Goblin Market

Goblin Market

Context:
1. Christina Rossetti
2. It aims to demonstrate the interplay of the Gothic mode of writing, religious and social themes – particularly that of the “fallen woman” in Victorian England
3. 1862
  1. Victorian Era
4. Audience Reception:
  1. Goblin Market has always been an ambiguous text with two audiences: child and adult. Rossetti!s literature for children is allegorical, or has deeper underlying meanings than a surface reading would suggest.
Themes:
1. Women and Femininity
2. Sex/Lust
3. Sin
4. Violence
5. Death
Types of Love:
1. Lustful
2. Sisterly
3. Almost Incest
4. Lesbianism
Genre:
1. Narrative Poem
  1. Omniscient third-person narrator
    1. A third-person narrator usually gives the impression of being more distant from the story than a first-person narrator would because a third-person narrator isn't a character and doesn't participate in the plot. The narrator of "Goblin Market" is no exception. She seems to describe the "Goblin Market" objectively, at least at first. She lists all the goblin fruits for sale and doesn't make any judgments about whether they're good or not. The speaker leaves it to Laura and Lizzie to judge for the reader.
Tone:
1. Gothic
Links to Other Texts:
1. Similar:
  1. Saturday Market - Mew (1921)
    1. Written in response to Rossetti's poem, Mew further highlights the idea of destruction due to love, in the way that the narrator tears out her own heart. Additionally, in the outlook that Goblin Market potentially touches on lesbian issues, Mew's poem describes the issues faced by Lesbians in the early 20th century.
  2. "A Thousand Splendid Suns" - Khaled Hosseini
  3. Top Girls - Caryl Churchill
    1. At the beginning of the play, the men are described as being the bad individuals, causing harm on the women. This is also found in Goblin Market.
  4. Little Red Cap - Duffy
    1. Like in Goblin Market, in the poem, the woman is shown to take charge of the situation and win over the men, fooling them
  5. Pygmalion's Bride - Duffy
2. Contrasting:
  1. Top Girls - Caryl Churchill
  2. Saturday Market - Mew (1921)
    1. As well as having similarities, the poem is different in the defeatist attitude of the main woman. Unlike in Goblin Market where Lizzie fools the men, in Saturday Market, the woman is driven to self destruction, pulling out her own heart.
3. Strawberries - Edwin Morgan
  1. Similar use of symbolism and the reference to fruit throughout
Form:
1. Irregular:
  1. The meter and rhyme scheme are irregular in "Goblin Market." The poem generally follows an ABAB rhyme scheme, but not always. In fact, sometimes there's a long gap between a word and its rhyme, and sometimes there are many lines in a row with the same rhyming syllable at the end
  2. Iambic Tetrameters
    1. Written in loose iambic tetrameters. The iambic foot is a rising metre and often speeds up the pace at which a poem is read. By composing such a long poem in this form, Rossetti emphasises the fast pace of the story she is telling and the passion that it involves.
2. Much of the language associated with the goblins is written in rhythmic dactylic dimeter, which adds to the effect of incantation by which they attract the girls
3. Repetition:
  1. Certain phrases, such as the merchants' cry ‘Come buy, come buy', are repeated throughout the poem. This highlights their insistence and the force of the temptation they offer. Throughout the poem, instances of repetition occur when a passionate declaration is made. For instance, Laura repeats the phrase ‘I have no' three times to emphasise her haste in tasting the goblin fruits and to present a defence to the goblins themselves
Symbolism:
1. Fruit:
2. Sisterhood:
3. Flowers:
  1. Flowers in "Goblin Market" tend to be associated with delicate, fragile purity, as opposed to the luscious, decadent, and sensual goblin fruit. Flowers, though, can be "plucked," which often represented a loss of purity
4. Money
  1. In the poem, money is metaphorical, and no coin is exchanged but only the gold of Lizzie's hair. This suggests that the woman is the prize and the objective, something that can trade hands.
Summary:
1. , ‘Goblin Market’ tells the story of a fraught encounter between sisters Laura and Lizzie and evil goblin merchants. When Laura exchanges a lock of her golden hair for the chance to taste the goblins’ enchanted ‘fruit forbidden’.
  1. She deteriorates until she is ‘knocking at Death’s door’. Her sister Lizzie offers to pay the goblins ‘a silver penny’ for more of their wares, which she hopes will act as an antidote to Laura’s malady. The goblins violently attack Lizzie, smearing their fruits ‘against her mouth’ in a vain attempt ‘to make her eat’.
    1. After the goblins are ‘worn out by her resistance’, Lizzie returns home, and Laura kisses the juices from her sister’s face and is restored. -
Key Quotes:
1. “For there is no friend like a sister In calm or stormy weather; To cheer one on the tedious way, To fetch one if one goes astray, To lift one if one totters down, To strengthen whilst one stands”
2. “We must not look at goblin men, We must not buy their fruits: Who knows upon what soil they fed Their hungry thirsty roots?”
3. Maids heard the goblins cry: “Come buy our orchard fruits, Come buy, come buy:
4. She suck’d and suck’d and suck’d the more Fruits which that unknown orchard bore; She suck’d until her lips were sore; Then flung the emptied rinds away But gather’d up one kernel stone, And knew not was it night or day As she turn’d home alone.
5. ‘She heard a voice like voice of doves Cooing all together'
  1. Cooing is associated with doves. In the Bible, these are used both to represent reconciliation and peace.

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