Topic Proposal for La Llorona

 

The tale of La Llorona drew me in because of how harsh morals are. This story’s moral looked to control women and keep them faithful to their husbands. This moral does not make much sense considering what the story is telling. Over time, this moral has changed a lot and I want to know why. What was the reason this story was originally told? Why is the moral so harsh? I will investigate how and why this story changed over time, where it originates, and why the moral is so harsh towards women.

La Llorona is a folktale of Latin-American decent that goes back as early at 1888. There are many versions of the tale including movies released as recently as 2021. These movies keep the story known and relevant in the mainstream. The story of La Llorona tells the tale of a women in a loveless marriage. Most versions of the story have her husband as an abusive man who does not show love to his wife and only their two sons. Out of jealousy, she lures her sons to a river and drowns them. She realizes the gravity of what she has done and drowns herself after, living on as a ghost haunting the river. This story seems to be a cautionary tale towards men, warning them to love their wife or they will lose their family. This story, however, is told to keep women faithful to their husbands. What I don’t understand is that the wife doesn’t cheat on her husband, he cheats on her. So why is this a tale to control women when it clearly is the man who loses the most in the story.

La Llorona was originally told as a cautionary tale to women, scaring them into staying faithful to their husbands. This tale has evolved into a tale used to scare children away from rivers and dangerous situations. I would like to know why the moral changed. Did it change as women started speaking up for themselves? Even if they aren’t outwardly controlled, women are discouraged from speaking out against abusers. Even if women are brave enough to speak out against abusers, they aren’t usually taken seriously and are put down. A lot of the time this happens publicly and when other women see it, it makes it harder for them to speak out. I want to look into other ways women are controlled today, either in the form of stories or laws, and how this reflects in La Llorona.

This folktale drew my interest mainly because of the way it outright looked to control women. I think this will be a particularly good moral to relate to current events. I would mainly like to look into why this story changed over time and how. I would love to know what caused this story to be told. Is there a woman who influenced La Llorona? Is this at all based on a true tale? Why does the moral contrast what seems to be told in the story? I did some research on this topic before writing this so all the info in this writing is my prior knowledge. I plan to do much more research in the form of articles, books, and movies. I am very curious to see what liberties, if any, the newer movies take when telling the story of La Llorona. I am going to look mainly at a very old version of the tale and a newer version. I also plan to investigate current events involving women and how men try to control them through stories and lies.