"The Night Before Christmas" was a poem anonymously published in 1823 and later claimed by Clement Clarke Moore in 1837. This Christmas poem is ascribed to be largely responsible for the Santa Clause conceptions and the belief of this 'imaginary' person. The poem was originally known as "A Visit From St. Nicholas".
The poem consisting of 56 lines in one long stanza has a rhyming scheme of a normal aabbccdd......... . The meter of the poem follows the anapestic tetrameter, where the lines consist of two unstressed followed by a stressed syllable.
The poem talks of a night before Christmas when a father of one family saw St. Nicholas descend through the chimney and fill the decorative stockings with gifts for the whole family. Wishing the family with <em>"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!”</em>, he left the amused father. This began the concept of a Christmas Santa Claus visiting before the day of Christmas and giving gifts to the children.
The stage directions inform the audience of who is on stage and how the stage is set up. It also describes the action taking place on stage. Stage directions are helpful when a play is being read because it helps the reader to better envision what is occurring on stage.
Ponyboy suggests that the main difference was "money that separated us", but Cherry also thought that there was something more that made the groups different(38). According to Cherry Valance, the main dividing factor was how the two groups dealt with their emotions: "You greasers have a different set of values.
