American Horror Story: Asylum

American Horror Story: Season 2

 

            For anyone who has watched American Horror Story, you will know that every season is its own storyline. No continuation, it’s a completely fresh start. Now, so far, my favorite season by far is Season 2: Asylum which takes place in an insane asylum (Hence, the title…) . There is one thing about the season that bothers me. SPOILER ALERT! DO NOT READ IF YOU PLAN ON WATCHING IT! Season 2, in a short summary, is about a serial murder in 1964. He attacks women, skins them, and cuts off their heads. The main character of the season (one of them, anyway) is named Kit Walker. He is a white man who is married to a black woman named Alma. Clearly, interracial relationships are frowned upon during this time. One night, after Kit gets home from work, there are lights filling his house and loud noises and his wife disappears. Next, a reporter named Lana Winters goes to the Asylum under false pretenses to expose the poor conditions of the Asylum. In short, they believe Kit is a murderer and killed the women because of a bitterness about how he wasn’t supposed to be able to love his wife and one night, he snapped and killed his wife.

            The basis of this story revolves around the Devil who possesses an innocent nun after he is exorcised from a young teen boy.  Now, the Devil aspect was very uniquely done and I very much enjoyed it. It made a lot of sense and it helped us to discover secrets about the past of the head nun, Sister Jude. She used to be a heavy drinker and a woman who had many affairs. Then, one night, after she hit a young girl with her car in a drunken stupor, she went to join the congregation. IT was perfectly written with twists and turns, greatly developed characters, insane plots, and a very enticing storyline… Until they brought in the aliens. It turns out that Kit’s wife was actually abducted by aliens and wasn’t really dead. Kit is like..their experiment and they made sure he and Alma had a baby. We never find out why they wanted Kit, why he was special, or why they brought back Grace to have Kit’s other baby. I find it to be a large hole in the plot line. Though I was absolutely in love with the storyline, I cannot get over their combining of Nazis in World War 2, the legend of Anne Frank, God, the devil, religion, murder, psychology, and aliens. The story takes place in an earlier time, (60's or 70's) and yet, they have aliens with technology far more advanced that we never get to see or learn about. While each individual story intrigued me completely and caught my attention, I believe it was a bit much combining them all into one plotline. They did it seamlessly so that everything seemed to go together, but it had my head constantly spinning.

La Llorona

La Llorona

 

The Weeping Woman (La Llorona) is an old Hispanic wives tale that has been told for generations throughout the word. This tale is one that is typically told by elders to the younger generations. It’s sort of along the lines of the boogie man. This story is told as a way to make children behave such as; if you’re bad, Santa Clause will see and he won’t give you presents, or, “If you make that face, it will get stuck like that”. It is not a story people will easily forget, and some people swear that it is a true story.

Long years ago in a humble little village there lived a fine looking girl named Maria Some say she was the most beautiful girl in the world! And because she was so beautiful, Maria thought she was better than everyone else.

As Maria grew older, her beauty increased And her pride in her beauty grew too When she was a young woman, she would not even look at the young men from her village. They weren't good enough for her! "When I marry," Maria would say, "I will marry the most handsome man in the world."

And then one day, into Maria's village rode a man who seemed to be just the one she had been talking about. He was a dashing young ranchero, the son of a wealthy rancher from the southern plains. He could ride like a Comanche! In fact, if he owned a horse, and it grew tame, he would give it away and go rope a wild horse from the plains. He thought it wasn't manly to ride a horse if it wasn't half wild.

He was handsome! And he could play the guitar and sing beautifully. Maria made up her mind-that was, the man for her! She knew just the tricks to win his attention.

If the ranchero spoke when they met on the pathway, she would turn her head away. When he came to her house in the evening to play his guitar and serenade her, she wouldn't even come to the window. She refused all his costly gifts. The young man fell for her tricks. "That haughty girl, Maria, Maria! " he said to himself. "I know I can win her heart. I swear I'll marry that girl."

And so everything turned out as Maria planned. Before long, she and the ranchero became engaged and soon they were married. At first, things were fine. They had two children and they seemed to be a happy family together. But after a few years, the ranchero went back to the wild life of the prairies. He would leave town and be gone for months at a time. And when he returned home, it was only to visit his children. He seemed to care nothing for the beautiful Maria. He even talked of setting Maria aside and marrying a woman of his own wealthy class.

As proud as Maria was, of course she became very angry with the ranchero. She also began to feel anger toward her children, because he paid attention to them, but just ignored her.

One evening, as Maria was strolling with her two children on the shady pathway near the river, the ranchero came by in a carriage. An elegant lady sat on the seat beside him. He stopped and spoke to his children, but he didn't even look at Maria. He whipped the horses on up the street.

When she saw that, a terrible rage filled Maria, and it all turned against her children. And although it is sad to tell, the story says that in her anger Maria seized her two children and threw them into the river! But as they disappeared down the stream, she realized what she had done! She ran down the bank of the river, reaching out her arms to them. But they were long gone.

The next morning, a traveler brought word to the villagers that a beautiful woman lay dead on the bank of the river. That is where they found Maria, and they laid her to rest where she had fallen.

But the first night Maria was in the grave, the villagers heard the sound of crying down by the river. It was not the wind, it was La Llorona crying. "Where are my children?" And they saw a woman walking up and down the bank of the river, dressed in a long white robe, the way they had dressed Maria for burial. On many a dark night they saw her walk the river bank and cry for her children. And so they no longer spoke of her as Maria. They called her La Llorona, the weeping woman. And by that name she is known to this day. Children are warned not to go out in the dark, for, La Llorona might snatch them and never return them.

http://www.literacynet.org/lp/hperspectives/llorona.html

 

          Why is it that people believe in this tale so strongly? A common pattern with Hispanic folklore is a strong belief. I’m not sure why, but it seems that Hispanic tales are usually the most widely believed and they are usually quite obscure. Maybe the tale is so deeply ingrained into their childhoods that it follows the children to adulthood.