Reading and All That Jazz 5th Edition by Rita McCarthy ,Peter Mather

Exercise 2

Halloween: "Just Good Fun" or Folk Religion
Halloween means the evening before All Hallows' (All Saints') Day, which falls on November 1. Although Halloween gets its name from Christianity, the celebration is in fact a continuation of Samhain (pronounced sawin ), the new year festival celebrated in pre-Christian England and Ireland. There is a strong theme of death and rebirth, as winter comes on and the old year disappears. It was believed that spirits of ancestors roamed free at this time and needed to be fed and placated. We see this underlying the practice of children going door to door to collect food. We also see it in the many Halloween costumes that suggest death (skeletons) and communication with the spirit world (angels, devils, and religious figures).
(p. 50)
Rhetorical Mode: ________________________
Reasons: ___________________________________________________________