18 pages • 36 minutes read
Charles Harper WebbThe Death of Santa Claus
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2009A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Death of a Child’s Belief
For many very young children, believing in Santa Claus, the benevolent bearer of gifts at Christmas, is akin to magic. However, as they age, children begin to suspect that Santa is a construction their parents use to create a sense of wonder. Psychologically, when we discover that Santa Claus is a fictional character created by society rather than a reality, it can feel as if our childish wonder actively dims.
The eight-year-old speaker of the poem finds out Santa Claus is a myth through his classmates who say, “Santa’s a big / fake” (Lines 25-26). Wanting to believe the kids are mistaken, the speaker calls them “stupid” (Line 24). He wants to continue to operate as if the world of Santa truly exists but deeply suspects the other children are right. This is confirmed when “the terrible / news ris[es] in [his mother’s] eyes” (Lines 29-30) and shatters any remaining hope. The speaker has misjudged the reality of Santa and the honesty of his classmates.
This information is preceded by the images of Santa’s death, which shows that the child suspected the truth before even talking with his mother. As he has listened to his classmates, the speaker has already subconsciously registered that Santa is fake. In this case, it is the idea of Santa that has not been well “for weeks” (Line 1). Santa’s initial “chest pains” (Line 1) are symbolic for the child’s burgeoning understanding.
The kids at school deliver the final blow, which sends the imagined Santa into cardiac arrest in the snow, until he’s face-down on his “jelly belly” (Line 16). The “beautiful white / world” (Lines 14-15)—which contrasts so dramatically with the Texas landscape—goes “black” (Line 15), not just for Santa but the child as well. The child’s feeling of sadness is shown in his imagining “Mrs. Claus / tear[ing] out of the toy factory // wailing” (Lines 17-19). The magical “North Pole” (Line 3) with its “elves” (Line 19) and “reindeer” (Line 10) is now void. The child now knows that his worst fears are confirmed.
A Mother’s Dilemma
“The Death of Santa Claus” is mostly vividly populated by characters in the world of the North Pole. However, other than the speaker, the most important character in the poem is the child’s mother. While she is acting in a caring way, it is her actions that have created the child’s pain, a fact that is devastating to her.
One objective of parenting, beyond basic care, is to create a sense of joy and wonder for the child. One of our most common cultural myths is the idea that if we are good, Santa will magically arrive one special night—with flying reindeer, no less—to reward us with presents. We go to bed on Christmas Eve, hopeful and excited, and awake to the splendor of gifts spread around a tree or stuffed into a stocking. Santa’s omnipotence is larger than life and perceived as benevolent. Songs, story books, and movies perpetuate this idea—even expanding our knowledge by humanizing Santa, his cohorts, and his locations until they feel like an actual world we are lucky enough to be part of.
American children believe in Santa generally from toddlerdom to between the ages of 8 and 10, when something (i.e., a discovery of hidden gifts) or someone (a sibling, or schoolmates, as in the poem) reveals the ruse. Oftentimes, this is emotionally translated as a break between the innocence of childhood and the reality of adulthood. As Webb himself noted in an interview with Nathan Moore, “the ‘default’ position for any moderately intelligent person over the age of about 10 is depression and anger. Adolescents ‘discover’ hypocrisy, unfairness, and heartbreak” (N. Moore).
This stage is difficult for parents as well, however, and the depiction of the mother makes that clear. She has, by allowing a belief in Santa, helped create the “beautiful white / world” (Lines 14-15) her child loves. Simultaneously, the mother holds the knowledge that this façade isn’t sustainable. Eventually, the day will come when the dream is crushed, when Santa must die. When it occurs, she greets the child with understanding as she “takes [his] hand” (Line 28), sitting “on [the] purple-flowered couch” (Line 27), but the “news” (Line 30) is indeed “terrible” (Line 29). Not only has the child lost a treasured icon, but she has lost the young child who believed in not only the omnipotence and benevolence of Santa but herself as well. The “tears / in her throat” (Lines 28-29) aren’t just for the cruelty her child’s endured at school, or even that Santa is no longer believed in, but what the moment represents: the passing of time and the changing nature of her relationship with her child.
The Death of a Father Figure
In an alternate reading, the death of Santa Claus in Webb’s poem can symbolize the demise of a beloved fatherly figure. In this case, the poem focuses on how the speaker processes this information delivered by his distressed mother. When the eight-year-old speaker arrives home, he is upset by “stupid // kids at school [who] say Santa’s a big / fake” (Lines 24-26). While this alone is distressing, the mother seems to have to tell the speaker even more devastating news. The children at school don’t say that Santa is dead, but rather that he is a “fake” (Line 26). While this is not an easy revelation, the mother’s response seems quite serious, as she has the child “sit on [the] purple-flowered couch” (Line 27) and “takes [his] hand” (Line 28).
The mother shows great distress, exemplified by the “tears / in her throat, the terrible / news rising in her eyes” (Lines 28-30). The break at the word “terrible” (Line 29) suggests that the mother must inform the child not just of some “news” (Line 30) but of “the terrible” (Line 29), or in other words, a worst-case scenario. This implies that the information she must impart is not just that Santa is not real but that someone the speaker loves in the real world has actually died.
The grandfatherly aspects of Santa Claus—the white beard, the gift giving, the benevolent focus on the child—may correlate to the speaker’s actual grandfather, or another beloved adult, who has suffered a heart attack. Many elderly people resist medical care due to cost, difficulty of transportation, and fear, and often belittle the severity of aches and pains. The speaker, in order to psychologically process the information, transfers these truths onto the myth of Santa Claus due to the earlier conversation he had with his classmates.
Santa still serves as a metaphor here, but as representative of a person close to the speaker who has died, rather than to show a shift in time of life (growing up) or an emotional state (being shocked by the truth).
