Curious Chapbooks & Hysterical Histories

THE MIND of LIZZIE BORDEN

Consider now the mind of Lizzie Borden. At this point, when the bodies are discovered, the unchronicled lives of the Bordens become history and Lizzie begins to speak for herself. If, in fact, she was neck-deep in patricide, what was she thinking of? From her coolly civil responses to questions from the authorities, to the dreamlike stream of consciousness in her inquest testimony, Lizzie reveals the weather of her mind in her selection of bizarre details that made up, for her, the day her parents died. The pears, the locks, the sick note from an anonymous friend, the handleless hatchet, the poison, the vermin, the burned dress -- all paint an absorbing picture of the person who was Lizzie Borden. It is like looking through a clear keyhole into a dark room. Victoria Lincoln describes Lizzie's transparent opaqueness as "this tic, combined with her compulsion to mention and explain away incriminating details. It is strange to study the mind of one who is at once so unimaginative and so wholly out of touch with reality (Lincoln, 172)."

As a little girl, Victoria Lincoln knew Lizzie Borden at a time long after the trial when Lizzie and Emma moved to Maplecroft, a house on the hill in the good part of town. From her own observation and interviews with Fall River residents, Lincoln reports "hearsay evidence" of Lizzie's "spells" leading her to this conjecture. Lizzie Borden suffered from psychomotor epilepsy, a strange seizure of the temporal lobe that occurred during her menstrual cycle (46). The petit mal seizure of psychomotor epilepsy has one distinct symptom: a brownout in which patients carry out their actions in a dream state, aware of every action without knowing what they are doing (43). Such a very appealing hypothesis is perhaps a little too elaborate. Temporary -- or even permanent -- insanity is all too believable without it being diagnosed as epilepsy.

Nevertheless, Lincoln's description of Lizzie's movements as ""sleepwalking" is consistent with Lizzie's own words. She confided in her friend Alice Russell the night before the murders, "I feel as if I wanted to sleep with my eyes half open -- with one eye open half the time -- for fear they will burn the house down over us (Sullivan, 99)," and "I am afraid somebody will do something. I don't know but what somebody will do something (99)."

When Alice Russell asked what, Lizzie said, "Well, I don't know. I feel depressed. I feel as if something was hanging over me at times, no matter where I am. When I was at Marion, the girls were laughing and talking and having a good time, and this feeling came over me, and one of them spoke and said, 'Lizzie, why don't you talk?' I don't know what was said after that (Sullivan, 97)." Lizzie Borden seemed only partially aware of the turmoil boiling inside her.

Certainly the mind of Lizzie Borden seemed to hold two entirely different personalities. While one kept awake with one eye open, the other, deep inside her, slept. Her dual nature becomes apparent in the testimony her kinsman, Hiram Harrington, gave to the police. There is Lizzie, the good daughter, who told Harrington on the day of the murders that she helped her father:

...to get a comfortable reclining position on the lounge, and asked him if he did not wish the blinds closed to keep out the sun, so he could have a nice nap. She pressed him to allow her to place an afghan over him, but he said he did not need it. Then she asked him tenderly several times if he was perfectly comfortable, if there was anything she could do for him, and upon receiving assurance to the negative she withdrew (Brown, 104-105).

Andrew Borden would never rise from the bed his daughter so carefully made for him.

On the other hand, there was Lizzie, the bad daughter, of whom Harrington said:

Lizzie is of a repellent disposition, and after an unsuccessful passage with her father would become sulky and refuse to speak to him for days at a time. She moved in the best society in Fall River, was a member of the Congregational Church, and is a brilliant conversationalist. She thought she ought to entertain as others did, and felt with her father's wealth, she was expected to hold her end up with others of her set. Her father's constant refusal to allow her to entertain lavishly angered her. I have heard many bitter things she has said of her father, and know she was deeply resentful of her father's maintained stand in this matter (Brown, 106-107).

Perhaps the paradox of having the reality of wealth but the appearance of poverty drove Lizzie to develop two personalities to cope with this contradiction. Simultaneously, she appears the modest churchgoing spinster and the willful, extravagant heiress. A strong-willed, covetous nature masked as virtue was all part of the Borden legacy. In a letter to the Fall River Daily Globe, August 17, 1892, an anonymous Borden relative expounded this family characteristic:

By blood! If she did it, the old Borden nerve, grit, and cheek are not degenerated. No woman except a Borden could have done it, and yet it seems impossible that a woman could do it. I have watched her indomitable nerve and bearing with admiration, and I recalled that Aunt Nannie Borden, who ran out when the bullets were flying, and kicked a wounded British redcoat and then tore up her skirts for wadding; and I remember that my poor old grandmother when a constable seized her broadcloth cloak for grandfather's rum bill, when he read his warrant and said: 'I seize this cloak,' she took him by the throat and said: 'God! And I seize you!' And he was glad to drop the cloak and git. So if this girl has done this thing it is the old Borden nerve and grit that carried her through, and I predict that she will not wilt. No, by blood (Brown, 15)!

This strange combination of scruples and ruthlessness seemed to be known and accepted by all of Fall River. Lizzie's own friends remarked that it was highly unlikely Lizzie would kill anybody, "but it would be absolutely impossible for her to lie about it (Brown, 115)."

Even still, in adversity there was always something very shrewd and determined about Lizzie Borden. By noon on the day of the murders, Lizzie, Bridget, Dr. Bowen, Mrs. Churchill and Lizzie's friend Miss Alice Russell were alone in the Borden home. The police had not arrived. The body of Mrs. Borden had not yet been discovered; indeed, no one knew where she was. Lizzie said she had received a note from a sick friend; then later she thought she heard Mrs. Borden upstairs. She repeatedly tried to get someone to go upstairs to Mrs. Borden while Dr. Bowen was examining her father. Finally, Bowen was done and called for a sheet to cover the body. "Better get two," Lizzie added (Radin, 265).

Another example of Lizzie's penchant for dry understatement was provided by Police Matron Hannah Reagan. During Lizzie's stay in Fall River Jail, Hannah bet Lizzie a dollar that Lizzie could not crack an egg on its side. Lizzie reduced the bet to a quarter, tried and failed, causing her to observe, "That is the first thing that I undertook that I never could (Sullivan, 140)." An intriguing remark considering the cracked condition of the victims' skulls.

Victoria Lincoln writes of Lizzie and Emma's visit to a friend:

Now at one end of the grounds was an old woodshed very dilapidated, which spoiled the view of the bay. Lizzie's hostess looking at it said to Emma, 'The very next time Mike comes, we must remember to have him knock that thing down for firewood. 'Why wait for Mike?' she cried. 'Give me the ax (Lincoln, 303)!'

Lizzie never grasped the appropriate. When the police finally arrived after the murders, Lizzie acted more like a concerned citizen than a daughter in shock. Much was made of her disinterest. Adelaide Churchill, who had gone up for the sheets and found Abby, swore, "I never saw Lizzie in tears that morning at any time (Sullivan, 95)." Bridget swore that she never said Lizzie was crying at any time (Sullivan, 92). Captain Harrington declared, "She was not in tears at any part of the interview. Her voice was at all times steady (Sullivan, 111)." One can almost hear the tongues of Fall River wagging. Even in New York, sensibilities were shocked. The Times, almost grumblingly, reported, "The fact that so little ado was made by those who were most directly interested, and so little attempt was made at first to discover the possible murderer, is strengthening the police in the opinions they now hold (New York Times, August 5, 1892: 2)."

To do the police justice, they had eliminated many suspects before considering the unthinkable. It was inevitable that Lizzie would become the prime suspect, especially after they learned she had tried to buy poison the week before. Still, legion are the false trails the Fall River police followed before returning to the scene of the crime.

[NEXT CHAPTER]   [BACK TO CONTENTS]