Curious Chapbooks & Hysterical Histories

THE KEY

Although judged not guilty in a court of law, Lizzie Borden was judged not innocent by the public and served out a life sentence as a social pariah in Fall River. Since her time, scholars have studied and researched and learned many of the details of the Borden case, yet two of the three most important facts are self-evident while the elusive third remains a mystery. All know when the murders took place; most agree how they took place. No one, however, knows why. A new will in Abby Borden's favor might explain the violent deaths, yet no will was found. Likewise, there was no thwarted love interest to make the crime one of passion, as the Trickey news report indicated and as Agnes DeMille's ballet, "Fall River Legend," suggests. Perhaps the heat of that long hot spell provides the impetus for violence -- but surely not for the motivation of violence. Why stop with two deaths before killing the maid as well?

The key to Lizzie Borden's motivation can be found in the very details she told to friends and authorities at the time of the murders and in her testimony at the inquest. If Lizzie were indeed the murderess, then her alibi was a tissue of lies in which the selection of details reveals much about her subconscious mind. Victoria Lincoln earlier commented on Lizzie's mind as "so unimaginative and so wholly out of touch with reality (Lincoln, 172)." Lincoln refers to Lizzie's lying to the authorities as, "this tic, combined with her compulsion to mention and explain away incriminating details (172)." Lincoln explains, "While Lizzie could not invent details, little touches to give a story life and credibility, she was overmastered by actual details, unnoticeable details which she is driven to mention and explain away (171)."

An examination of the key details in Lizzie's version of what happened unlocks the compulsions and delusions that led to the murders. These key details fall into three general groups. The poison, the break-ins and the note indicated Lizzie's coded messages for help. The vermin, the burglars and the pears in the barn reveal her subconscious fears and frustrations. The locks, the handleless hatchet and the two-piece dress are left as elements in an allegorical psychodrama. The drama was played out not only by Lizzie's compulsions, but by the compulsions of Andrew and Abby Borden. They, too, participated in the symbolic action of Lizzie's purification ceremony, and there is a bloody poetry and mad poetic justice at the bottom of these crude, senseless crimes that have made the Fall River murders legendary.

Consider the coincidence of Abby and Lizzie both telling neighbors that they were being poisoned on the day before the murders. Also, consider the coincidence of Abby going to Dr. Bowen on the pretext of receiving a note from an anonymous friend warning her of being poisoned. 'Then the next day she is gone, supposedly upon the pretext of receiving a note from an unknown friend who was sick. The sick friend was none other than Lizzie herself. Lizzie told Alice Russell the night before the murders, "I am afraid somebody will do something (Sullivan, 99)." Lizzie was afraid because there was a note; it was the note Abby invented to confide her fears in Dr. Bowen across the street. Neither Lizzie nor Andrew wanted Abby to leave the house. Andrew was heard shouting when she left that no money of his would pay for her doctor's visit, even though both had been very ill. Lizzie, too, did not want Abby to leave spreading tales, so she silenced her the very next day -- but not with poison. Lizzie always maintained that she did not try to buy poison from the druggist. Poison was not Lizzie's way. Besides, the poisoning had already begun, and Lizzie feared it as much as Abby. The poison she feared was not prussic acid, but something darker -- so dark that it could only be described as poison.

Poison complexes are not uncommon. Noted psychologist R. Emil Gutheil identifies a poison complex as a "group of ideas in which concern about being poisoned or poisoning others is expressed (636)." Gutheil explains that the "poison delusion corresponds to the idea that sexual preoccupation with the person is poisoning his mind (460)." Often in this delusion the patient equates poisoning with fertilization. Therefore, fear of pregnancy, not poison, is paramount (Gutheil, 154). However, neither Abby nor Lizzie should have had any fear of becoming pregnant.

Nevertheless, Freud points out that the subconscious mind reveals itself through symbols and warns not to confuse dream symbols with dream content. Just as Lizzie revealed her subconscious fears by saying she was being poisoned, so Lizzie reveals the nature of these fears in her references to vermin at the inquest.

At the inquest, Druggist Eli Bence testified that Lizzie wanted the poison to kill moths infesting her sealskin cape. Compare this detail with Lizzie's answer when quizzed about a spot of blood on her petticoat: "I have fleas." Some read in her answer a Victorian delicacy to speak euphemistically about her menstrual period (Lincoln, 214). However, Lizzie was normally too blunt for euphemism. Having fleas seems no more delicate than having her menstrual period. Also, Lizzie seems too competent to attempt purchasing poison that could not be sold without a doctor's prescription. She claimed in her inquest testimony that, "I did not go to Smith's drug store to buy prussic acid (Sullivan, 216)." Just as her asking for prussic acid was a coded message for help, her references to vermin are a message from her subconscious mind. Flea bites in dreams symbolize pangs of conscience, Gutheil explains. "Insects may be also interpreted as obsessive thoughts. In the conscience, reactions to such thoughts are directed against the patient's own ego, as are the bites of animals directed against his body. Bugs, also [are] those cases where the dreamer is persistently fighting against them and they keep on oppressing him (171)." Lizzie's fear of poison and vermin indicate revulsion against obsessive thoughts -- perhaps of an erotic nature.

Further circumstantial evidence of Lizzie's repressed sexuality can be seen in her alibi of eating pears in the sweltering barn. Dr. Gutheil identifies the barn as a symbol of the female sexual organs (150), while a pear is symbolic of the phallus (138). According to Freud, a fish is also a phallic symbol (373). Therefore, the alibi of eating pears in the stifling hot hayloft after going to the barn for fishing gear suggests a series of erotic thoughts repressed in the unconscious through dream symbolism. Remember, in Lizzie's own testimony she stated, "I have told you everything that took place up in the barn. It was the hottest place in the premises. I went to the barn because the irons were not hot enough and the fire had gone out (Sullivan, 217)." Here is a striking picture of a spinster during a hot spell, driven not so much by the heat, but by the lack of heat, to while away her time in a fancy silk dress, eating pears in the hayloft of an empty barn.

If, indeed, Lizzie Borden repressed these sexual thoughts out of fear, the inevitable question is, why? The answer to her repressed sexual fear can be found in her expressed fear of the dark stranger. According to Officer Mullaly's testimony at the trial, Lizzie told him, "she saw a man around there sometimes before with dark clothes on (Sullivan, 114)." Lizzie herself said at the inquest, "One night as I was coming home not long ago I saw the shadow of a man on the house at the east end. I saw somebody run around the house last winter (217)." Compare these statements with the fear Lizzie expressed to Alice Russell the night before the killings: "I feel as if I wanted to sleep with my eyes half open -- with one eye half open all the time -- for fear they will burn the house down over us (99)."

The fear of dark strangers breaking into houses at night while the occupants are asleep is a common one. According to Freud, "Robbers, burglars, and ghosts, of which we are afraid before going to bed, originate in one and the same childish reminiscence. They are nightly visitors who have waked the child, the robbers were always the father (Freud, 397)." As for the father, Alice Russell claimed that Lizzie was afraid "Somebody will do something because he is so discourteous (99)." Andrew Borden was described in many ways: cheap, stingy, and hard. But discourteous? In all the anecdotes told of the man, none illustrate a want of courtesy. What was his discourtesy? And whom had he offended?

Here we should consider the father's role in the psychodrama of his own murder. Andrew Borden was more than a passive victim in his own death; he was an active -- even willing -- participant. To understand that, we must consider the escalating family feud that had started a year earlier -- not between Abby and Lizzie as has been supposed, but between Lizzie and Andrew.

According to Bridget Sullivan's testimony, the Bordens' home had been burglarized 12 months before the murders, shortly after Lizzie's return from her continental tour when she moved into Emma's room. The feud began in earnest when someone rifled through Abby's things. Abby's things were a paltry lot: some cheap jewelry, petty cash and a book of streetcar tickets were taken (Sullivan, 92). Andrew Borden reported the matter to the police, although such a burglary seemed impossible, occurring as it did in the daytime while the house was locked from the inside and occupied by Emma, Lizzie and Bridget (according to Alice Russell's trial testimony).

Supposedly, Lizzie took a suspiciously enthusiastic interest in the police investigation. Victoria Lincoln writes, "Miss Lizzie Borden was overexcited. She talked incessantly, taking the police to the cellar to show them how she had found the door unbolted and a large nail stuck in the keyhole, which they put down in their records as 'an eight or ten penny nail (Lincoln, 51).'" Lizzie's odd behavior, as well as the bizarre evidence she discovered, "convinced the police and Andrew Borden that Lizzie herself might have planned and set the robbery scene (Sullivan, 92)." The investigation was dropped at Andrew's request, but thereafter he made a habit of locking his wife's and his bedroom door and placing the key prominently on the mantelpiece -- the same mantel where he placed the disused lock he had picked up the day he died.

Several commentators have remarked on this practice as an exercise in amateur psychology (see Lincoln and Sullivan). If this be the case, what would be the symbolic message of the locked door and the accessible key? In The Interpretation of Dreams, Sigmund Freud states explicitly that "a room in a dream generally represents a woman," adding that "the question as to whether the room is 'open' or 'locked' will be readily understood," so that "there is no need to be explicit as to the sort of key that will unlock the room (371-372)." However, elsewhere in this landmark text of psychology, Freud is explicit when he states that "penetration into narrow spaces and the opening of locked doors are among the commonest of sexual symbols (392)."

Whether or not Andrew Borden intended to send a message with such a sexual subtext is debatable, but Lizzie's ten-penny nail stuck in the basement lock seems eerily symbolic of sexual violation. The "robbery" and her "discovery" of this peculiar clue could well have comprised a signal of some fear too deep to verbalize that could only be acted out subconsciously. The acting out of the subconscious becomes a psychodrama with father and daughter playing opposite each other.

Both parties now joined, the family feud escalates. Twice the barn is broken into at night -- once in the fall and again in the spring, according to Bridget Sullivan's testimony (Sullivan, 92). The break-ins were mostly a nuisance; nothing of value was taken. Indeed, nothing of value was kept in the barn except for Lizzie's pigeons. Then in March, Andrew retaliated and decapitated the birds with a hatchet (Lincoln, 56). At the inquest, Lizzie recalled asking at the time, "Why are their heads off (194)?" This happened only one season away from the brutal murders of Abby and Andrew Borden in which they were struck down 19 and 11 times, respectively, with a hatched aimed only at their heads -- while daughter Lizzie was supposedly out in the violated barn where her pet pigeons had died. The missing heads of the pigeons and the bludgeoned heads of the parents were all struck by a hatchet, no doubt the same hatchet that later itself was decapitated, leaving only the head of the blade smeared with ashes. Freud states, "It is quite unmistakable that all weapons and tools are used as symbols for the male organ (373)." On the subconscious level, therefore, the decapitated hatchet might well be symbolic fulfillment for a castration wish.

Again, the careful reader must ask, why? There can be no actual evidence of subconscious activity, only circumstantial evidence. For it is by the dream symbols that the dream content is interpreted. With this in mind, Lizzie's unaccountable laugh on the stairs might be explained. As mentioned earlier, one of the more bizarre aspects of the case was Lizzie's sudden laugh when her father was at the door. Some interpret it as her grisly delight at the victim's arrival. Others see it merely as a response to the maid's mild oath, "Pshaw," when she was unable to open the door. However, considering the enormous psychological role that locks played in that most dysfunctional of all dysfunctional families, perhaps Lizzie laughed at the irony of her father being locked out.

One must consider how thoroughly locked up the Bordens were in their own home. The front door with which Bridget was having trouble as Mr. Borden arrived had three separate locks that had to be released before it would open (Sullivan, 84). Likewise, when Deputy Marshal Fleet began his preliminary investigation minutes after the second murder, he discovered the Bordens' bedroom locked (105). Furthermore, there were two newspaper reporters from the Fall River Globe and Fall River News who were also poking about the home and found the cellar door locked as well (Sullivan, 102). Only the screen door, which was usually locked, remained open during the time of the murders. Significantly, Lizzie first told Miss Russell that she went to the barn to get a piece of tin or iron to fix her screen, although later investigation found no screen "loose or in other than perfect shape (Lincoln, 109)." Concerning a patient's dream about breaking through a locked door, Dr. Gutheil sees "this dream 'materially' as concern about the possible consequences of a sexual act (60)." Again, the subconscious symbolism suggests a sexual act but does not indicate with whom. There was one more locked door recorded in Deputy Marshal Fleet's report, which may shed light upon this pervasive dream. Fleet reports:

We searched her [Lizzie's] room and as we came to the head of her bed I found a door there and went to open it. She said that door was locked and bolted from the other side and we could not go through there, and I found that it was locked on her side. The door was hooked with a common hook and staple (Sullivan, 106).

This door, which Lizzie declared was locked and bolted, is noteworthy in that it was only hooked by a latch, unlike the other doors through the house, which contained spring locks. Victoria Lincoln's description of Lizzie's room indicates with which room that door communicated. She writes that the room was "sunny, with two windows to the south; but five doors and two windows in a modest-sized room leave little wall space. A heavy secretary-desk with a bookcase top stood against the locked door to the guest room, and the washstand stood cater cornered with a portiere hung before it (50)." Of the five doors, three could be opened (to the hallway, to the closet and to Emma's room). Only two were "locked": the door to the guestroom, which was hidden by the large secretary, and the door to Old Andrew's room, which was latched with a hook in a staple. If the story of Lizzie killing Abby's cat is true, perhaps she killed it not out of spite, but out of fear that the cat might sometime unhook that door. The room had been Emma's, but Emma was only too willing to give it to Lizzie and take instead the smaller room that could only be reached through Lizzie's. The sisters switched rooms shortly before the strange series of break-ins that concluded with the murders of Andrew and Abby Borden.

Lizzie Borden has been described as "a New England spinster, prim, virginal, ingrown, affluent, who one day suddenly runs berserk, commits two unspeakable crimes, and against all the laws of probability, gets away with them, then reverts to her former state and lives out the remainder of her long life in Spartan silence (Reach, 64)." If this is true, perhaps the greatest mystery is that so many people close to her, who must have known, would keep silence and tacitly become accomplices. Why did not Emma, or Bridget or Dr. Bowen speak out? What circumstances could possibly mitigate such a crime in favor of the perpetrator? Perhaps those close to Lizzie were able to understand and sympathize with her violence -- as they were able to condone her compulsive stealing. In 1897, Lizzie was accused of shoplifting. In Providence, Rhode Island, Tilden and Thurber, Jewelers, swore out a warrant for Lizzie's arrest for shoplifting two small porcelain figurines called Love's Dream and Love's Awakening (Lincoln, 305). The petty thefts from Mrs. Borden's room, the break-ins at the barn, now shoplifting -- all show a pattern of compulsive stealing, or kleptomania. Often, the act of theft in cases of kleptomania substitutes for a forbidden sexual act -- often incest (Gutheil, 467).

Furthermore, Dr. Gutheil comments, "It is not sufficiently known that behind kleptomania often a much more serious impulse may be hidden than that of sexual aggression: the impulse of murder (469)." The titles of the figurines symbolize the beginning and the end of a one-sided romance. Whether awakening from the dream of love had special significance for Lizzie will never be known. However, it is well known that Lizzie and Andrew shared a close private bond of love, symbolized by the ring of Lizzie's which Andrew wore. If Andrew had shattered that dream of love by any overt or implied act of "discourtesy," it cost him and his complacent (at the very least) wife, Abby, their lives.

Shortly after the trial, Lizzie and Emma moved from Second Street to a large 14-room house on The Hill. They named it Maplecroft. Lizzie changed her name to Lizbeth. Just as there was confusion over the dress she wore, whether plain light blue or fancy dark blue, so there was a fundamental dichotomy to Lizzie's character. One side of Lizzie was in the barn ready to go fishing while her dark side splattered familial blood in her parents' house.

This dual personality began to assert itself in the long, empty years after the trial. No longer the darling of the "Bloomer Girls," (to quote Sullivan), Lizzie found herself also ostracized by Fall River society. She began to cultivate friends in the theater. The most notorious was her liaison with Nance O'Neil, a popular actress of the time. Lizzie the Sunday School teacher (whose hitherto blameless life had helped considerably to win her acquittal) began to throw wild week -long parties for her new theater friends, much to the disgust of the Women's Christian Temperance Union, including Emma Borden. Emma left after one such episode in 1904 and the two sisters never saw each other again (Sullivan, 208). In 1927, Lizzie died at her home, and Emma died at her home nine days later. The secret of that day 34 years earlier went to their graves with them. However, this much is known.

Whether Lizzie Borden was an innocent victim in the Fall River tragedy or the All-American Girl with a simple taste for mayhem, her extraordinary words and actions that bloody day of August 4, 1892, catapulted her family from the narrow confines of their New England lives into the spaciousness of American legend.

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