there was an old lady who swallowed a fly

This was a post I wrote for a psychology discussion board. (And yes, it was classified under philosophy for my blog posts. Ignore that and move on.) Our assignment was to take a nursery rhyme and apply the theories of personality - the chapter we just had to read - to that nursery rhyme. And we were supposed to include the rhyme for our classmates. I chose "There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly". Nice, cheery topic. We also had to explain the theories, so this will actually make sense to non-psychology students who read my blog! Yay!

Anyway, enjoy! :)

There was an old lady who swallowed a fly.
I don't know why she swallowed the fly,
I guess she'll die.


There was an old lady who swallowed a spider,
that wiggled and wiggled and tickled inside her.
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly.
I don't know why she swallowed the fly.
I guess she'll die.


There was an old lady who swallowed a bird.
How absurd to swallow a bird.
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider,
that wiggled and wiggled and tickled inside her.
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly.
I don't know why she swallowed the fly.
I guess she'll die.


There was an old lady who swallowed a cat.
Imagine that, she swallowed a cat.
She swallowed the cat to catch the bird.
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider,
that wiggled and wiggled and tickled inside her.
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly.
I don't know why she swallowed the fly.
I guess she'll die.


There was an old lady who swallowed a dog.
My what a hog, to swallow a dog.
She swallowed the dog to catch the cat.
She swallowed the cat, to catch the bird,
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider,
that wiggled and wiggled and tickled inside her.
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly.
I don't know why she swallowed the fly.
I guess she'll die.


There was an old lady who swallowed a cow.
I don't know how she swallowed a cow.
She swallowed the cow to catch the dog.
She swallowed the dog, to catch the cat.
She swallowed the cat to catch the bird.
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider,
that wiggled and wiggled and tickled inside her.
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly.
I don't know why she swallowed the fly
I guess she'll die.


I know an old lady who swallowed a horse...
She's dead of course!
-Words by Rose Bonne

~~

Maybe I have a morbid sense of humor, but the moment I saw "nursery rhyme", "There was an old lady who swallowed a fly" popped into my head. If Alfred Adler were to look at this crazy old lady who thinks that she should eat a bunch of animals, he'd probably think, "AHA! Perfect proof for my birth order theory!" According to his theory, birth order affects personality. The eldest is an over-achiever in an attempt to reclaim the affections of the parents, the middle child gets to both boss little siblings around and knock the eldest off the high chair (literally and figuratively), and the youngest is protected and coddled and ends up with low self esteem.

Our little old lady who apparently couldn't stop eating weird things was obviously suffering from eldest child problems. She felt inferior to her sister, the lady who lived in a shoe, and so felt the need to compensate. For lack of originality, she decided to swallow a fly. But that wasn't very comfortable (and her sister remained unimpressed) so she swallowed a spider. That was even WORSE! So she kept going and going and going...until it was too late and "She's dead, of course!" after trying to eat a horse. Poor lady.

She also probably had a neurotic personality that Karen Horney talked about. According to Horney, children are born with "basic anxiety" because the world is so much bigger than they are. If parents bestow love, affection, and security on their children, then they will most likely overcome their basic anxiety. If not, the children will develop neurotic personalities. This means that they could become dependent and clingy, or aggressive, demanding, and cruel, or withdrawal from other people. This lady became so dependent on the good will of her parents that she was willing to go to crazy lengths to solidify her position with them, including eating a cat and a dog. Neuroses are strange things indeed.

Now you'll probably never look at that little old lady the same way again.

-enna