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Authors:
The author of this article, Luis Fernando Gomez R., is a professor and researcher at the National Pedagogic University of Colombia. Through his work as a researcher and as a professor of English as a foreign language, he has garnered experience in Intercultural competence and incorporation of literature into education, as well as many other areas.
Link: Luis Fernando Gomez
Citation:
Luis fernando Gómez R. “Cleófilas and La Llorona: Latin Heroines Against Patriarchal Marginalisation in ‘El Arroyo de La Llorona’, a Short Story by Sandra Cisneros.” Universitas Humanística, vol. 74, no. 74, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, 2012, pp. 98–119.
Link: Cleofilas and La Llorona
Summary:
The article “Cleófilas and La Llorona: Latin Heroines Against Patriarchal Marginalisation in ‘El Arroyo de La Llorona’, a Short Story by Sandra Cisneros.” examines author Sandra Cisneros' character named Cleófilas. Known to dislike her life as a wife to an abusive husband, Cleofilas comes to be an example of the product of patriarchal traditions within culture. Gomez comes to analyze the eventual association Cleofilas makes to La Llorona through the negative connotations La Llorona represents within society (revenge). "The figure of La Llorona is used as a way to explore the marginal conditions of the Latin woman" (Gomez 99). Through an overall analysis of the historical context of La Llorona, Gomez is able to justify Cleofilas connection to the figure as a symbol of searching for freedom.
Key Terms:
Patriarchy: a culture/government in which men hold all power and women are left inferior to their counterparts.
Romanticism: in the article's case, romanticism here means to legitimize the inferiority women face
Three Quotes:
1. "La Llorona es acusada y maldecida por haber infringido las normas establecidas de su cultura" (Gomez 112).
Translation: "La Llorona is accused and ... for having infringed the norms her culture established" (Gomez 112).
2. "La tradición la ha descrito como una figura ancestral malvada y destructiva, quien ha trasgredido el indiscutible papel establecido de la mujer latina" (Gomez 111).
Translation: "Tradition has written her as a destructive and malevolent ancestral figure that has transgressed the indisputable role of the Latin woman" (Gomez 111).
3. "El hombre logra imponer su autoridad como la única legítima porque es considerado como el dueño de todos los instrumentos de poder" (Gomez 100)
Translation: " The man is able to achieve his goal of being considered the only legitimate authority because he is the owner of all sources of power" (Gomez 100).
Note: All translations were made by me.
Value:
This article holds significant value for my research because as an analysis of La Llorona's use in a short story, we are given the social realities of patriarchy, which is a relevant social issue that I can develop in research. Expanding on the vengeful perspective of La Llorona's lesson, the article provides another paradigm to build on. The article provides a positive view of La Llorona from the already negative perspective she represents.
I finished watching La Llorona on Amazon Prime this morning. It's a great movie, and I think it has a serious chance at best foreign language film. It makes me want to see this director's earlier film, which also starred Maria Mercedes Coroy: Ixcanul.
ReplyDeleteI think I have been mispronouncing La Llorona, which I thought was like the Spanish Yorona, but the way native people pronounce it in the film is more like Djorona or even Cherona. The General's wife seems to pronounce it Dyorona, but I took that as a way to mark her as non-Ixil.
I especially liked that it is not one of those "jump-scare" horror movies. It is a deep and thoughtful meditation on inequality and the ability for the colonialists to lie and cover things up. The power of La Llorona seems to come from getting people to think -- as Carmen, the General's wife, seems to do, mostly in her dreams, until she knows she has to murder the old man for his sins to be cleansed.