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Revitalizing the legend: Manifestations and cultural readings of La Llorona in contemporary literature and film
Abstract
My dissertation addresses the images of La Llorona in the poetry and fiction of Chicana writers and in contemporary film. La Llorona, the weeping or wailing woman, traditionally serves as an allegory in Chicano culture warning people, primarily women, how to live, act, and function within established social mores. Readings and revisions of La Llorona have focused primarily on La Llorona's tragedy without addressing her power, agency, or the historical antecedents from the Aztec pantheon which gave rise to the folktale. The purpose of this study, therefore, is to consider the ways contemporary poets, fiction writers, and filmmakers are revitalizing La Llorona folklore by revisioning this mythic figure as a symbol of feminine resistance. By incorporating folkloric, historical, and cultural perspectives, I argue that writers and filmmakers provide additional spaces within and outside of male mythic constructions of women to address contemporary issues of feminism, lesbianism, gender constraints, and cultural expectation and oppression. Writers such as Gloria Anzaldua, Cordelia Candelaria, Ana Castillo, Sandra Cisneros, Victoria Moreno, Monica Palacios, Naomi Quinonez, and Alma Luz Villanueva employ various rhetorical strategies to reconfigure the power relations between La Llorona and her lover, conflate La Llorona with powerful Aztec goddesses, subvert traditional narratives to allow the weeping woman to transcend her tragedy, and draw La Llorona into a contemporary landscape. The incorporation of the filmic aspect of my dissertation shows that Anglo and Chicano directors, such as Andy Tennant, John Sayles, Allison Anders, Taylor Hackford, and Gregory Nava, when depicting Chicanas in film, have contributed to the proliferation of this dynamic myth, most significantly by blurring the gender boundaries for contemporary Llorona figures. Subsequently, La Llorona is slowly moving beyond gender constraints to become representative of Chicano/as who are in some way lost in the contemporary world. With each new configuration, writers and filmmakers breathe new life into the myth for the next generation of Chicanas and Chicanos.
Subject Area
American literature|Folklore|Womens studies
Recommended Citation
Perez, Domino Renee, "Revitalizing the legend: Manifestations and cultural readings of La Llorona in contemporary literature and film" (1998). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI9908480.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI9908480