. Advertisements, media, and propaganda portray holidays differently. In most cases, holidays foundations mainly rely on the quality time spent together, practicing traditions carried out year after year. In this essay, I will analyze images that focus on family and the Thanksgiving holiday. Each image portrays something that differentiates one from the other.
Christianity began with Jesus, a member of a small Jewish sect, going on a mission to Jerusalem to spread the word of God’s love for humanity. While gaining a reputation for miracles and healing,
It is associated with the birth of Jesus Christ, Norse mythology, and European cultures. However, the tradition of leaving treats for Santa Claus has been a favorite of cultures who celebrate Christmas for centuries. Furthermore, the adored tradition has evolved from a true story inspiring the beloved Santa Claus myth, creating the tradition of leaving treats for Santa on Christmas eve, and how cultures are continuing the tradition and creating memories for generations. Understanding how the tradition came to life needs an extensive look into the origins of Santa and
The point of disagreement between the Celts and the Romans revolved around the celebration of Easter. Oswy, the reigning Northumbrian King resolved the conflict through the Synod of Whitby. The Synod of Whitby took place because Oswy was Celtic Christian and his wife was Roman Christian and he was unhappy about the Easter Feasts taking place at different times. At the Synod of Whitby, all the church officials met and made a case about why their celebration of Easter was at the right time. Oswy decided that Easter should be celebrated inline with Roman Christian tradition, because they followed the teachings of St. Peter, who controlled the gates of heaven.
The existence of Christmas markets goes far back into the medieval and modern era, when people were selling clothing and food during a fair in the holiday season before Christmas (IMOHA, 2002, p. 3). This
Like other Christian churches, The United Methodist Church celebrates the special days of the Christmas season, including Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany, and the Easter