Mother Goose thought she had heard and seen everything. In my fifty something years of life, nothing has hit me quite so hard as this nursery rhyme. I’m quite certain you’ll agree. Please consider the poem “Goosey Goosey Gander”:
Goosey goosey gander,
Whither shall I wander?
Upstairs and downstairs
And in my lady’s chamber.
There I met an old man
Who wouldn’t say his prayers,
So I took him by his left leg
And threw him down the stairs.
The downright horror of this little ditty kind of takes your breath away, doesn’t it? I’m deeply disturbed….
But let’s “break it down” as they say. The narrator of the story is an unknown character, but let’s say that the narrator is of the female gender. In fact, let’s take it a step further and give her the name Mildred. I hope this doesn’t offend any of my precious readers who are named Mildred. We can tell right away that he or she has a somewhat unusual perception of reality because Mildred consults with Goosey Goosey Gander concerning where should she go. “What place shall I wander to today?” she queries the hapless fowl.
Geese are generally ornery birds when you get too close to them. You can trust me on this one, friends. They don’t like to be bothered with silly questions regarding a decision that would be best left to someone else, in this case Mildred herself. In keeping with Goosey’s personality, she tells Mildred exactly where to go!
So Mildred goes back into the house, wandering hither and thither aimlessly. The context shows that Mildred must be a house servant, perhaps a chamber maid. Perhaps she wishes she were somewhere else rather than waiting on the mistress of the household. She eventually gets upstairs to the bedroom chamber of her gracious lady.
Lo! and behold! Good Lord, there’s a MAN in the chamber, and obviously not the husband of the gracious lady! What the heck is going on in this chamber anyway? I don’t think Mother Goose has to describe the scene to you — your imagination will suffice. But just remember one thing — this man is not in the lady’s chamber for a prayer meeting.
The strange man’s left leg is obviously not firmly planted on the bedroom floor so Mildred grabs his leg and drags him out of the room and into the hallway. I can imagine him yelling his head off, perhaps cussing a blue streak — that old prayerless, lecherous, adulterous old man! And then with a whoop and a holler, Mildred tosses him down the stairs and presumably out of the house.
Let’s just give that servant goose girl a round of applause for her “way over the top” service to her mistress! Who would have ever thought that a goose maid could be the Heroine of the Day?!
My friends, we have explored some troubling nursery rhymes in this series, haven’t we? But none QUITE compares to the circumstances in this short story. And this is children’s literature? Honk honk, I think not. Mother Goose is ready to contact her local schools, her local libraries and bookstores to have this rhyme banned and perhaps burned because of its inappropriate nature. Just let me know if you’re onboard with my crusade, and we’ll meet up to clean up children’s literature once and for all!
Mother Goose Smiles 