Encantados Sparknotes

405 Words1 Page
bulb-icon

Recommended: Slave life story

Reading Response Encantados are a familiar folklore for residents living in the Amazons. The shape shifting entities are said to attract young women and steal them away to their underwater city, Encante. To understand the meaning behind this tale, Candace Slater, set off to the Silencio do Matar, a former runaway-slave community in the Amazon. There she discovers the underlying meaning behind the Encantados as well as how the story has evolved to fit modern culture. Encantados are described as supernatural entities that take the forms of aquatic creatures, mostly dolphins. As humans, they appear attractive with fair skin. They show up at urban parties to seduce the humans they desire and take their captive to Encante. Most people never return (Slater 158-159). The themes of betrayal, imprisonment, and escape from captivity are evident in this folktale (Slater 156). To understand these themes, one should examine the history behind this community. The stories were told by runaway slaves. The Encantados who are described as having fair skin likely represent slave owners, or others of European descent who were sent to find the missing slaves. The betrayal could be the community member being seduced only to be taken away and returned to …show more content…

How could an old legend still be relevant today? The answer is Christianity. Slater interviews a woman named Dona Dominga who tell the story of how her grandmother who was abducted by Encantados, but was released because she had a Christ figure around her neck, and the Encantados do not harm baptized Christians (172). In this modern version, the betrayal is no longer from a slave owner, but everyday threats. In the case of Dona’s grandmother, she was abducted by a dark-skinned child (Slater 163-164). The fear no longer lies in being returned to a plantation, but what dangers lurk around someone every day. The only way to achieve salvation is through

Show More
Related

  • Olaudah Equiano And Phillis Wheatley's View On Religion

    1464 Words  | 3 Pages

    The origin tale of the African American population in the American soil reveals a narrative of a diasporic faction that endeavored brutal sufferings to attain fundamental human rights. Captured and forcefully transported in unbearable conditions over the Atlantic Ocean to the New World, a staggering number of Africans were destined to barbaric slavery as a result of the increasing demand of labor in Brazil and the Caribbean. African slaves endured abominable conditions, merged various cultures to construct a blended society that pillared them through the physical and psychological hardships, and hungered for their freedom and recognition.

    Read More

  • Indentured Servitude and Slavery in the New World

    1072 Words  | 3 Pages

    Equiano was the youngest of his brothers who enjoyed playing outside throwing javelins enjoying the normal life of a small child. At the beginning of the day, the elders would leave their children at home while they went out into the fields to work. While they were gone, some of the children would get together to play but always took precautions of potential kidnappers. Even with all these precautions, people were still seized from their homes and taken away. Equiano was home one day with his little sister tending to the everyday household needs when out of nowhere they were captured by a couple men who had gotten over the walls. They had no time to resist or scream for help before they found themselves bound, gagged, and being taken away. Equiano had no idea where these people were taking him and they didn’t stop once until nightfall where they stayed until dawn. He tells us about how they traveled for many days and nights not having any clue where they were going or when they would get there. Slaves traveled by land and by sea, but Equiano’s journey was by sea. He tells us how he was carried aboard and immediately chained to other African Americans that were already on the ship. Once the ship halted on land, Equiano along with many other slaves were sent to the merchant’s yard where they would be herded together and bought by the

    Read More

  • Africans in Colonial Mexico

    5453 Words  | 11 Pages

    10. Richmond, Douglas. “The Legacy of African Slavery in Colonial Mexico, 1519-1810.” Journal of Popular Culture 35, no. 2 (2001): 1-17.

    Read More

  • Symbols In The House On Mango Street

    1385 Words  | 3 Pages

    Symbolism is the key to understanding Sandra Cisneros’ novel, “The House on Mango Street”. By unraveling the symbolism, the reader truly exposes the role of not only Latina women but women of any background. Esperanza, a girl from a Mexican background living in Chicago, writes down what she witnesses while growing up. As a result of her sheltered upbringing, Esperanza hardly comprehends the actions that take place around her, but what she did understand she wrote in her journal. Cisneros used this technique of the point of view of a child, to her advantage by giving the readers enough information of what is taking place on Mango Street so that they can gather the pieces of the puzzle a get the big picture.

    Read More

  • The Legend of La Llorona

    1972 Words  | 4 Pages

    Figueredo, Maria L. "The Legend of La Llorona: Excavating and (Re) Interpreting the Archetype of the Creative/Fertile Feminine Force", Latin American Narratives and Cultural Identity, 2004 Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., New York. pp232-243.

    Read More

  • Abina Mansha, A Slave

    885 Words  | 2 Pages

    Throughout history, it is not uncommon for stories to become silenced; especially, when such a story is being told by the voice of a slave's. Slaves were not granted the same equal rights as the free men. They also were not seen as whole individuals -- worth less than the average citizen, to be sold and traded as property. Abina Mansha was a female slave whom once lived in Asante but came to live in the British Gold Coast Colony during 1876, after being sold to Guamin Eddoo by her husband, Yawawhah. As Abina claims in her testimony, her purchase was no accident. "Slavery had been abolished throughout the British Empire, a law extended into the Gold Coast in 1874. Yet ironically, the demand for laborers on the growing palm oil plantations and in the houses of those who own them means that the trade in slaves into the Gold Coast does not dry up following the war" (Getz and Clark, 2011, p. 6). Abina And The Important Men: A Graphic History written by Trevor R. Getz and Liz Clarke, but spoken in different perspectives, helps shed light on Abina's personal lifestyle; while the date and location provides us with further insight on how the world reacted to 19th century Western culture.

    Read More

  • Woman Hollering Creek: Dreams and Reality

    768 Words  | 2 Pages

    Nevertheless, Cisneros’s experience with two cultures has given her a chance to see how Latino women are treated and perceived. Therefore, she uses her writing to give women a voice and to speak out against the unfairness. As a result, Cisneros’ story “Woman Hollering Creek” demonstrates a distinction between the life women dream of and the life they often have in reality.

    Read More

  • Religious and Spiritual Practices of Enslaved African Americans

    1736 Words  | 4 Pages

    During a most dark and dismal time in our nations history, we find that the Africans who endured horrible circumstances during slavery, found ways of peace and hope in their religious beliefs. During slavery, Africans where able to survive unbearable conditions by focusing on their spirituality.

    Read More

  • The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

    1092 Words  | 3 Pages

    In this story the women weeping over Lautaro were compared to the sirens, and some sailors were going to tie themselves to the mainmast in an attempt to mimic Odysseus. There is a contrast between these stories and the quotes from the villagers. The magnificent image of Esteban changed the life of this village. No one could imagine on that Sunday morning while the children were playing that what they would discover would change the lives of everyone forever. Works Cited

    Read More

  • The Narrative Of Frederick Douglass

    890 Words  | 2 Pages

    Slave narratives were one of the first forms of African- American literature. The narratives were written with the intent to inform those who weren’t aware of the hardships of slavery about how badly slaves were being treated. The people who wrote these narratives experienced slavery first hand, and wanted to elicit the help of abolitionists to bring an end to it. Most slave narratives were not widely publicized and often got overlooked as the years went by; however, some were highly regarded and paved the way for many writers of African descent today.

    Read More

  • The Cuban Legend of the Owl and the Sijú

    806 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...n and achieving equality. Also, the legend focuses on how the truth lives on forever and can be heard only by those who are pure at heart. This is demonstrated by the tree of eternal truths, where the princess told the story about her lover, that would not seem "different than any other tree" to liars. This could lead to the interpretation that, despite the tyranny that they were suffering under, the slaves still had hope that their traditions and beliefs would last forever and would only be heard by those that would understand and appreciate them.

    Read More

  • Light In The Dark/Luz En Lo Oscuro: Chapter Analysis

    571 Words  | 2 Pages

    The third chapter is quite a different spin from what I read in the previous chapters from author's Gloria. E. Anzaldua's book entitled Light In The Dark/Luz En Lo Oscuro. Chapter three is quite interesting. In this particular chapter on page 48, she reveals her identity as a jotitita (queer Chicana). Anzaldua goes to further states that this "mexicatjena-to enter a museum and look at indigenous objects that were once used by my ancestors"(48 Anzaldua). What is interesting to me is the she ponders on whether or not she finds her historical Indian identity at the museum. In addition, she also questions whether her identity could be found along the ancient artifacts and their as she puts it their mestizaje. I really

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Gloria Anzaldua's Borderlands/La Frontera

    1127 Words  | 3 Pages

    She is the one that refuses to oblige to societal orders. She is the “Shadow-Beast” (38) with “Chicana identity grounded in the Indian woman’s history of resistance” (43). Although alienated physically, Anzaldua is “immobilized” (43) mentally the more confined she becomes in a culture engulfed in pure oppression. She claims her “shadow-beast” as the depiction of her highly wanted independence as an individual human being, which eventually forces her to leave her family behind to find herself separately from the “intrinsic nature buried under the personality that had been imposed” (38) for people like Anzaldua for many years. Her push for rebellion sets a voice for the silenced anger and pure resistance against the ostracism of herself, her family, culture, and the white-washed society she has been born into. To be the only Chicana, lesbian, and rebellious woman in her family is considered sinful, as women, according to Anzaldua, in Mexico only have “three directions she could turn: to the church as a nun, to the streets as a prostitute, or to the home as a mother” (39). Noticing that women are culturally restricted to these roles, Anzaldua creates the opposite role for herself claiming to take the “fourth choice” by “entering the world by way of education and career and becoming self-autonomous persons,” (39), which she uses to her advantage to transform the prolonged oppression into her long awaited freedom to live as an openly queer woman

    Read More

  • The Unwanted Sparknotes

    1040 Words  | 3 Pages

    Before 1975, Vietnam was divided into a North and South. The North was ruled by communism while the south was under United States protection. On April 30th 1975, communists attacked South Vietnam with the intentions of ruling both north and south in which succeeded. The Unwanted is a self-written narrative that takes place in Vietnam, 1975. At this time the United States had just pulled out of Vietnam as a result of the communist’s takeover. In effect of the flee, the U.S. left behind over fifty-thousand Amerasian children including Kien Nguyen. Kien was one of the half-American children that endured the hardships of communist’s takeover. Born in 1967 to a Vietnamese mother and unknown American father who fled to the U.S.

    Read More

  • La Llorona Summary

    683 Words  | 2 Pages

    At night under a full moon partially covered by clouds, a woman dressed in white with a veil appears by the river bank lamenting for her lost children. Anyone who hears her cry “AY….. MIS HIJOS” (OH MY CHILDREN”) gets frightened, terrorized and panics; chills run through your spine. It is said that, a person can turn hysterical if her face is seen. She is La Llorona (the weeping woman).

    Read More

More about Encantados Sparknotes

Open Document