Monsters have existed
throughout history and have had a large amount of input when putting fear into people.
From the surface, it may seem that their sole purpose is to scare, but there is
a much deeper meaning behind every ghoul, witch, or goblin. To name a few,
trolls represent nature and the unstoppable force it possesses. Nature has been
on this world before anything else and carries the capability of destruction. Golems,
a man made creature, illustrate arrogance that accompanies the notion of empowerment.
And ghosts, which are the prime example of this blog, were used in literature
to demonstrate warning figures able to foretell events that were
on the brisk or occurrence, demand revenge, and provided as a spiritual link
between the past and the future. Every individual
monster is a representation of different anxieties.
La
Llorona, a traditional Latin folktale, has been passed down
from generation to generation, keeping children and men indoors during the
haunting hours of the night, fearing an encounter from the crying woman. The tale
goes as follows:
A beautiful woman was
madly in love with her husband. They were the Angelina Jolie and Brad Pit of their
town. They had children together, but as the years passed, her husband began to
distance himself from her, seeming less interested in her with every day that
passed. Eventually he left her for another woman. She was outraged by his actions
and blamed her children. She blamed them for taking her beauty
away and replacing it with old age. They were the reason he left her for a
younger woman. That night, she grabbed her children and took them for a walk
near a river. Her young boys, skipping through the pathway, feeling the debris
swirl around their feet with every hop. They were excited to be out and explore
through the night, unaware of the evil their mother possessed. Together they
went into a small boat until they reached the center of the water. She tied up
her boys and attached a sack of bricks to them. She drowned them, hearing their
struggle to keep at the surface while she reached the shore without her
children. Afterward, she realized what terrible thing she had done and cried
night after night for her children to come back.
She represents haunting
regret as she can’t find a peace of mind after committing the murders of her
own children. A conscience that doesn’t allow a person to move forward, keeping
them in the same place; a type of Purgatory. La Llorona lives in a state where
she continues to cry for her boys, in hope to have them in her presence but continues
to have enmity toward the man that left her, causing her to murder any child or
man that crosses her path. She symbolizes the anxiety that we as human being
hold, when we possess evils due to mistreatment. It can cause us to act without
thinking and dealing with the consequence.
Until now, I’ve come to
the realization that there is a deeper foundation to this tale. It is rooted
and recycled throughout history and differing cultures. She is the equivalent
of siren or banshee. The crying woman,
Mexican legend goes back to mythical time. mythology.
