Goblin Market

"For there is no friend like a sister." -Christina Rossetti Sisterhood has been bond that throughout the ages has changed from only family members, to females that feel a special bond with one another, to females sharing the same interest in religion or education. Christina Rossetti shared the sisterhood bond to her readers when she wrote her poem Goblin Market. The poem has even been centered on by the critics to be the theme of "sisterhood" and feminism. But the "sisterhood" in Goblin Market is not an exclusionary term; rather it implies several meanings in the same way that it potentially includes the experience of both sexes. In the beginning as readers we are faced with the exploits of two popular Biblical stories, that of Christ and Eve, these two of which have important implications concerning the traditional roles of men and women. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, the male is the Redeemer; Church hierarchy, male suffrage, and other patriarchal practices carried this religious tradition of male power into cultural realm. With the role of the "savior" reserved exclusively for males, females are relegated to the supporting role, for example Mary, and Martha or the role of the person in need of salvation, example Eve. Mary and Martha, are the females that fulfill the secondary function of nurturing the male, the Christ figure. As Eve, the female is the archetypal "fallen woman" who, contrasted to savior, the embodiment of spiritual love, is traditionally associated with carnal love. Both female roles, of course, are inferior to the role of the male. Since we as reader have a background of the nineteenth century, we tend to the Victorian female as an egoless, domestic "angel" in the service of the male, who possesses all social and political power; diametrically opposed to this "ideal" of womanhood is the "fallen" woman, whose sins are of sexual nature. Christina Rossetti's use of the term "sisterhood" in Goblin Market reveals the same

Cited: Barr, Alan P. Sensuality Survived: Christina Rossetti 's ‘Goblin Market ' Essays in Literature 6. 1979-1980 Bell, Mackenzie Mermin, Dorothy. "Heroic Sisterhood in Goblin Market. 1983. Moi, Toril. Sexual/Textual Politics: Feminist Literary Theory. London, 1985. Pages 102- 126 Vicinus, Martha Weathers, Winston. Christina Rossetti: The Sisterhood of Self. 1965