A Strong Scare Appeals to People of All Ages
I'm inclined to agree with this sentiment. As a fan of horror fiction, I noticed that there was still a glimmer of wonder in terror, which is the basic depiction of urban legends. Gender and class dynamics are one of the most distinguishing characteristics of urban legends and their variations.
The Urban Legend of "The Hook"
The aim of this essay is to investigate how gender emphasizes big debates about identity, disagreement through age, sexuality, and class boundaries. The article would also look at the specific concerns, uncertainties, and anxieties that are present in the stories and why they are so. The first urban legend I'd like to discuss is "The Hook" from the book "The Hook and Other Teenage Horrors. The story is about 2 teenagers who go to the local variant of a "lover's lane" and park. The teenage boy turns on the radio in order to set the mood, which is cut short by a news bulletin about a maniac on the loose. The bulletin describes the feature of the man as having a hook in place of his missing hand.
The boy tries to make advances to the girl, but the horrifying news bulletin gives her such a fright that she demands to be taken back to her home. Frustrated, the boy fires up his engine and speeds off, eventually making it to the girl's house. As he gets out to open the door for his date, he comes face to face with a bloody hook torn from the maniac's arm dangling from the car's door handle. Shocked, he turns pale.
Brunvald's argument is that the tale has the essence of morality. According to him, the radio is a representation of the girl's subconscious as it wants to be represented by the music from the radio that was intended at setting the mood (Brunvand). This subconscious battle against her own conscience as a warning about the actions she is about to take. Another aspect to consider is that the hook can be seen as a phallic symbol that is being one of penetration was her option to remain.
Nonetheless, (Brunvand) asserts that the theme of the story common among most readers is that of invasion. In this narrative, the man with the hook is a representation of a man forcing himself upon the woman threatening the personal space between the two or womb as the radio or the conscience that plays on in the background as a warning that they should not continue with the actions that were intended. Additionally, this is linked to gender in that the girl always heeds and the boy usually scorns. Furthermore, the girl calling off the date is a depiction of real life practices in dating where there is usually anxiety, particularly for girls.
"The Roommate's Death" Urban Legend
Another tale is that of "The Roommate's Death" is another urban legend. The story revolves around two roommates that remain on campus over the holidays as their residential homes are a distant away. In the story, one of the girls ventures for the evening while the other retires to bed before her roommate returns. The girl awakens after hearing strange scratching banging noises at the door. Frightened to investigate yet embarrassed to call campus security, she barricades herself and does not venture up until morning. In the morning, she opens the door with hesitation to the discover her roommate's body by the door, with her throat slashed open as she bled to death in the night scratching the door in an attempt to summon help.
In my perspective, I see a blatant statement concerning female sexuality and the motifs of the story. The featuring of females in the story depicts a clear picture of emotions and attitudes given differing situations. The theme of the motif is quite similar to that of "The Hook" as it also brings out invasion. In the story, the killer is a conscience that warns the girl of the dangers of breaking the social norms and the effects of trying to change towards new realms that they are unprepared for. This narrative is a further reflection of gender value, in that, if women are interested in depending on the traditional attitudes and responses, it would be wise for them to stay in a place where the attitudes are best able to provide protection. But if they deem to venture into the realm of gender equality, they have to become less dependent, and more self-sufficient in order for them to assume responsibility for themselves.
The Elements of Horror Fiction
The elements of horror fiction change little through time, but the style never ceases to change. That is if adolescence moves from home to the world, the dangers of the world that are ever roaming around the corners will catch up. Hence, despite the scary nature of the horrors, they provide signs in the form of warnings and the picture, that anything can happen regardless of one's location.
A common theme in the narratives is that the virgin tends to escape unharmed through to the end or at least lives for long. There is one extremely prevalent statement in the horror genre to the point of parody. This conforms with the initial narrative of "The Hook" where the girl exposes herself to harm through promiscuity while the sexual antiquity of the boy is never taken into contemplation. Also, observed in "The Roommate's Death", the protagonist chooses to remain indoors as a virgin rather than take on evening ventures with strangers as the other girl did. In this narrative too, the sexual promiscuity of the killer is never brought to question.
The Role of Urban Legends in Gender-Role Attitudes
Carter explains in "Assessing the Effects of Urbanism and Regionalism on Gender-Role Attitudes" how functioning as a mediator between and during social transitions, the act of creating and transmitting urban legends is consistent of a ritualized social drama. This is considered a means of settling conflicts internally within a culture and regenerating social cohesion. Thus, the symbolic expression of the social anxiety in the form of modern folktales such as legends ultimately contribute to the larger social dialogue revolving around gender roles in the increasing urban world.
According to an article by (Croft), folktales share some of the features of a riddle but they differ in accordance with the nature of the answers. They differ in that they are stated in prose narratives. They often answer in regard to an object or even abstract concepts.
In "Folklore, Families, and Fear," Croft describes how urban legends are a typical genre of modern folklore to most Americans today regardless of their background and ages, but the middle class, in particular, these are the people reasonably aware of the news and currents and will not need to travel to seek informants in collecting urban legends. I think that urban legends involve women as primary characters and those involving contamination are a ritualize and symbolic expression of the collective social fears in regard to the movement away from the traditional values to those that are considered to be modern with an emphasis on the changing role of women in the society today (Croft). It is a general social fear of the effects of movement away from traditional values.
The urban legends in this context seem to describe the social tension in the gender expectation. The insights in this article express the relevance of boundaries. Boundaries maintain order in the world and are considered a means of organizing lives. Once such roles are broken down, disorder and dangerous situations are inevitable.
Works Cited
Brunvand, Jan Harold. The vanishing hitchhiker: American urban legends and their meanings. WW Norton & Company, 1981.
Ellis, Bill. ““The Hook” Reconsidered: Problems in Classifying and Interpreting Adolescent Horror Legends.” Folklore 105.1-2 (1994): 61-75.
Carter, J. Scott, and Casey A. Borch. “Assessing the Effects of Urbanism and Regionalism on Gender‐Role Attitudes, 1974–1998.” Sociological Inquiry 75.4 (2005): 548-563.
Croft, Robin. “Folklore, families and fear: Exploring the influence of the oral tradition on consumer decision-making.” Journal of Marketing Management 22.9-10 (2006): 1053-1076.
