Mystery of La Llorona: The Legendary Curse Across Ages - Essay Sample

Introduction

The legend La Llorona goes beyond all ages, economic status and religious domination despite people's belief in myths and folklores or not. La Llorona has been passed to the Latinos in America from over a hundred years ago to date. Due to this legend's popularity, a film was produced by the New Line Cinema by the name "The Curse of La Llorona". Nobody knows the time at which the legend of La Llorona began. The tales, however, vary from source to source and evolve with time. Yet, the tales have it in similarity that La Llorona is a doomed spirit of a woman with two dead children who died in the water and she is bound to look for their lost souls eternally in rivers and lakes (Brinkman 6). This paper gives a thorough observation of the folklore La Llorona by the Latinos.

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The legend of La Llorona traces its roots from after Spain's conquest of Mexico and has its core message as, a woman who falls in love with a Spaniard man. A version of this tale describes how the couple was blessed with two children. Eventually, the man begins to lose his interest in the woman and abandon's her taking along both of their children with him. Other versions of the legend believe that this man left his wife for another woman of the higher physique (Horcasitas et al. 220).

The woman was filled with bitterness from this type of betrayal displayed by his husband. Therefore, she decided to drown both their children in a river. The woman eventually realized the kind of wrong acts she had committed, and as a result, she immersed herself in the river to die next to her children. From that day henceforth, the woman was cursed to spend the rest of her eternity on searching for the souls of her children. It is believed that during her search of desperation, La Llorona preys on other children through drowning them in the water to equate for her children's deaths. This story was commonly told to the Latinos' children to scare them through creating fear of disobedience to parents, staying up late and other typical children's mischiefs.

As time goes, the story of La Llorona has been linked to other occurrences in history and even stories. Among the tale includes La Malinche a figure from past of the Mexican Gulf Coast who is believed to have taken part in the conquest of Aztec empire by the Spanish. La Malinche is believed to have been a traitor to the Mexicans. La Malinche is also thought to have been the story resulting in the legend of La Llorona as La Llorona displays great betrayal to motherhood by murdering her children. However, there lacks any historical evidence to validate any of these takes (Jaramillo 3). La Llorona folklore is unique from most of the folklores are the actual life experiences reported by the Latinos over the years. Latinos from different life backgrounds have claimed to have encountered La Llorona's attempted attacks towards their children or even carry them along with her forever. These events through history, however unproven, bring the folklore of La Llorona to life hence crowning her a sign of people's worst nightmares.

According to research, some of the Latinos claiming to have experienced the La Llorona myth experience at first hand usually are deeply affected. They experience emotional struggles in any slight attempt to revisit the occurrence while others even experience shame out of the La Llorona experience. However, among these experiences, most of them indicate no sign of malice, inhumanity or destruction towards the children but only kindness, temperateness, sympathy and even defensive, fostering features.

According to research, other versions of the La Llorona folklore claim that the husband to La Llorona was abusive and spiteful and as a result, he drowned their children in a river due to rage. On realization of what his husband had done, La Llorona was sorrowful and decided to commit suicide along-side her dead children in an attempt to save them (Beatty 12). On the other hand, the husband decided to cover the occurrences of the events and turn them to his advantage. He, therefore, created the side of the story that blames his wife for his children's death. The wrong side of the story according to this version, was easily believed by people and embraced without much interrogation and was passed down through history over the years as a result of marianismo and machismo dynamics.

Another version of the story states that the wailing woman is the spirit of several Aztec Goddesses, among the goddesses, is Chihuacoatl, who was first seen sobbing. Since the goddess appeared weeping, it served as a bad omen predicting the arrival of the onset of the Spaniards and their serial killing and therefore, proceeds to cry up to date. The third version of the folklore claims that the wailing woman is Dona Marina, commonly known as La Malinche. La Malinche was a lover to Herman Cortes and also served as an interpreter. La Malinche was considered a traitor to the people of Mexico (Mejia 10). According to speculation, La Malinche drowned both her children to whom she had born with Cortes out of anger and bitterness from Cortes' betrayal to their love with a Spanish woman.

However, these variations in the folklore seem to be geographical with each various region having a slight modification to the version compared to a text in another area. The legend has also evolved with time reflecting more on the society today in terms of the socio-political climate. The evolvement of this story tells us more about the teller's point of view or message he is trying to pass across depending on the type of modification applied. The story first appeared in printed form in the 19th and 20th centuries. The printed versions deflect from the original myth differently, however still retaining some parts as time goes by. All the translations tend to come to a similar core point, that is, a river, a woman and, drowning children not forgetting an abusive husband.

La Llorona is a famous cultural icon today in Mexico society. The story has been passed through generations for cultural preservation despite the various modifications applied. However, each time the story evolves, it is linked with specific moral lessons and values to be passed across. The influence of the legend is visible and is still established today. Some people even experience La Llorona later in their lives.

The initial versions of the folklore having displayed La Llorona as an antagonist, the tale was aimed at controlling the behaviour of women and to scare children from playing around any large water body. Another factor brought out in the La Llorona tales is the fact that her husband had to leave her for a Spanish woman as it was considered inappropriate for a Spanish to marry a Native-American woman at that time. Therefore, this aimed at warning people from engaging with other people of classes, not at their level. The issue of water pollution is also addressed in the La Llorona narrative. La Llorona captures our attention by displaying the strong ability of water on its own by her constant wailing at the water bodies after the death of her children.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the La Llorona narrative is a major cultural icon by the Latinos as it gives the story of a young Native-American who got married to a Spanish husband. However, it was considered inappropriate for people from these two backgrounds to marry. The husband, therefore, left her for a Spanish woman. La Llorona was bitter and drowned her children as well as herself in a river after the incident. There are other versions of the narrative as it evolves as time goes by (Vinall 4). This narrative was used by the Latinos to regulate the behaviours of their wives and scare children from playing near large water bodies. The La Llorona narrative is experienced up to date by some Mexicans which create life to the story. It was a reflection of the socio-political environment. The description also showed great betrayal of motherhood through the malicious acts of drowning children. Despite the many variations, the story still retains the thematic scene of a river and a drowning mother with two dead children who wails around water bodies in search for them.

Works Cited

Beatty, Judith. La Llorona: Encounters with the Weeping Woman. Judith Beatty, 2019.

Brinkman, Diane. "La Llorona and La Malinche Are Chicana Daughters: Healing Matrilineal Trauma by Transforming" Bad" Mexican Mother Archetypes." (2019).

Horcasitas, Fernando, and Douglas Butterworth. "La Llorona." Tlalocan 4.3 (2016): 204-224.

Jaramillo, Sutherland. "The Many Faces of La Llorona: Reflections on La Llorona Through Creative Writing." (2019).

Mejia, Angie Pamela. "Las Lloronas: Mujeres, Depression, and the Sociological Imagination." (2019).

Vinall, Kimberly. ""Got Llorona?": Teaching for the Development of Symbolic Competence." L2 Journal 8.1 (2016).