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"Weeping Woman" redirects here. For the painting by Pablo Picasso, see The Weeping Woman.
Adriana Lamar as "La Malinche" in the 1933 Mexican
film La Llorona
La Llorona is Spanish for "The Crying Woman" and is a popular legend in Spanish-speaking cultures in the colonies of the Americas, with many versions extant. The basic story is that La Llorona was a beautiful woman who killed her children to be with the man that she loved and was subsequently rejected by him. He might have been the children's father who had left their mother for another woman, or he might have been a man she loved but who was uninterested in a relationship with a woman with children, and whom she thought she could win if the children were out of the way. She drowned the children and then, after being rejected anyway, killed herself. She is doomed to wander, vainly searching for her children for all eternity. Her constant weeping is the reason for her name. In some cases, according to the tale, she will kidnap wandering children or children who misbehave.
Function of the story in society
Typically, the legend serves as a cautionary tale on several levels. Parents will warn their children that bad behavior will cause her to steal them[1] and being outside after dark will result in a visit from the spirit. The tale also warns teenage girls not to be enticed by status, wealth, material goods, or by men making declarations of love or any promises too good to be true. It also cautions them not to express their sexual desires.[1] Some also believe that those who hear the wails of La Llorona are marked for death, similar to the Gaelic banshee or bean sidhe legend. Additionally, the tale is a Mexican, Central and South American cultural symbol that models negative and despised feminine sexuality, where La Llorona is the archetypal evil woman condemned to eternally suffer and weep for violating her role as a wife and a mother. She is a failed woman because she has failed at motherhood. The tale serves to shape Mexican and Chicana women's conduct by prescribing an idealized version of motherhood.[2] La llorona is also known as La Andalona. when ever she gets near a water source area you will hear a screaming sound.
Comparisons to other folktales
la Llorona bears a resemblance to the ancient Greek tale of the demonic demigodess Lamia who had an affair with Zeus. Hera, Zeus' wife, learned of the affair. Hera then forced Zeus to give up the relationship and punished Lamia by forcing her to eat her own children. Out of jealousy over the loss of her own children, Lamia preys upon human children and devours them if she catches them.[3][4][5]
Local Aztec folklore possibly influenced the legend; the goddess Cihuacoatl or Coatlicue was said to have appeared shortly prior to the invasion of Spain by Hernán Cortés, weeping for her lost children, an omen of the fall of the Aztec empire.
La Llorona is also sometimes identified with La Malinche, the Native American woman who served as Cortés' interpreter and who some say betrayed Mexico to the Spanish conquistadors. In one folk story of La Malinche, she becomes Cortés' mistress and bore him a child, only to be abandoned so that he could marry a Spanish lady (though no evidence exists that La Malinche killed her children). Aztec pride drove La Malinche to acts of vengeance. In this context, the tale compares the Spanish invasion of Mexico and the demise of indigenous culture after the conquest with La Llorona's loss.
See also
References
- ^ a b de Jesús Hernández-Gutiérrez, Manuel; David William Foster (1997). Literatura Chicana, 1965-1995: An Anthology in Spanish, English, and Caló. Taylor and Francis. pp. 93. ISBN 0815320779.
- ^ Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo and Ernestine Avila, "I'm Here, but I'm There: The Meanings of Latina Transnational Motherhood"
- ^ Theoi Project: "Lamia"
- ^ Aristophanes, The popopopWasps, 1177.
- ^ Aristophanes, Peace
- Perez, Domino Renee, There Was a Woman: La Llorona from Folklore to Popular Culture
- Mathews, Holly F. 1992. The directive force of morality tales in a Mexican community. In Human motives and cultural models, edited by R.G.D'Andrade and C. Strauss, 127-62. New York: Cambridge University Press.
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