agcc-cuny.digication.com
In my last blog post, I discussed different versions of La Llorona across different cultures, how they act as an agent of discipline, in that they ensure morally prescribed behavior in its actors, especially women, and the way in which historically powerless women subvert the existing power structure in devastating ways. At first reading of these stories, the reader recoils at the antithesis of what is supposedly the natural order of things, the bond between mother and child, and the mother as protector and nurturer. But what if there is another perspective on La Llorona, Coatlicue and Chihuacoatl’s actions? This blog post will focus on Chicana feminist readings of these figure’s actions. Linda Fox argues that Chicana mothers teach obedience as a necessary means of survival in a patriarchal society. Being a “good mother” is one of the cornerstones of this expectation. She argues that, “the same rigid dual view of Chicana womanhood that limits females to all good or all evil (the virgin-whore dichotomy) also operates to pit the ‘bad mother’ images of La Llorona and La Malinche against the ‘good mother’ representations of Tonantzin, Aztec goddess of fertility, and the Catholic Virgin of Guadalupe (Fox).” She argues that there are good things that can be drawn “bad mother” myths and bad things from “good mother” myths. Being the “good mother” often means not questioning the status quo, the misogyny and suffering indignities inflicted on women by men. The underlying message of La Lorona stories to women is “conform to your role, comply with feminine imperatives, or suffer the consequences (Fox).”
But sometimes the “bad mother” narrative can be reinterpreted as an empowering figure. For example, La Malinche is so reviled as a traitor, a women who betrayed her country by aiding Cortes and producing the first mestizo. But Fox argues that for many Chicanos, “this ‘Mexican Eve’ has been transformed into the prototypical Chicana feminist (Fox).” She demonstrates leadership, intelligence and self preservation. Other feminist scholars agree, arguing that, “several excellent feminism revisions of La Malinche have recently emerged which locate her within the political and social climate of the conquest, articulating her limited choices as a slave and elucidating her constructive behavior as a mediator between the Spanish and the indigenous peoples, who found themselves on the brink of annihilation (Carbonell).” So in this case, the ‘bad mother’ was actually as tough mother, intent on preserving her people by being a successful mediator. Carbonell also echoes what Fox says about the virgin versus whore dynamic pervasive in Mexican culture, a device that is used to reduce female agency and that “attempts to police female behavior by extolling the Virgin’s passivity and selflessness while denigrating figures who take action, such as La Malinche and La Llorona as selfish, treacherous and destructive (Carbonell).” These figures exist on a binary. On one end is Chihuacoatl, the ancient earth goddess, the original midwife, who through conquest was transformed from being a life giving figure to a destructive one; “more generally, the Azteca-Mexica culture split Coatlicue’s multifaceted attributes by severing her numerous descendents-Tonantzin, Coatlopeuh and Chihuacoatl from one another (Carbonell).” The first two became associated with Our Lady of Guadalupe, aka, the “good mothers” and the last became associated with La Llorona, who in turn was associated with La Marinche. In this way, women are either passive, sacrificing and therefore safe, or active, exercise agency and are therefore threatening.
Some scholars reinterpret La Llorona as a resistant mother figure who pushes back against gender, class and the way society was set up in colonial Mexico. It highlights how unequal that society is. Interestingly, there is one version of the La Lorona story that says that when the Spanish arrived, they were so taken with the beauty of the indigenous Indian children, that they stole these children to give to their wives. Some Indian women killed their children rather than allow the Spanish to take them. La Llorona was one such woman. If the Spanish took these children from their mother, not only would the mother-child bond be ripped apart, but these children would also now be slaves to the Spanish. So in this version, La Llorona, didn’t kill her children out of vengeance, but out of a desire to protect them, and defend them against the conquistadors. It was a limited and sad way for women to exercise their maternal agency, “consequently, La Llorona’s actions in these tales of resistance constitute a necessary, if extreme, response to domination that allows her to continue to enact her motherlove-to protect and nurture both herself and her children (Carbonell).”
These reinterpretations are an interesting one, I think. It at least gives these women a sense of agency, though not the kind of agency they might prefer. The traditional interpretation and of these stories reveal the underlying misogyny leveled against women across cultures. Women are characterized as being guided by passion, vengeance and jealousy instead of reason, as evidenced by Medea, Lamia and Hera. Instead of having a way to move across class barriers on her own, La Llorona must rely on the affections of a man to do it. This also has an ugly subtext: La Llorona didn’t “know her place” and used her sexuality as a tool to move to another social class and was punished for it. In fact, with the exception of Rachel, all the women mentioned in my previous post have been punished for using their sexuality as a source of power. The fate of the women in these stories reflects the societal attitudes towards non-traditional women, and they further demonize them by having them commit the most abhorrent crime. However, looking at these stories from a feminist angle, as some scholars have, we realize just how few options women throughout history traditionally have had when it comes to their own fate.
This isn’t to justify these women’s actions, they are unpleasant and upsetting no matter what lens it is viewed through, but as Carbonell writes, “it may, at least, explain her options, showing that her response cannot be interpreted in isolation from the hierarchical social system that surrounds her (Carbonell).” She was specifically referring to La Llorona, but this insight is applicable to the myriad versions of La Llorona stories and figures across cultures.
Works Cited
Carbonell, Ana Maria. “From La Llorona to Gritona: Coatlicue in Feminst Tales by Viramontes and Cisneros.” MELUS (1999): 3.
Fox, Linda. “Obedience and Rebellion: Re-Vision of Chicana Myths of Motherhood.” Woemn’s Studies Quarterly (1983): 21.