Lizzie Borden Argumentative Essay

Modern society has become emotionally numb and drastically morbid. It is proven by the fact that negative headlines sell better than positive ones. The same can be said of the human tendency to accept negative information about someone more readily than positive information. The writer of the article “Lizzie Borden: Her School and Later Life – A Noble Woman, Though Retiring”, published in The Boston Herald, advocates for Lizzie Borden’s innocence, despite the human tendency to reject positive information about an individual. Lizzie Borden was being accused of murder and the writer sought to prove, through an extensive analysis of her appearance, that Lizzie could not be guilty. The author’s use of faulty logic, due to the lack of substantial

knowledge, and emotional appeal leads him to focus on her outward appearance, and thus the article's superficial argument does no good in proving Borden’s innocence.
It is evident that the lack of substantial knowledge on Borden really affects the author's logic throughout the piece. His logic can lead to misinterpretations because the piece is so brief and talks of nothing but good things about her, though most are very superficial. So in order to fully grasp what the writer attempts to do, we must examine the piece thoroughly. For example, stating that her parents “were regular church attendants, and she has been surrounded by Christian Home influences” (2) does not mean that any of good moral fiber rubbed off on her. Being religious does not mean one is good; it does not make sense to automatically assume that. Just like the war in the name of religion does not make it any less of a war. The writer points out all “of the friends who today sound her praises” (2). This in reality makes no sense when pieced together with everything else in the article. According to the writer, Borden had only recently turned her social life around. For the majority of her life Borden, as described by the writer, “thought people were not favorably disposed to her and that she made a poor impression” (2). It is easy to see that Borden was not very easy to talk to and much less approachable for most of her life. She lacked confidence in herself, which stemmed from the protected and isolated way in which she was raised. It’s safe to wonder if Borden’s turnaround was really out of a desire to change the parameters of her life or if it was a façade she would use to her advantage after the murders.
The writer of the article fails to make us feel sympathetic towards Borden’s situation because he merely scratches the surface of who she is as a person.

We, as the readers, have to interpret much of what he says into what Borden might possibly be feeling. The sympathy we feel is very small and comes from our assumptions of how Borden might be feeling, not from what the author writes. For example, when he says that “her dark, lustrous eyes, ordinarily flashing, were dimmed…. suffering she was undergoing and had experienced” (Herald,1). The eyes of someone can be deceiving, as the eyes can be easily misread and emotions can be faked, too. His superficial reading is not plausible because he doesn’t personally know Borden or what her tendencies are when she is upset. There is no way he can accurately assess what she feels without even knowing her on a deeper level. Even if his judgment was correct, there is no guaranteed, as contorted as this sounds, that the reason she was sad was because her parents had just been killed. There are too many variables to judge accurately what an individual is feeling or thinking. We cannot fully sympathize and feel for her because what he is saying is so vague and he has no prove of it either. Had all of it come from a personal confession from Borden, it would be a different case, but he is simply assuming that is the way she feels. We feel much less sympathetic when the author says that Borden “is a strong argument in her own favor” (1). No. Her beauty does not make her and sad eyes are not strong proof of her innocence at all. It also points towards how shallow the argument truly is. Rather than draw a nod of approval, it brings out a strong distaste from the author as he, to a certain extent, objectifies Borden. He doesn’t really know anything about Borden, merely scratching the surface of who she is by inferring who she is and what she feels through her looks alone. There is a huge difference between inferring someone’s feelings

and hearing them personally admitting their feelings; they weigh much differently on our emotions.
In order to help prove Borden’s innocence, the author attempts to make us feel sympathetic towards Borden and uses faulty reasoning, due to the lack of substantial knowledge. Realistically, it takes more than just one day of talking to several of an individual's friends to really get to know who they are on a personal level. The writer did not even make contact with Lizzie while trying to learn about her. That is very discerning, specially since he did not obtain any real meaningful information from the individuals he interviewed. He tried the best he could to speak highly of Borden with his limited knowledge, but that simply was not enough to appeal emotionally or logically to us. He does not convince us, but part of that is because positive information is tough to sell. It can be seen throughout recent history where propaganda bashing opposing candidates work much, much better than propaganda in favor of a person. Human nature works against his favor because time and time again it is easy to see that humans are more inclined to accept negative information more so than positive information.