Halbmaier 1

Connor Halbmaier

December 7, 2018

Angel of the Hearth in Mary Barton and “Goblin Market”

During the Victorian era, there was an ideology known as the angel of the hearth, which

defined what society expected women to be. Women were supposed to be loving and caring,

taking care of the home in the private sphere while the men worked for money to support the

family in the public sphere. Women were not allowed to cross the boundary between the private

and public sphere, and if they did, they would become what was known as a fallen woman, also

commonly known as a prostitute. This ideology was quite apparent in the literature of this time

period, and can be seen quite clearly through the characters in Elizabeth Gaskell’s Mary Barton

and Christina Rossetti’s “Goblin Market.” In Elizabeth Gaskell’s Mary Barton, and Christina

Rossetti’s “Goblin Market,” the characters Mary Barton and Laura are used to portray the idea

that women are able to become angel of the hearth again through the help and support of others,

even after leaving the safety of their private spheres for the public sphere where the men work.

The characters Esther and Jeanie, on the other hand, show the decline of fallen women who are

forsaken by the community and are left to fend for themselves.

Mary Barton, in Gaskell’s Mary Barton, is a woman that is the spitting image of the ideal

angel of the hearth. She can sew, cook, clean, all things that are a woman’s duties. Her main role

in the novel, though, is to care for her father as he deals with the stresses of the public sphere.

Using the few shillings that John Barton had given her from his payment as delegate to Glasgow,

Mary bought enough food to create a sufficient meal to feed her father (Gaskell 196). However,

despite her kindness, her father didn’t want to eat. In fact, despite the work that she put into the
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meal, John left the home without partaking in Mary’s meal. As Mary watched her father walk

away from the house, “she did not know why, but she had never before felt so depressed, so

desolate” (Gaskell 198). Mary had failed to support her family, the main component of the angel

of the hearth’s role. It was her job, and she had failed. “A leaden weight seemed to hang over

her,” severely dampening her mood for the rest of that night (Gaskell 199).

Even if a woman fails as an angel of the hearth, they shouldn’t turn to the public sphere

for a job. Gaskell’s novel presents this idea through Mary’s sickness that she obtains after

participating in her best friend Jem’s trial. A good portion of the novel is devoted to Mary

seeking ways to prove Jem’s innocence in a murder trial for the mill owner Henry Carson. This

plot culminates in Jem’s trial, where Mary has to stand up in front of all the people gathered to

give her testimony. After she had spoken and was forced to admit her feelings for Jem, Mary was

found by Job to be muttering, “I must not go mad. I must not, indeed. They say people tell the

truth when they’re mad; but I don’t. I was always a liar. I was, indeed; but I’m not mad. I must

not go mad. I must not, indeed” (Gaskell 328). As soon as she saw that Jem wasn’t going to be

hanged for the crime he didn’t commit, Mary exclaimed, “O Jem! Jem! you’re saved; and I am

mad –,” and was seized with convulsions and had to be taken away (Gaskell 329). The

excitement of the trial was too much for this angel of the hearth to handle, and as a result, went

mad. Mary wasn’t meant to participate in the public sphere in this capacity. As an angel of the

hearth, she has to stay within the domestic sphere, otherwise she risks madness, which clearly

overcame her.

Through her participation in the public sphere, Mary has fallen from her position. She has

been tainted and is now a fallen woman. However, all hope hasn’t been lost to her. Mrs. Sturgis,

a woman Mary met during her journey to provide an alibi for Jem, ends up caring for Mary as
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she suffered in a delirious, feverish state (Gaskell 336). Even Jem was there, wishing for Mary to

recover, but unable to do anything because it was not his place to care for her. However, it is

through the support of both of these characters that Mary is able to recover from her feverish

state and regain her senses. When Mary awakened from her slumber, Jem, instead of caring for

her himself, calls for Mrs. Sturgis to come and tend to his love (Gaskell 349). This scene not

only shows the different roles of the genders and that they shouldn’t be crossed, it shows what

Gaskell’s main message is. Women who have fallen from their position of angel of the hearth are

able to recover only through the aid of other people around them. If it hadn’t been for Mrs.

Sturgis’s care, Mary might not have recovered, and would have died as a fallen woman. Because

of Mrs. Sturgis, Mary is able to become Jem’s wife, allowing her to work at home, caring for her

their son Johnnie, while Jem goes out into the public sphere to work (Gaskell 393).

In Rossetti’s “Goblin Market,” Laura is an angel of the hearth that falls to the

temptations of the public sphere. In the third stanza, Laura is described as being “Like a rush-

imbedded swan, / Like a lily from the beck, / Like a moonlit poplar beach” (Rossetti 82-84).

What these descriptions say about Laura is that she is a beautiful young woman who is innocent

and pure. Despite representing qualities associated with the angel of the hearth, she is still

tempted by the goblin men and their fruits. When the men came harking their wares, it was Laura

who was curious about them, and not her sister, Lizzie (Rossetti 50-55). As a result of this

curiosity, Laura walks up to the goblin men and tries to purchase their fruits. However, since she

didn’t have any money, Laura clips a “…precious golden lock” from her head and uses that as

payment (Rossetti 126). What Laura is doing here is essentially prostituting herself to the goblin

men for their fruits. Her body becomes the payment that she uses, which goes against the beliefs
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of what an angel of the hearth should be like. Because of her prostitution, Laura loses her status

as an angel and falls. As if Laura’s beauty never existed,

Her hair grew thin and gray;

She dwindled, as the fair full moon doth turn

To swift decay and burn

Her fire away. (Rossetti 277-280)

Just as her beauty faded, so too did her desires to perform her household duties. No more did she

sweep the house, care for the cattle, knead the cakes of wheat (Rossetti 293-295). All Laura did

was sit silently by the fireplace, not eating (Rossetti 297-298).

Unable to bear seeing her sister in her fallen state, Lizzie decides to brave the goblin men

to heal Laura. Lizzie enters into the public sphere, and asks the goblin men for their fruits in

exchange for a silver penny (Rossetti 365-367). The goblin men, however, wanted more, and

asked for Lizzie to sit down and eat with them (Rossetti 368-369). Lizzie refused the temptation,

angering the goblin men. They attacked her, tore at her clothing, tried to force their fruits into her

mouth, but Lizzie didn’t say anything, refusing their violent advances (Rossetti 428-432). They

eventually stopped, annoyed with Lizzie’s stubborn determination, and left, leaving Lizzie to flee

back to the house with the fruits’ juices on her body for Laura to suck from (Rossetti 468-472).

Through Lizzie’s efforts, Laura was “reborn,” “Her gleaming locks showed not one thread of

grey, / Her breath was sweet as May / And light danced in her eyes” (Rossetti 540-542). Lizzie’s

actions to save her sister shows that sometimes it is inevitable that a woman has to enter into the

public sphere. When they do so, they must remain strong willed against the many temptations

that they will face. Lizzie was strong, and she was able to interact with the goblin men without
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losing her innocence and purity, the things that made her an angel of the house. And because she

was an angel, she was able to bring Laura back from her fallen state. She brought “Life out of

death” (Rossetti 524) from Laura, giving her a second chance to live the way that she should. In

the end, both Laura and Lizzie were married with children of their own, and Laura “Would tell

them how her sister stood / In deadly peril to do her good, / and win the fiery antidote” (Rossetti

587-589). Laura knows that without Lizzie’s aid, she would have remained a fallen woman, and

she wants to pass this knowledge that it is through community that women are able to come back

from a fallen state.

Both Mary and Laura were fortunate in having people in the community who cared for

them and brought them back from the brink, but not everyone is so lucky. In Mary Barton,

Mary’s aunt Esther is one of the women who have fallen in society and were unable to make

their way back up. In the novel, Esther is a prostitute that wonders the street, selling her body to

make a living. She has no permanent home, and she has lived on the streets so long that prison

has become the closest thing to a home that she has (Gaskell 158). She is fallen, and unlike

Mary, she has nobody to help her. Jem was in the prime position to help her, and he did nothing,

something he chided himself for (Gaskell 165). After this point, Esther drops off the radar for a

while, which isolates her even more from the story. This isolation helps to strengthen the idea

that fallen women need assistance to return to their former positions. Esther is alone for most of

the novel, and when she finally returns to the pages, she has fallen severely ill, and dies (Gaskell

392). Her sudden reappearance in the end and death show that if fallen women are left alone long

enough, then there is nothing anybody could do to bring them back.

In an article titled “’A great engine for good’: the industry of fiction in Elizabeth

Gaskell's Mary Barton and North and South,” author Elizabeth Starr discusses the fall of Esther.
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Specifically, she mentions how categories such as “duty” and “want” are slippery, which allows

Esther to temporarily slip into the role of a housewife to fool Mary into thinking she’s still an

angel of the hearth (Starr). This is significant because it supports the idea that since Esther is a

fallen woman, people won’t listen to her. She doesn’t have the sway that an angel of the hearth

would have because she isn’t what society wants her to be. Esther may have more freedom of

movement than an angel would have, but her position as a prostitute makes it difficult for her to

pass on information (Starr). That’s why she takes on the appearance of a housewife, so that Mary

would listen to what she has to say. Starr also mentions that “Esther’s reappearance in the last

chapter emphasizes her irreversible decline” (Starr). This matches up with the fact that nobody

helped Esther while she was a prostitute, showing that she was unable to recover without the aid

of someone from the community. If Jem had tried harder like he wanted to, then Esther could

have been saved.

In “Goblin Market,” the character who is equivalent to Mary Barton’s Esther is a young

woman named Jeanie. Unlike Esther, who plays a somewhat active role throughout her

respective story, Jeanie is a character that is only ever mentioned, due to the fact of her being

dead. Through the mentioning of her, it is learned that Jeanie, like Laura, had partaken of the

goblin men’s fruits (Rossetti 149). The difference being, while Laura had Lizzie’s help in

recovering, Jeanie was alone. Nobody was there to support her as “She pined and pined away; /

Sought them by night and day, / Found them no more but dwindled and grew grey” (Rossetti

154-156). As a result, she “…fell with the first snow,” and where she is buried, no grass nor

daises will grow (Rossetti 157-161). What this represents is that when Jeanie became a fallen

woman, there was nothing beautiful about her. People of the Victorian era believed that women

were beautiful when they performed their roles as an angel of the house. They were pure and
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innocent, something that Jeanie wasn’t, which is why nothing grows from where she is buried.

Lizzie, in the beginning, uses this story of Jeanie’s fall to try and deter Laura from going to see

the goblin men, for she is afraid that what happened to Jeanie would happen to Laura (Rossetti

147). Jeanie, instead of being remembered for who she used to be, was used as a deterrent for

women who were susceptible to the temptations of the public sphere.

In the article “Christina Rossetti: illness and ideology,” the critic Antony H. Harrison

brings up some interesting information about Rossetti that explains the topic of “Goblin Market.”

In his article, Harrison mentions that Rossetti worked at a place called Highgate Penitentiary for

Fallen Women, which was essentially an organization that aided fallen women (Harrison). With

this knowledge in mind, it makes sense why Rossetti is advocating for the support of fallen

women so that they don’t end up like Jeanie, who is only remembered as a fallen woman. The

women just need a guide, so that they don’t end up lost like Jeanie (Harrison). For Laura, she just

needed a healer. According to Harrison, the illness Jeanie had is what defines her as fallen

(Harrison). She was never healed. Laura, on the other hand, had Lizzie who served as her healer,

bring her back from the brink of death. In other words, the state of fallen women is a disease of

society that requires attention in order to be healed.

In Charles Dicken’s House Hold Volumes VII-VIII, there is an article that advertises an

organization just like the Highgate Penitentiary for Fallen Women. This organization was known

as the Home for Homeless Women, and their goal was to give women who had already “lost

their characters” a ray of hope, and to save women who were in danger of losing their characters

(“Home for Homeless Women” 161). What this organization did was take in women who needed

help, and teach them the necessary skills that an angel of the house would need to be successful,

such as needlework (“Home for Homeless Women” 172). One example of a case mentioned in
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the article is where a nineteen-year-old girl who was unable to make a living through

needlework, and almost starved as a result (“Home for Homeless Women” 174). She was taken

into the home, behaved herself as she was taught the necessary domestic skills, and eventually

left the home happy. What this group is doing is the same as what both Gaskell and Rossetti are

advocating in their literature. Fallen women need assistance in becoming an angel of the house

again, and without it, they would continue to decline until they are beyond saving. The roles that

Mrs. Sturgis and Lizzie played in their respective stories is the same as what Highgate

Penitentiary for Fallen Women and the Home for Homeless Women are doing. They took charge

of women who had fallen, and cared for them until they were able to rise from the ashes and

become an angle once more.

Both Gaskell and Rossetti do a wonderful job of incorporating the angel of the hearth

ideology into their works. Through the journeys of Mary and Laura, it is shown how women who

are angels aren’t safe from becoming a fallen woman. And it is through the help of the

community, such as Mrs. Sturgis and Lizzie, that fallen women are able to recover. Of course,

there are women such as Esther and Jeanie who have fallen, but don’t have anybody upon which

they could lean on. These women are left to fend for themselves, and they eventually declined so

far that they were unable to be saved, becoming an example of what happens to fallen women.

Elizabeth Gaskell and Christina Rossetti are two wonderful authors who created strong works of

literature that show that fallen women are able to once again become angels of the hearth as long

as somebody in the community gives them the support that they need.
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Works Cited

Gaskell, Elizabeth. Mary Barton. Editor Macdonald Daly. New York: Penguin Books,

2003. Print.

Harrison, Antony H. "Christina Rossetti: illness and ideology." Victorian Poetry, vol. 45, no. 4,

2007, p. 415+. Literature Resource Center,

http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A173970532/GLS?u=loras&sid=GLS&xid=fc02474d

. Accessed 9 Nov. 2018.

“Home for Homeless Women.” Household Words Volumes VII-VIII, 23 April 1853, pp. 161-175.

Print.

Rossetti, Christina. “Goblin Market.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Victorian

Age. Ninth edition, volume E. Editor Stephen Greenblatt. New York: W. W. Norton and

Company, 2012, pp 1496-1508. Print.

Starr, Elizabeth. "'A great engine for good': the industry of fiction in Elizabeth Gaskell's Mary

Barton and North and South." Studies in the Novel, vol. 34, no. 4, 2002, p. 385+.

Literature Resource Center,

http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A97729897/GLS?u=loras&sid=GLS&xid=001d5209.

Accessed 9 Nov. 2018.