Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market

Christina Rossetti’s Goblin Market is primarily about two sisters who have a very close bond. The sisters live alone and are accustomed to get water every evening from the local stream as they are beginning to walk back they are aware that it is getting dark now. As always the sisters hear the calls that are coming from the goblins. These goblins sell fruits that not every merchant has, and they only offer these to young, beautiful, and untouched girls. “On the surface, a simple and direct storytelling style marked by childlike expressions makes "Goblin Market" appear to be a mysterious fantasy, an entertaining romance spun from the elements of folklore and fairy tale” (Brownley, Martine Watson). The story on the surface seems like a very pure
But, the goblins had another plan in store for her, the goblin men “want Lizzie to eat the fruit too and they try to force it into her mouth. Lizzie resists, and runs home dripping with juice and pulp” (Humphries, Simon). Lizzie is resisting the temptation, something that Laura was not able to do. By Lizzie resisting even though she was ultimately forced, she is still able to resist and not be tempted by such fruits no matter how much force was brought upon her. The story of Adam and Eve is a comparison of what temptation can do to you, Adam and Eve take from the forbidden fruit tree and are now seeing each other with lustful eyes and having intimate thoughts, something that was not supposed to occur between the
Throughout the poem, it is noticed when you read a line like such, “I have no copper in my purse, I have no silver either…” (Rossetti, Christina). This line could be interpreted as it is fine if you don’t have any monetary value with you, but what you have on your body is more than enough to pay for these delicious fruits. Laura is exchanging a lock of from her head as payment for the fruits, it is giving an explicit favor to the goblins but Rossetti just gives it in the context of the goblins wanting a lock of her “precious golden lock” (Rossetti, Christina). “Rossetti makes it clear that she sees erotic passion as a sign of our fallen condition: “Eve, the representative woman,” she explains, “received as a part of her sentence ‘desire,’” and she insists that women are “no losers if they exchange desire for [religious] aspiration, the corruptible for the incorruptible” (Harrison, Anthony H.). Rossetti’s poems were full of symbolism, in Goblin Market, by Laura giving a piece of her blonde hair, she is giving away her innocence to the goblin men. By giving away her lock of hair, she has now committed a sin she has given a piece of herself in exchange for the forbidden fruits. Rossetti also shows the way Laura acts when she consumes the