Lizzie Borden Nursery Rhymes

Nursery rhymes for children may seem silly; however, almost all have a dark past. “Ring Around The Rosy”, “Baa Baa Black Sheep”, and even “Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush” all to hide their terrible meanings in a happy rhyme, but one nursery rhyme has the most bloody background of them all. Lizzie Borden’s nursery rhyme tells a tale of a girl who through her feminine charm was acquitted of brutally murdering her father, Andrew Borden, and stepmother, Abby Borden, in their home, with an ax. Each parent was smashed over ten times in the head and neck. Although Lizzie Borden was acquitted, her gender allowed her to escape the punishment for murdering her father and stepmother. If you would look at Lizzie, a five-foot-four-inch woman, weighing no more than 135 lbs, you would not suspect someone like her to be able to commit such devastating murders; however, she was the only person in the house with …show more content…
Women in the 1,800s generally used poison for murder, simple, quick and no blood. It is implausible for Lizzie to have used such a violent method of murder; however, according to source A Lizzie tried to buy prussic acid from the local druggist, Mr. Bence. Lizzie said she wanted to buy the acid to clean a sealskin coat, but due to lack of a prescription, he wouldn't sell it to her, leaving Lizzie to resort to other more violent methods. Thanks to feminine murder stereotypes she was acquitted. Just as the nursery rhyme “Ring Around The Rosey”doesn't look the whole story of the Black Plague, neither does Lizzie's rhyme tell her story. In fact, she was found not guilty due to sexist and faulty police work, feminine theatrics during her trial, and female stereotypes. Though we may never know what truly happened that fateful day, we can rest uneasily that Lizzie Borden got away with murder because of her

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