Christina Rossetti’s Goblin Market

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There are several meanings and interpretations of Christina Rossetti’s, “Goblin Market”. “Goblin Market” is the story of two sisters, which one of them, Laura, is tempted to visit the new goblin market in town. Laura buys the fruit from the goblin men in exchange for a lock of her hair, despite the several warnings from her sister Lizzie not to consume the fruit. Laura gets sick and Lizzie saves her by going to the market. After the goblins taunt, tease and torment her with the tempting fruit, the fruit’s juices smudged in her face, she runs back home letting her sister kiss and suck them from her cheeks. Tasting the juices for a second time was what saved Laura. “Opening with the sensuous advertisement of exotic fruits hawked by goblin men to innocent young women, Rossetti’s poem presents an explicitly articulated image of a marketplace in which female ‘appetite’ is at stake” (Carpenter 415). This essay will analyze the two different interpretations of “Goblin Market”, there is arguable Christian symbolism and an erotic symbolism present.

“Goblin Market” was interpreted as a poem that contained symbolism from the Bible and Christianity, unlike in the modern era; it is interpreted as an erotic poem. “Temptation in ‘Goblin Market’ is symbolized great traditional symbol of sin and temptation in the Bible. Clearly the fruit sold by the goblin merchants…are the forbidden fruit of Scripture. They belong to the order of fruit which tempted Eve” (Packer 376). Packer described one of the most famous and common Biblical themes. In “Goblin Market”, Eve is presented as Laura, the forbidden apple is presented as the fruit sold by the goblin men, and the snake that lead Eve to temptation is presented as the goblin men. There are many a...

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...er terms, the fruit, the goblin men, Laura’s expressions and the Rossetti’s word choice implied an erotic connotation to the poem.

Works Cited

Carpenter, Mary W. “”Eat Me, Drink Me, Love Me”: The Consumable Female Body in Christina Rossetti’s “Goblin Market”” Victorian Poetry 29.4 (1991): 415-34. Web. Nov.2013.

Mendoza, Victor Roman. “”Come Buy”: The Crossing of Sexual and Consumer Desire in Christina Rossetti’s Goblin Market.” ELH 73.4 (2006): 913-47. Print.

New International Version. [Colorado Springs]: Biblica, 2011.

BibleGateway.com. Web. 18 Nov. 2013.

Packer, Lona M. “Symbol and Reality in Christina Rossetti’s Goblin Market.” PMLA 73.4 (1958): 375-85. Web. Nov. 2013.

Rossetti, Christina. "Goblin Market". The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 8th ed. Vol. E. Ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 2005. 1466-1478. Print.

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