Writing Assignment help on : Urban legends
Urban legends are the stories that are popular among the masses because they are interesting and they exist in passivity. The passiveness is always there because these legends are always those incidences which happen to the other and so it always becomes an account o telling the other that what happened to his/her friend/family. They are the stories which are episodic and they exist so as to make the people believe in certain events that they happen and that how they do exist somewhere and that they are much valid in the contemporary context also. The urban legend is something which is unique and is a good way to communicate the beliefs and the faith in the culture which one holds. The nature of these legends could be different from one another that are there can be different moods and the atmosphere of the legends too. The urban legends could be weird, they could be torturing, could be filled of humour, might be sad or even be ghostly in their account (Riddle, 2009). In the urban legend it is observed that usually there is a narrative that determines the reliability factor of the story. The reference which is given in the construction of the urban legends is usually given at a much personal level, for example, “The incident occurred to my friend”, “This really happened to my sister’s beautician” or “This tragedy had happened to my friend in her hostel”. Such references which are given usually enhance the credibility of the resources which the teller of the story gives. It has to be understood that the stories which are told are fictional or even if they are true the way they would be told from one to another person would make it even more superficial. When the stories which are basically the fictional accounts get ubiquitous, people popularly start calling them facts and therefore they always stay there as if it was reality. It is seen that the urban legends are the ovens which arise from the folklore and therefore the source of these legends cannot be traced (Brunvand, 2001).
The paper would include the urban legends having a ghostly subject these legends revolve around the gothic situations. The supernatural stories become one of the major attractions among the masses as the horror episodes evoke sensation among the people. Any piece of literature is interesting and the horror stories become the centre of attraction for many because of the thrill that it ahs and the suspense which it create for the listener. The urban legends hold more truth for the interpreter because they occur in the contemporary context and thus gain a higher level of credibility (McCormick & White, 2011). The following urban legend is from the Vanishing Hitchhiker by Jan Harold Brunvand, “This is an absolutely true story. It happened to one of my best friends when he was about your age. He was driving home from a dance and saw a beautiful girl by the side of the road. He stopped to give her a ride home. She said it was a long way to her house, but he said that didn’t matter. He thought that would give him more time to get to know her. He found out her name was Lavender and she loved the colour and often. Sure enough, she was wearing it that night. He asked her if she would go to the movies with him tomorrow night. She said okay. As he was driving, he noticed that the countryside was getting spookier and spookier; he had never been on this road before. Lavender begins shivering in the cold night air and he offered her his jacket. As he let her out at the decrepit shack she called home, he told her she could keep his jacket until tomorrow night. The next night Lavender didn’t come to the movies as she had promised. So he drove back up to her home to find out why she stood him up and to get his jacket. An old couple answered the door.
“I’m looking for Lavender,” he said. “She promised to go to the movies with me. Is she sick or something?”
The couple looked confused. The old man glanced at his wife, swallowed and said, “Our daughter Lavender has been dead for over twenty years.”
“That’s impossible! I saw her last night! She has my jacket!”
“I can show you her grave if you like. It’s behind the house,” the old man offered.
When the boy saw Lavender’s grave, he gasped. On the grave, neatly folded, was his jacket.”
The story became an urban legend as it can be related to the modern generation, which has a supernatural twist within it. The story which is told is much normal in its tone and includes the situations which would generally occur in anybody’s life (Littlejohn, 1996). This would let every guy who listens to the story to at least give it a thought that this could even happen to them. The stories which happen to the others might even be a matter of distrust for the others and so they might even find it full of humour. Another urban legend could also be discussed is from the Scary Stories series, ‘High Beams’ by Alvin Schwartz.
“A friend of mine was driving back from the high school play one night. She noticed a pick-up truck following her out of the parking lot, but she didn’t think anything about it until she noticed that when she picked up speed, the driver of the truck increased his speed. When she passed a car, so did he. Each time he turned on his high beams, flooding her car with light. Now she was getting a bit uneasy, especially when he turned off with her on the deserted road to her house. He kept following her closely, turning on his high beams again and again. Finally he turned on his high beams and left them on. At last she pulled into her driveway and the truck pulled in behind her. “Call the police!” she screamed to her parents as she ran to the door. When the police arrived, they started to arrest the man in the truck. The man shook his head and said, “It’s not me you want. It’s that guy in her car.” Crouched in the back seat of the girl’s car was a man with a knife. According to the driver, the man slipped into my friend’s car just before she drove off from the school. The truck driver saw the man, but he couldn’t stop him. So he followed my friend, flashing his high beams every time the man rose up to overpower her.” The purpose is served by the urban legend that it has a gothic touch in it because of the language that it poses. When the end of the story is revealed it can be said that it does not evoke the horror or the superstitious element but certainly was scary as the girl was saving herself presumably from the truck driver but the suspense was revealed later in the story. This legend has been told many times among the masses that now it must have been diverted away from the reality which it had before (Haase, 2008). Urban legends are not a particular genre in literature and they somewhere play a role in the beliefs of the people and feed to their fears. Another story ‘Buried Alive’ as submitted by April, can also be seen:
“My great-great grandmother, who had been ill for some time now, finally passed away. My great-great grandfather was devastated beyond belief. She was his one true love and they had been married for over 50 years. They had been married so long it was if they knew each other’s thoughts. Even after the doctor announced her dead, my great-great grandfather still insisted that she was not. He had to literally be pried away from his wife’s body so they could prepare her for a burial. Back in those days they had simple backyard burial plots, without the body going through any preservation or embalming. The body was simply committed to the coffin and buried. Throughout this process, my great-great grandfather protested so much that he had to be sedated and put to bed. His wife was buried, and that was that. That night, he woke to a horrific vision of his wide hysterically trying to scratch her way out of the coffin. He phoned the doctor immediately and begged to have his wife’s body exhumed. The doctor refused. He continued to have this nightmare every night that week, and each day after begged the doctor to remove his wife from the grave. Finally, the doctor gave in, and the local authorities had the coffin removed from the ground and pried open. To everyone’s horror and amazement, my great great grand-mothers nails were bent back, and there were obvious scratches on the inside of the coffin.” This story has also evoked fear as the case has remained unresolved. The situation is seen full of mystery and enigma as the story does not answer whether the great great grandmother was alive by then or she had been lying dead in the coffin (Halloween Web. 2012). The stories like these are only the possibilities whether in reality or in fiction, and therefore are like a challenge to the mental make-up of the individuals. In conclusion it can be said that the urban legends are the social constructs and thus are didactic in nature because they are flexible and are shared further on the basis of the interests of the folklore. It is something created or believed which is passed on in the society and thus manipulate themselves as contemporary legends which lie somewhere between the myths and the reality.
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