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Urban LegendsCornerstone Ids 101 674Professor David Taylor

By Christina Saur

URBAN LEGENDS

Legendary Urban Legends

An urban Legend is a modern day story of obscure origin and with little or no supporting evidence that spreads spontaneously and varies its form. The spread of such rumors or gossip is the result of people’s hidden emotions and residual fears of the unknown. The people fabricate in order to deal with their deep-seated anxiety of or frightened psychological component of their emotions. “Bloody Mary” (205) “The Hook” (199) “The death of little Mikey” (108) “The Kidney Heist”(227)

Are Urban Legends based on the truth or fabrication?

Gossip and Rumors

The prevalence of gossip is and has been the result of anxiety-provoking and ambiguous rumors or gossip because they make great conversation pieces and improve social relationships. The evidence of really “juicy” gossip will spread like wildfire once heard by others and will be more likely to be retold.

When Urban Legends are told there is a high probability that each person who hears one will spread the UL with their own twist to the story.

Lesson/Warning

Many of the Urban Legend’s contain a lesson/warning that will prevail in the mind of the listener because it creates such raw visual imagery or spine-tingling realizations that it produces a red-light response to the listener and makes them take a closer look at the way they are living their life.

Urban Legend’s that portray this theme “The killer in the backseat”(227) “Aid’s Mary” (6) “The babysitter and the man upstairs” (28)

Social Constructs

The social constructs of an urban legend is the basis or formality that spreads the stories through oral narrative. A legend is a believed account of an incident in the past that may or may not be true and is retold anyways.

Social Constructs Continued “Sociologists regard Urban

Legends as “always emergent out of interaction and never finished and thus never reducible to any original authentic text.” (399) Since UL’s are never finished they take on a life of their own by the original UL and by being retold in the future which embarks on a circular formation of unending rumors and gossip through social interaction.

Mythological/Archetypal Approach

An approach that analyzes characters and settings that epitomizes ideas or means of a societal lesson. It provides a universalistic method that withstands the test of time and utilizes the reasoning behind why some stories can become legendary.

Disadvantages to the approach The only

disadvantage to this type of approach is the formation of social “archetypes” that may have the person overlooking the true essence of the Urban Legend.

Works Cited Encyclopedia of Urban Legendsby Jan Harold Brunvand