Lizzie Borden, Explained

Heat, Humidity, and Temporary Insanity

The past two days have been oppressively hot and humid. “Sweltering” is my adjective of choice, with its merging of sweat and melt plus the added er to express the just-below-the surface rage waiting to explode at the slightest provocation. I am convinced excessive heat and humidity causes otherwise reasonable people to lose their shit. Here’s an example.

Perhaps you’ve heard this rhyme:

Lizzie Borden took an axe

And gave her mother forty whacks

When she saw what she had done

She gave her father forty-one.

The subject of this ditty, Lizzie Borden, lived in Fall River, Massachusetts, over a century ago. Lizzie allegedly split her parents’ skulls open with an axe, though thanks to shoddy police work and two fancy-pants defense lawyers, she was acquitted.

Theories abound as to why she would commit such a heinous crime. Apparently, she hated her mother, who was technically her stepmother. Also, her father was in the middle of divvying up his sizeable estate, with half of it going to Lizzie’s stepmother’s family, which can’t have made her happy. Both are logical motives, but after the past couple of days, I think one thing they overlooked was the day the crime was committed, August 4, 1892, Fall River was in the midst of a heat wave.

On that August morning, it was not yet eleven a.m. and already over a hundred degrees. Unlike myself, Lizzie was not able to mope around the house in a T-shirt and flip-flops. I imagine she wore a long silk dress over some crazy-ass Victorian underwear, like a bustle or a whalebone corset. She must have been sweltering.

Here’s my version of what I think actually transpired that August morning in 1892.

Mr. and Mrs. Borden are in the kitchen. Mr. Borden is looking at his pocket watch and Mrs. Borden is at the sink, washing dishes. Lizzie enters the room.

Mr. Borden: Ah, Lizzie. We were wondering where you were. It is not like you to miss breakfast.

Lizzie: (snapping) Are you calling me fat? (pause) Forgive me, Father. It is just so intolerably hot that I simply could not bear to get dressed. I feel as if I am wearing a steel vise topped by a circus tent.

Mrs. Borden: I saved you some toast, though I am afraid it is slightly burned.

Lizzie: (under her breath) I bet you burned it on purpose. Bitch.

Mrs. Borden: I beg your pardon?

Lizzie: I said, a ceiling fan would serve the purpose, if only we were rich.

Mrs. Borden: (eying her stepdaughter suspiciously) You know I detest it when you mumble. Sit down, and I shall get you some orange juice.

Lizzie: Truly, Mother, I have no appetite. I am far too hot to eat. All I want to do is shed these oppressive garments and lie down in the shade with a magazine.

Mr. Borden: Wouldn’t it be lovely if we could all simply disrobe, recline, and fill our heads with fluff when the weather did not suit us? How would you like it if I simply refused to put on my woolen suit and go to work? Now, do as your mother says, and sit down to breakfast.

Lizzie: Father, truly, I could not manage a single bite. Have you seen the newspaper?

Mr. Borden: I left it in the outhouse. Sorry.

Mrs. Borden: Lizzie, your toast is getting hard as a rock. How about some marmalade?

Mr. Borden: For heaven’s sake, Lizzie, put down that axe. You look ridiculous.

The rest, as they say, is history.