The Impact of Urban Legends Throughout History and Around the World

1730 Words4 Pages

The Impact of Urban Legends Throughout History and Around the World

Urban legends have always intrigued me. I am unsure if it is the scare factor that intrigues me, the way in which some of them are told, or some of the lessons that are supposed to be taken from them but one thing I know for sure is that I do not stand alone in this belief. In fact urban legends are told all over the world, even in countries that many have never heard of before. Many people of all backgrounds find them to be mystifying and sometimes even alarming. It seems as if urban legends have the ability to draw any person in ranging from a young child to the typical adult male. Whether or not you believe these incredible tales is almost irrelevant in many cases because for many different cultures and societies the primary purpose of urban legends are for entertainment and shock effects. This in many cases taken to the extreme with some of the different versions created to intensely horrify listeners.

The way in which I conducted research for my field report was quite simple. After I realized that I planned to do a report on urban legends, I went to the main library to look for a few books that I had already found online. After searching through the stacks for a good amount of time, I finally found the books that I was looking for and proceeded to check them out. Another source of information that I used in my report was from various notes that I had taken in class. These notes helped to formulate the overall idea I wanted to take with my field report. Still not exactly sure of what I wanted my title to be, I searched through the books I had checked out and took out any key ideas that I figured would be interesting to analyze. I wrote these ideas...

... middle of paper ...

...e of the mysteries that urban legends display, from just reading many different urban legends that have originated from all various corners of our planet gives a great deal of insight. They uncover the primary purpose for some ancient civilizations such as the Incas while greatly horrifying other civilizations with gruesome stories of people that made a vital mistake throughout their lives. For whatever reason a legend exists in a particular society one thing is known for sure; these legends are not going anywhere anytime soon.

References

Bennett, Gillian and Smith, Paul. 1996. Contemporary Legend: A Reader. Garland Publishing, Inc. New York and London.

Brunvand, Jan Harold. 2000. The Truth Never Stands in the Way of a Good Story. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

Cavendish, Richard. 1982. Legends of the World. Orbis Publishing Limited, London.

Open Document