Every culture has urban legends and Hispanic culture is no exception. These legends can be anything from terrifying ghost stories to heavily believed superstition. Some of the most popular legends would be those of El Chupacabra and La Llorona, which are not only known by those of hispanic heritage, but internationally as well. The majority of these legends have been around for centuries but as the years have gone by, they have turned into cautionary tales and lessons for the younger generations…
Urban legends are very complex and interesting aspects of culture. They often inspire holidays, movies, poetry, stories and more. But urban legends go far beyond how they seem on the surface. Their origins and the messages they send must be decoded to understand the true context of any urban legend. Illustrating the messages, urban legends may be benign, or malicious. In the context of this paper, an urban legend is a story or anecdote that is based on hearsay and widely circulated as true…
Many people claim they do not believe in urban legends, however, some urban legends have the power to make people stop and question themselves. What if these legends that are passed down from generation to generation by the word of mouth or electronically have truth to them? A few years ago, when I started to babysit, my older siblings told me about one of the most notorious urban legends, the Babysitter and the Man Upstairs. This legend is about a teenager who is babysitting, when a mystery man…
La Casa Matusita is an urban legend that is known to all people in lima-Peru. This haunted yellow house holds various types of mysteries. Many people prefer to avoid this house, especially during the night for pretty good reasons too. There is not only one, but two versions to how this urban legend goes. One tells of a man who found his wife in bed with another man. After killing both his wife and her lover with a knife, he killed his children and then turned the blade on himself. The other…
Grandmother” by Jan Harold Brunvand, he contends how the urban legend has evolved from the different versions across Europe and the Americas. The story’s theme involves an unexpected death of a woman (usually a grandmother) while on a family trip. Her body is transported in a car in the hope of reporting her death to the nearest authorities. However during the family’s stop, the car is stolen together with the grandmother’s corpse. This urban legend has similarities with the tale, “The Dead Cat…
urban legends that frightens you and make you wonder if it 's real or just another legend. Like in Japan they have one urban legend about a creature called Kuchisake-Onna or the slit-mouthed woman. A vengeful spirit who preys on children, cutting the heads or slicing their mouth like hers if the answer is wrong. Another urban legend originating in the United States is the Mothman. Bring disaster wherever he goes like a bad omen. But for my own Hispanic culture, there are many urban legends that…
You always hear about great legends, no matter where you are from. All my life I had heard about a great monsters who used to roam The Great Plains in Texas, but none of the stories matched the monster I had found. I lived in a small quaint house right outside of a town in the middle of the Texas Plains. Most of the townsfolk were superstitious. My mother was a carefree and spirited woman who let me roam the flat land, not troubled by the hideous monster myths. Many people thought my mother was…
Urban Legend Was Walt Disney’s body really frozen? Is there really a black market for kidneys? The answer to both is no, these questions or rumors are called urban legends which majority of them are not true. Urban legends is a modern folklore and in 1981 Jan Harold Brunvand published several books pertaining to legends (Brunvand n.d.). In this paper I will be explaining what urban legend is and prove why these two questions are false. Urban legends are a tradition of storytelling and starts…
the “Lord of the Apes” by giving it a modern makeover. The Legend of Tarzan, staring Alexander Skarsgård as John Clayton/Tarzan and Margot Robbie as Jane Clayton, recycles an old tale of the beefy white man in a loincloth saving African yet again. The movie starts in 1890, the post era of “King of the Jungle,” roughly ten years after Tarzan left the Congo. Tarzan has been re-assimilated into 19th Century England under the new name, John Clayton. He is a more civilized version of the swinging…
Chapter IV. Urban Legends: The Evolution of Folklore Urban legends are stories that have the designation of being ?too strange to be true? but are based in reality. Despite these fables being a touch on the strange side most people that hear them understand them as being true. Through generations these tales seem to happen to our friends, family members, or even distant relatives. Unlike fairy tales which are meant to be cautionary yet fictional, urban legends represent some form of truth. Think…