| This dissertation explores the intersections between Chicana and postmodern theory through the lens of the mythical La Llorona archetype. By closely investigating four contemporary Chicana literary texts, this project traces and explicates the emancipatory incarnations of La Llorona as she appears in varying contexts. While the examination begins with a brief survey of folkloric research dedicated to La Llorona, it deviates from this research in its theoretical and critical perspective of La Llorona as both transgressive and revolutionary. By utilizing a Chicana postmodern lens, the project aims at inspecting non-traditional Las Lloronas who rewrite the conventions of motherhood, desire, femininity, and, ultimately, the future.The various embodiments of La Llorona in Graciela Limon's The Day of the Moon track the generational transmission of knowledge La Llorona offers to women trapped in past and present Chicano patriarchies. In contrast, Limon's In Search of Bernabe underscores the unintended, yet empowering effects of La Llorona and highlights the tangible, often destructive impacts of the less archetypal El Lloron on international affairs as illustrated in the Civil War in El Salvador. The examination of Teri de la Pena's Faults: A Novel emphasizes the transformative possibilities of a revised Llorona that embraces alternative models of desire and familial constructs for recreation of community strength. Finally, Cherrie Moraga's play The Hungry Woman: A Mexican Medea reveals the futility of envisioning the child as future and demonstrates the necessity of La Llorona, in this case Medea, as a force of both creation and destruction. The conclusion of the project interrogates contemporary Lloronas outside of the literary genre to illustrate both the disturbing and celebratory impacts of literary and non-literary crying women on current attitudes toward women in American culture. By employing postmodern and Chicana theoretical concepts such as attention to intention, context, and the complexity of identity, the project interrogates notions of change and repetition with alterity as viable spaces for action. |
