An Essay About Carnival

Carnival is a festival originally founded within Roman Catholicism. Its roots are estimated to go back to the 10th century. Believed is that it is a descendant of an ancient Italian custom. ‘The word ‘carnival’ derives from the Latin carnem levare, meaning to put away flesh or meat.’(Gill, 1998) Initially carnival was celebrated in the days leading up to Shrove Tuesday. Shrove Tuesday is the night forty days in advance of Easter, if Sundays are not included. For this reason, carnival is celebrated on different days each year; the Sunday can take place as early as the 1st of February and as late as the 9th of March. Before the lent began, people ate all the fat in the house for the simple reason that forty days later the fat will be rotten, therefore Shrove Tuesday is also known as Fat Tuesday. The reason for the Lent is to commemorate the time Jesus supposedly spent in the desert.

Nowadays carnival is celebrated in a lot of different countries, though most of the time it is restricted to certain areas. Obviously, in a few areas the celebration is more prominently recognised than in others. Within the scope of this essay the different aspects regarding carnival in the common wealth

Originally they only celebrated it on the original dates, although the commemoration had been stretched out over the years. Every town will change its name during Carnaval, for instance Den Bosch becomes Oeteldonk, Eindhoven transforms into Lampegat and Noordwijkerhout renames itself to Kokkerhout. With the different name comes a different mayor, who will get the proverbial ‘key to the city’. This person is titled Prins Carnaval, and is chosen at the 11th of the 11th at 11:11 p.m., the reason for the selection being at this particular date and time it due to fact that the number eleven is traditionally seen as the number of fools and madmen and also indirectly links to the imperfection of the number because it comes before the ‘holy’ number