Some Thoughts on the Meaning of the April Fools

Day
Published by Jo Hedesan on http://www.esotericoffeehouse.com/ on 28 March 2009

It’s almost April Fools Day, and you should be either thinking of a prank or
considering how to avoid being ‘fooled’. That’s because, on 1st of April, there are only
two types of people out there: the pranksters and those being played a prank.

Nobody has been able to decipher the actual origin of April Fools Day. Theories
abound from attributing it to the Bible and the Gregorian calendar change to the Holi
festival in India, which has similar characteristics. You can read all about it in the
Wikipedia article (1). I’m interested so much in where the celebration came from but
why it survives to this day. What makes us still enjoy playing the April Fools game in
this day-and-age?

Before answering that question, it is perhaps a good idea to look at the characteristics
of this informal celebration. As we all know, it always occurs on the 1st of April,
which is the first month of real spring (after the spring equinox) and used to represent
the first day of the Julian New Year (2). Thus, it is a time of unclear, tentative
beginnings, where things are not yet settled in their ordered pattern. The weather is
still capricious, windy and cold; winter wrestles with the spring, and nothing is certain
yet.

This time of disorder, uncertainty and ambiguity is an ideal period for the emergence
of the ‘fool’. The fool is a person socially defined as ridiculous, inferior or
incompetent (3) or, an unintelligent person, somebody considered to lack good sense
or judgment (4). The fool is someone who is made fun at. We can see from these
definitions that the fool is a role assigned by the others, or perhaps assumed by
someone by himself or herself – it does not exist outside a social environment. Thus, a
fool is ‘made’ (5). A good example of ‘making a fool’ is certainly the April Fool
prank. The prankster seeks to prove the ‘prankee’ as a fool – a gullible or weak-
minded person. If the ‘prankee’ falls for the joke, he has been made into fool.

Is that the whole story? Not exactly. We should remember that, particularly in
medieval Europe, the fool was not only the person made fun at, but the person making
fun of the others. Just as the society at large exercised their right of making the clown
a ‘fool’, the clown reciprocated by making society a fool back. It was this type of
sublime ambiguity that Shakespeare emphasized in his imagery of the fool who
possesses deeper wisdom or larger wits than the people of higher social standing (5).

In the April Fools tradition, then, the fool is not only the ‘prankee’ but the ‘prankster’
as well. The fool pokes fun at the people around him, in a similar way to the age-old
court jester or clown. Hence on 1st of April everyone is a fool, making fun at each
other independent of status and position.

It has been emphasized that the April fool has a seasonal counterpart in the Halloween
trick-or-treater (6). However, Halloween pranksters are anonymous: they trick without
having to reveal who they are (7). By comparison, the relationship established through
the April Fool prank is much more personal and individual. You know who your
prankster is. This matter suggests the much more benign nature of the April Fools
jokes: here we head into order, not into winter chaos.

This benign nature is also suggested by the ritual of the April prank. First of all, the
prank occurs in early morning, not at night as in the case of Halloween. The early
morning is obviously still a time of uncertainty, when the sun is beginning to rise but
has not reached its full strength. After a long night’s sleep, people feel a bit oozy,
unclear and unsure of where they are – this is a good moment to play a prank, before
they actually realize that this is 1st of April. If the prankster waits too long, the sun
will dispel all uncertainties and the prank will no longer have an effect: undoubtedly,
that’s one of the reasons why, in New Zealand, the children that play pranks too late in
the day are laughed at and called fools by the rest (8).

Moreover, the prank involves two parties: the prankster and the ‘prankee’, whom we
both suggested to be ‘fools’. The prank usually supposes a face-to-face interaction,
which allows the testing of both the prankster and the ‘prankee’s’ reactions (9). It is an
exchange where the two sides match their strengths, and someone must emerge as the
established ‘fool’. However, this is not a real ‘war’ – it is a game. Getting hurt or
suffering is not the purpose of the prank; it is not supposed to have some real
consequences. In fact, the whole exercise is simply supposed to expose the relativism
of the ‘fool’ concept. Nobody should get hurt – when someone does, the whole April
Fools game is denied.

At the end of the game, things are supposed to go back to normal – normal status and
position are restored. The ‘fools’ roles disappear. It is possible that back in
immemorial times the jokes may have assigned some real social status, just in the way
that sports competitions makes some winners and some losers. However, today the
social status perpetuates before and after April Fools Day; the game is just a
temporary suspension of social roles in favour of harmless fun.

References

(1) Wikipedia. (2009). April Fools Day. Online. Available at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Fool%27s_Day. Accessed on: 27 March 2009.
(2), (7), (9) McEntire, N.C. (2002). Purposeful Deceptions of the April Fool. Western
Folklore, 61(2), pp. 133-151.
(3), (5) Klapp, O. E. (1949). The Fool as a Social Type. The American Journal of
Sociology, 55 (2), pp. 157-162.
(4) Encarta. (2009). Fool – Definition. Online. Available at:
http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_1861612753/fool.html. Accessed on: 27 March
2009.
(5) Wikipedia. (2009). Jester. Online. Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jester.
Accessed on: 27 March 2009.
(6) Dundes, A. (1989). April Fool and April Fish: Towards a Theory of Ritual Pranks,
in Folklore Matters. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, pp. 98-111.
(8) Sutton-Smith, B. (1981). The Folkstories of Children. Children's Literature
Association Quarterly, 6(2), pp. 14-16.