The other day, I had the realization that parents and adults have been lying to us. People say that in the famous nursery rhyme “Humpty Dumpty,” the main character Humpty Dumpty is an egg. Although they say he is, the rhyme does not state that he is an egg.

You might be thinking “that’s absurd, of course he is an egg, that’s what we have been told,” but you’re wrong. To quote, “Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall / Humpty Dumpty had a great fall / All the king’s horses and all the king’s men / Couldn’t put Humpty back together again.” As you can see from the poem, it is not stated that Humpty Dumpty was an egg. Now that we have revealed the lies, we must figure out where this misconception came from.

“The rhyme is basically about a man falling off a wall and getting dismembered.” – The Calculator Guy

One idea is that parents wanted to shelter their kids from the gruesome aspects of the rhyme. Without the context of him being an egg, the rhyme takes a very dark turn, which might not be suitable for the age demographic of three years old. In order to protect their children from the horrifying aspects of the story, parents made the main character an egg, not a human.

Another reason for the depiction of Humpty Dumpty as an egg could be because the rhyme was created around 10 years after the Revolutionary War, which brings political and historical reason to the rhyme, particularly in the United States and England.

Humpty Dumpty is a symbol for the United States, falling from the wall represents their fall from England. All the king’s horses and men (England) tried to put Humpty Dumpty (America) back together. This is obviously a metaphor for Great Britain trying to get America to go back to Britain. Humpty Dumpty in the rhyme could not get back together again, a clear representation of the US not going back to England.

“Therefore, Humpty Dumpty was made an egg so people wouldn’t catch on and get ANGRY.” – The Calculator Guy

In England’s eyes, America is broken and needs help, but they can’t fix it. An English writer wrote this rhyme. He didn’t use the real countries, events, or preferred metaphors due to the ongoing tension after the war.

This is still a mystery. Sadly, we cannot ask the creator since he has sadly passed away a couple hundred years ago, but we can always speculate on why they changed him to an anthropomorphic egg man.