Requiem Aeternam

I have a group of friends who throw a themed Halloween party every year. Normally I’m not too interested in such things–my family didn’t celebrate Halloween at all, and I don’t have much appreciation for a lot of the amoral and immoral themes that generally go along with Halloween.

However, the theme for this year’s party will be literary characters–that changes things a bit. I’m still not sure if I will go, but it is certainly fun to think of good literary Halloween characters and costumes.  Here are a few ideas I came up with, but I’m sure there are plenty of others I haven’t thought of.

R. M. Renfield: A bizarre asylum inmate in Bram Stoker’s Dracula who eats live creatures to obtain their life force for himself. He begins with eating flies, then feeds flies to spiders and eats the spiders, then feeds flies to spiders to birds in order to accumulate more life. He serves Dracula (who provides him with delectable critters) for a time before betraying him in a moment of conscience. Dracula, of course, kills him for his betrayal.

Costume: A straight jacket. Plastic spider or fly half protruding from mouth.

Edward Cullen: I hesitate to call Twilight “literary,” but few costumes could be more horrifying than this ultra-preppy squeaky clean vampire. Roll all the terrifyingly annoying qualities of teenage girl romance movie/book heros into one person and viola!

Costume: Sparkles. Lots of sparkles.

Bradley Headstone: The creepy tragic villain of Our Mutual Friend would make a great Halloween character. Driven insane by his love for Lizzy and lack of emotional control he turns into a homicidal nervous wreck, nearly killing Mr. Eugene Wrayburn, and eventually perpetuating the murder of Rogue Riderhood and his own suicide by drowning .

Costume: Victorian clothing, a broken oar, and a bloody handkerchief

The Crazy Lady who Burns things: There are many examples of crazy women in English literature (I can’t imagine why . . . ), and one particular favorite subcategory includes women who burn down ancestral homes around their own heads. So go ahead, take your pick! Whether you choose Rochester’s wife from Jane Eyre or the crazy lady from  Ivanhoe, you’ll be sure to light up the party!

Costume: Once fine garments reduced to rags. A torch.

Variation: Lord Denathor, the crazy old man who spent most of his time in a tower and tried to burn down his son and himself in it.

The Wall: Dress up as the character playing the wall in A Midsummer Night’s Dream’s version of  Pyramus and Thisbe. Proceed to stand between people trying to have conversations.

Costume: A box painted gray. With a chink in it.

Dorian Gray: The handsome young man sells his soul so he will never age. Instead, a portrait of him ages in his place, revealing the effects of Gray’s severely hedonistic lifestyle. He is immortal unless the picture is harmed.

Costume: Late Victorian style clothes. A printed picture of yourself photo-shopped almost beyond recognition.

Any Shakespearean villain: No explanations needed.

Paris: Reviled by Greeks and Trojans alike. Hire one of the male societies from BJU to lay siege to the Halloween party. Then find a girl and ask her to make out with you while your other friends fight and die to defend the party.

Costume: Greaves. No need for a spear or sword though.

Disclaimer: Don’t expect this one to turn out well.

The Potsmaster: A shadowy anti-postmaster from Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49 who may or may not exist. Run your own underground postage system to undercut (or support) the government run postal service. Leave drawings of muted trumpets in random places like on the bread box, scrawled in chalk on the sidewalk, or with permanent black marker on your friends’ faces.

Costume: A large plastic garbage can with leg holes and the letters W.A.S.T.E. (We Await Silent Tristero’s Empire) spray painted on.

Medea: Perhaps the ultimate crazy chick in all of literature. She is a powerful sorceress who viciously killed her husband, the girl he wanted to marry (oh the foolhardiness of polygamous cultures), the girl’s father,  and all the children she had had with her husband before being whisked away in a golden chariot pulled by dragons.

Costume: Grecian robes. A knife. Some poison. Probably a pistol and ammo belt. Nunchucks. Two halberds. A mace. Fully loaded marshmallow gun.