|
|
Myths, controversial stories, and issues with twists and double meanings catch my attention and force me to want to know more. I am extremely interested in the unexplainable things in life. My mother received an e-mail concerning the mythology behind the European nursery rhymes from a colleague. Being the anti-internet junkie that she is, my mom disregarded the e-mail. A few mornings later, on her way to school her attention was turned to the Bob and Sherry radio show. The topic they were discussing was the European nursery rhymes and the myths behind them. They told the background information on the nursery rhymes that many of us never knew. My mom knowing that I would be very interested told me about the radio show. Days passed and I thought nothing more about what she had told me. I was in 1st block, English IV, when the teacher gave an assignment for a research paper on our choice of subject. I automatically knew what I would write about. Not only do I get to research a topic that I was already interested in, but also I am being graded on something I already wanted to do. I decided to add information about the Bubonic Plague to my research, seeing how the nursery rhyme, “Ring Around the Rosies”, is focused on the plague; which makes the subject all the more controversial. Many people have many different stories that were told to them as children about what the nursery rhyme is about. The important issue, however, is not which version of the myth is correct, but whether or not you want your children singing this morbid nursery rhyme; or is the depth of the nursery rhyme simply a myth? “Plague was a term that was used in the Middle Ages to describe fatal epidemic diseases, but now it is only applied to an infectious, contagious disease of rodents and humans” (Rice). In humans, plague occurs in three forms: bubonic plague, pneumonic plague, and septicemic plague. The best-known form is the bubonic plague and it is named after buboes, or enlarged, inflamed lymph nodes. The Bubonic Plague is a fatal bacterial infection. The plague causes swollen lymph nodes, high fever, and chills (Kugler). The infected person could acquire pneumonia, blood poisoning, and meningitis (Rice). The Nursery Rhyme “Ring Around The Rosies” is said to be about children who suffered from the Bubonic Plague (Archibald). These children sang a song about their state and many other children passed the song on. There are many versions of the rhyme, all having something to do with death. The cause of the Black Death, Bubonic Plague, is the bacterium Yersinia pestis. The bacterium is passed from an infected rat to a non-infected rat by being bitten by a flea. The fleabites the infected rat and the germ moves into and lives in the flea's stomach.
|
