Christina Rossetti's "children's" poem Goblin Market (1862) is a magical tale about a female society in conjunction with a male-trade marketplace. Or is it? Is it actually a highly sexualised depiction of a microcosm of society with an ending so plain it makes you want to tear out your eyeballs? (Hint it's the latter).
The unavoidable symbol of the mouth, when traced through the poem, highly sexualises Laura and her behaviour. All pleasures are that of the mouth; emphasis is placed on the sense of taste; Lizzie cries to her sister "eat me, drink me, love me". Is sisterly love the kind that can be eaten and drunk from a body? The narrative is laced with homoeroticism - at the very beginning of the narrative we are told the sisters cling to one another "with clasping arms and cautioning lips / with tingling cheeks and finger tips" in a description that begs to evoke coital imagery.
The sexual relations don't stop there. To save her sister, Lizzie must be effectively "gang-raped". After forbidding her from the male-economy marketplace by refusing to trade her money for their produce they demand a lock of her hair - like her sister gave. Trading her body and using herself as a commodity is the only way to communicate with the Goblins and attempt to participate in the economy. W'hen she refuses, they force themselves upon her and begin to force their "fruits" into her mouth; bombarding her in a grotesquely horrifying scene in which she could be read to remain chaste as she rejects their attempts to penetrate her mouth.
Despite this highly-sexualised portrait, the text seems to be an advocate for female communities without the influence of patriarchy, female education and female freedom. Until the ending. The final passage begins with a stereotypical, conventional: "when both were wives / with children of their own". Despite the conventions that should lead us to accept this ending, resisting readers will be more than taken aback. We've followed the trail of breadcrumbs that led us to believe that these women defy conventions and are outside of the mould - and Rossetti stops us in our tracks. Perhaps it's an advocation of female lineage or perhaps sexuality - after all marriages need to be consummated and children need to be made - or perhaps it's the interesting twist/fissure for the reader to continue their thinking. Maybe Rossetti simply couldn't end the poem any other way through constraint by expectations of the period. Either way it's a shame that readers don't get the feminist freedom they so long for, but perhaps it is actually for the better. Prompting discussion and hinting that being a young female can be idyllic, filled with goblins (and sex) but we all grow up and become wives and that's how it should be. It's just up to readers 150 years on to question that.
The unavoidable symbol of the mouth, when traced through the poem, highly sexualises Laura and her behaviour. All pleasures are that of the mouth; emphasis is placed on the sense of taste; Lizzie cries to her sister "eat me, drink me, love me". Is sisterly love the kind that can be eaten and drunk from a body? The narrative is laced with homoeroticism - at the very beginning of the narrative we are told the sisters cling to one another "with clasping arms and cautioning lips / with tingling cheeks and finger tips" in a description that begs to evoke coital imagery.
The sexual relations don't stop there. To save her sister, Lizzie must be effectively "gang-raped". After forbidding her from the male-economy marketplace by refusing to trade her money for their produce they demand a lock of her hair - like her sister gave. Trading her body and using herself as a commodity is the only way to communicate with the Goblins and attempt to participate in the economy. W'hen she refuses, they force themselves upon her and begin to force their "fruits" into her mouth; bombarding her in a grotesquely horrifying scene in which she could be read to remain chaste as she rejects their attempts to penetrate her mouth.
Despite this highly-sexualised portrait, the text seems to be an advocate for female communities without the influence of patriarchy, female education and female freedom. Until the ending. The final passage begins with a stereotypical, conventional: "when both were wives / with children of their own". Despite the conventions that should lead us to accept this ending, resisting readers will be more than taken aback. We've followed the trail of breadcrumbs that led us to believe that these women defy conventions and are outside of the mould - and Rossetti stops us in our tracks. Perhaps it's an advocation of female lineage or perhaps sexuality - after all marriages need to be consummated and children need to be made - or perhaps it's the interesting twist/fissure for the reader to continue their thinking. Maybe Rossetti simply couldn't end the poem any other way through constraint by expectations of the period. Either way it's a shame that readers don't get the feminist freedom they so long for, but perhaps it is actually for the better. Prompting discussion and hinting that being a young female can be idyllic, filled with goblins (and sex) but we all grow up and become wives and that's how it should be. It's just up to readers 150 years on to question that.
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