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Goblin Market Sisterhood

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“Goblin Market” and Sisterhood At the surface level, “Goblin Market” appears to be just a children’s poem about being a hero and the importance of sisters. Delve into a deeper level and you find, as Lona Mosk Packer puts “[an] emotional experience universally valid,” (375). Christina Rossetti’s poem “Goblin Market” has three main themes that critics argue: the importance of sisterhood, the sexual implications and the dangers of erotic love and a Christ-like sacrifice. These themes appear through the language used, the allusions and comparisons made throughout.

In this poem, there are a lot of implications of Christ and how Lizzie is the embodiment of Christ, even though she is a woman. In the poem, Lizzie is seen as the redeemer of Laura; …show more content…

Some critics argue that this poem can be about the prostitution of women and erotic love. The goblins are the representatives of men and their ability to tempt women sexually. We can assume none of these creatures are women because every time Lizzie and Laura refer to these creatures or they are described, they say “.. men,”(42,49,55,88,ect.). Words like “Plump unpeck’d cherries,/ Figs to fill your mouth,”(7,28), give us a sexual feeling with these fruits. Even when Laura consumes this forbidden fruit, there is a repetition of the word “sucked,” (128-137). As Casey states, “These lascivious creatures most certainly represent the lure of erotic love,” (66). This entices and scares Laura who, at first, warns Lizzie; “we must not buy their fruits:/ who knows upon what soil they feed,” (43-44). She is immediately intrigued after this exchange and says “how fair the vine must grow/whose grapes are so luscious;” (60-61). One these fruits are consumed, Laura’s thirst is never quenched, much like the thirst for erotic love. Not to mention the fall of poor Jeanie, “Who should have been a bride;/But who for joys brides hope to have/Fell sick and died,” (313-15). Jeanie fell victim to this erotic love and its allure and literally died for it. So what does that say about erotic love? Dorothy Mermin says that “This sexuality is without marriage or issue: no grass grows on Jeanie's grave and the kernel Laura brings back …show more content…

Rossetti spent much of her time helping the “sisterhood” when she volunteered St. Mary Magdalene Penitentiary in Highgate to help these “fallen” women and some argue this poem could be about her experiences with these women. In this poem, Rossetti maybe eluding to these women who, Helsinger says are “Seduced and abandoned women contemplate their married rivals as successful competitors in a market they have belatedly learned to recognize,” (912). Lizzie can be not a Christ-like figure, but a sister, figuratively and literally, who is empowered by her sister’s need to be saved. We see her “..for the first time in her life/Began to listen and look,” (327-28); she is inspired and determined. Even when the goblins have tormented and abused her, she is elated her penny bouncing “was music to her ear. As Mermin argues “As her laughter indicates, her story has to do not with temptation resisted—neither the goblins nor their fruit attract her, and what she is resisting is attempted rape— but with danger braved and overcome, an heroic deed accomplished,” (9). She is driven by her success and basically runs to finish what she has started. When she returns home, we are introduced to what some describe as an erotic scene between the two sisters. Lizzie enters and says, “Eat me, drink me, love me,” (471), and Laura responds by repeatedly kissing her

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