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Marshall Badger

The Good Professor Kazia Estrada, First Class Wizard of Providing Second Chances

British Literature, ENGL 2323-002

December 11, 2016

Christina Rossettis Goblin Market and Female Companionship

For your sake I have braved the glen" -"Goblin Market," line 496

The arts, like all other professions in Western culture, has a history of being male-

dominated. To be a woman creator was, and is, a transgressive act against an established order.

To focus on the experiences of women in a male-dominated is to focus on a subjugated

population in the midst of domination. To suggest that salvation from such domination comes not

from the assimilation of marriage but the rejection of sexual violence is to write Christina

Rossettis Goblin Market (1862). In Goblin Market, Rossetti (1830-1894) explores the

predatory aspects of masculine-feminine sexual relations and the subsequent need for support

and companionship between women.

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889), a contemporary of Rossettis, brusquely

crystallized the viewpoint of masculine artistry in a 1886 letter to Richard Watson Dixon: Now

this is the artists most essential quality, masterly execution: it is a kind of male gift and

especially marks off men from women, the begetting of ones thought on paper, on verse, on

whatever the matter is" (qtd. in Said 267). Continuing on, Hopkins asserts that The male quality

is the creative gift, that the creation of fine arts like literature, are a sphere reserved for men

(qtd. in Said 267). Hopkins words plainly state what authors before him, such as William

Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and George Gordon Lord Byron, have expressed

previously in their writing: the difference between men and women is a mans creative ability,
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while women are useful as literary subjects to be manipulated by male authors. As such, the

prevalence of male authors comes as little surprise, as does the flattening of female characters are

their relationships to one another. In her essay Angels and Monsters, Cosslett Tess writes that

the Victorian idea that the womens virtue and worth are derived from their strict adherence to

traditional standards of behavior shows that women characters, as in the society they are meant

for, are held to a strict code of conduct (Tess, 1). Not being women themselves, male authors

depictions of women are warped by their perceptions of women As receptive [women]" rather

than as human beings equal to themselves (Said, 267). Women, both as real people and as

characters, have nuances to them that male authors do not pick up on. When trying to write

women characters, said authors create facsimilies that cannot stand up to scrutiny, such as

Christabels description of Geraldines appearance being written in a sexual, masculine manner

despite Christabel being presented as a model of feminine Victorian behavior. In describing

Geraldine as a damsel bright/Drest in a silken robe of white,//Her stately neck, and arms

were bare//Beautiful exceedingly, Coleridges voice overpowers that of his viewpoint

character, Christabel, and the readers suspension of disbelief is tested (59-68).

In comparison, Rossetti is a woman writing about the experiences of women. Her choice

to focus on womens experiences gives insight into the lives of women for male readers and a

communal connection for female readers. Her characters in Goblin Market," Lizzie and Laura,

together work to dissolve the literary dichotomy of women as angels in the house or Lilith figure.

They also act as foils of each other, like Christabel and Geraldine before them, without needing

to be cut down into stereotypical female figures.

Laura, the first of the sisters to sample the goblin mens wares, is initially the protective

member of the pair. As they crouch in the grass on a riverbank, Laura tells Lizzie We must not
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look at goblin men,/ We must not buy their fruits, and yet Laura is the first to [rear] her glossy

head to watch the goblins hawking their wares (Rossetti, 43-44, 54). Here, Laura shows herself

torn between complying with Victorian societal standards and expressing her personal desires,

even as she warns her sister away from the behavior she decides to engage in. Lizzie, seeing the

effect that the seductive fruit has upon Laura, chooses self-preservation in the eyes of society

over her sexuality and her sisters well-being, She thrust a dimpled finger/ In each ear, shut eyes

and ran:/Curious Laura chose to linger/Wondering at each merchant man, rather than following

her own advice and avoiding the goblin men (Rossetti, 69-72). Thereafter, Laura trades a

precious golden lock of her hair so that she can freely [suck] their fruit globes fair or

red:/Sweeter than honey from the rock,/Stronger than man-rejoicing wine,/Clearer than water

flowd that juice;/She never tasted such before (Rossetti, 131, 133-137). Thus sating her

curiosity, Laura returns home after pocketing one seed from the fruits, though she knew not it

night or day after her extended mingling with the goblin men (Rossetti, 144). In this interaction

with the goblin men, Laura has willingly given up her virginal qualities and transgresses on

Victorian standards of respectable behavior.

Laura, no longer pure and virginal in the eyes of societydue to having traded her bodily

autonomy in the form of the golden lockis no longer of interest to prurient men whose

sexual interest is centered on feminine purity (Rossetti, 131). Despite loitering and looking for

them when she and Lizzie are in the field, [s]he never caught again the goblin cry:/.../She never

spied the goblin men, that she wants to go to again (Rossetti, 285-287). Lizzie now heard that

cry alone as they gather provisions, turning Lizzie into Lauras only connection to the goblin

men (Rossetti, 266). Laura, desperate to save herself, attempts to grow more fruit using her

stolen fruit seed, and after planting it hoped for a root,/Watchd for a waxing shoot,/But there
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came none because her attempts to replicate the sensory appeal of the goblin men and their fruit

by herself cannot placate her desires (Rossetti, 297-299).

When [Lauras] hair grew thin and grey, Lizzie is faced with the impending death of

her sister, as the late Jeanie, who died before her marriage (Rossetti, 290). Lizzie dutifully looks

after Laura in her fading condition Till Laura dwindling/Seemd knocking at Deaths

door:/Then Lizzie weighd no more/Better and worse;/But put a silver penny in her purse and

goes out looking for the goblins who have left her sister in a near-death state (Rossetti, 337-341).

Here, the dark underbelly of the goblin men is reveled.

Wanting only their fruits, Lizzie repeatedly rejects their lecherous suggestions that she

take a seat with [them],/Honour and eat with [them], as she has seen first-hand the effects of

eating their fruit (Rossetti, 387-388). Despite her silver penny, the goblins are insistent that she

eat their fruits with them if she is to have them at all. After Lizzies repeated refusals to give the

goblin men company in exchange for the desired fruits, One calld her proud,/Cross-graind,

uncivil;/Their tones waxd loud,/Their looks were evil (Rossetti, 413-416). Here, the goblins

turn from depraved to violent, attacking Lizzie as a group in order to overwhelm her. In the

ensuing allegorical rape scene, the goblin men Tore her gown and soild her stocking/.../...and

squeezd their fruits/Against her mouth to make her eat" without success (Rossetti, 422-426).

Lizzie refuses to be broken and, Like a rock of blue-veind stone/Lashd by tides

obstreperously," resists the goblin mens assault (Rossetti, 430-431).Quito A. Barajas, in Goblin

Market: The Prostituted Savior, points out that this is where the poem suggests that unwanted

sex does not make a fallen woman less valued than her virginal counterpart. Lizzie was defiled,

not at all tempted. This is why she maintains her innocence, albeit temporarily taken away from

her" by the goblins' assault on her (Barajas, 2).

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Now drenched in juice that syruppd all her face" but still with her virginal status intact,

Lizzie has won the war of attrition against her attackers and At last the evil people,/Worn out by

her resistance,/Flung back her penny" to her, and leave to seek out other, easier targets instead

(Rossetti, 455, 458-460). By returning Lizzies penny to her and leaving her drenched in fruit

juices, the goblin men imitate a scene not unlike paying for a sex workers services, with the

stereotypical perception of a man throwing a woman away once her services are completed"

playing out in a way that runs counter to Victorian expectations (Barajas, 2). Lizzie returns to

Laura and offers the juices coating her body as a cure to Lauras addiction to the fruit, crying

Eat me, drink me, love me;/Laura, make much of me;/For your sake I have braved the glen/And

had to do with goblin merchant men (Rossetti, 494-497). Lizzie is drenched the juices of the

fruits that have been smashed against her in the attack and after being prostituted, Lizzie

assumes the Christ figure for Laura, giving her the means of reclaiming her sexual identity after

bartering away her virginity to taste the goblins fruits (Barajas, 2). Rossetti describes a striking,

transgressive picture of one woman saving another from the ill effects of men, both of whom

have engaged in premarital sexual behaviors without further punishment.

In her commentary, Heroic Sisterhood in Goblin Market, Dorothy Mermin posits that

On the simplest biographical level, the poem seems to describe possible lives for women among

the Pre-Raphaelites and to imagine a a sisterly feeling among them that did not, so far as

Christina Rossetti was concerned, actually exist (Mermin, 110). What Mermin fails to account

for is the fact that Goblin Market is both a contemporary allegory and an artistic product.

Rossetti was not perfectly beholden to her contemporary society, and perhaps does not believe

any sexuality defines a woman's value, which is reflected in her poetry (Barajas, 3). Certainly

Rossettis history with Victorian sex workers would certainly lend a sympathetic ear from her,
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thereby influencing her work to include the stories these women. In a world of her creation,

Rossetti centers the experiences of marginalized women and shows the machinations of men are

responsible for the institution of prostitution and the making of fallen women out of wedlock

rather than laying the blame for such actions on the women involved (Barajas, 3).

In counter to that, in The Potential of Sisterhood: Christina Rossettis Goblin Market,

Janet Galligani Casey suggests the following:

Rossetti posits not a world without men, but a world in which all people are allowed to

play all the parts, to embrace a wholeness that is only possible with the dissolution of the

traditional male/female dichotomy. This poem, in part, defines sisterhood as the

interdependence, rather than isolation, of antinormies, and demonstrates this

interdependence both within each of the girls and between them. (Casey 65)

This line of thinking would suggest, instead of the centering of women within Rossettis fictional

world, she centers the strength gained by operating communally. This, however, butts heads with

Rossettis specific use of the word sisters and fleshed-out women characters. In a language that

defaults, in large, to masculine bases, Rossetti makes the conscious choice to write about women

saving one another from the dangers of men. These are women who face trials from the dangers

of men, but press onward to salvation in a feminine community.

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Christina Rossettis choice to focus on the communal strength of women gives context

and insight into the lives of Victorian women, particularly those of Victorian sex workers. In

doing so, Rossetti acts in defiance of a male-oriented norm, creating fictional women that come

across as far more real than the ham-fisted attempts of male authors to do the same. Rossettis

Goblin Market is centered on the lived experiences of women through the eyes of a woman,

and triumphs as a piece of literature in doing so.

Works Cited

Barajas, Quito A. Goblin Market: The Prostituted Savior. Academia.edu, 11 May 2016.

Casey, Janet Galligani. The Potential of Sisterhood: Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market.

Victorian Poetry, vol. 29, no. 1, 1991, pp. 6378. www.jstor.org/stable/40002055.

"Christina Rossetti." Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation, n.d. Web. 11 Dec. 2016.

"Gerard Manley Hopkins." Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation, n.d. Web. 11 Dec. 2016.

Mermin, Dorothy. Heroic Sisterhood in Goblin Market. Victorian Poetry, vol. 21, no. 2,

1983, pp. 107118. www.jstor.org/stable/40002024.

Rappoport, Jill. The Price of Redemption in Goblin Market. Studies in English Literature,

1500-1900, vol. 50, no. 4, 2010, pp. 853875. www.jstor.org/stable/40928291.

Said, Edward W. Beginnings: Intention and Method. New York: Basic, 1975. Print.

Tess, Cosslett. "Angels and Monsters." Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism, edited by Kathy

D. Darrow, vol. 196, Gale, 2008. 19th Century Literature Criticism Online

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