Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market: Feminist, Psychoanalytical, and Spiritual Interpretations

Running head: ENGLISH LITERATURE
ENGLISH LITERATURE
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1ENGLISH LITERATURE
Gupta, B., 2018. Christina Rossetti’s “Goblin Market”: A Feminist and Psychoanalytical.
According to the author, the poem reflects high feminist characteristics through its
characters. The author contrasts the women of the Victoria age to that of the two sisters in the
narrative. This shows that the characters of Lizzie and Laura through psychoanalytic study are
the embodiment of the women from the Victorian age.
Description
In the Victorian age, many women played a major role in the revival of poetry. One of
the major contributors was Christina Rossetti. Rossetti’s work “Goblin Market” is one of the
major influential poetry in the Victorian era. The approach of this article explains the topic of
sacrifice in relation to the theoretical statement of the poem. The contribution of the article
highlights the feminist ideologies of Rossetti and the theme of sacrifice in the poem. The main
findings of this paper are to highlight the facts of feminist interpretations.
Summary
Rossetti discusses the imagery and symbolism in the poem through the characters of
goblins. The poem highlights the theme of good and evil through the medium of a fairytale. The
two sisters Lizzie and Laura who are pure at heart begin to unravel to the reader when Laura
indulges herself to the forbidden fruit of their village. Lizzie on the other hand does not succumb
to the temptation and as the story progresses; Laura becomes more and more addicted to the
fruit. To save the life of her sister, Lizzie sacrifices herself so that she does not have to witness
the condition that Laura was initially in. Both the characters are symbolic in nature and they are
both the actually representation of women in general. With this statement Rosseti highlights the

2ENGLISH LITERATURE
fact that girl are born pure and simple. However, the symbolism of the goblins and the fruit has
been represented by death. This concept is incorporated with the basis of essentialist and
constructionist ideologies of feminist literary discussions. The way both the sisters are described
holds the options of two outcomes, first being Lizzie and Laura as identical look alike or twins
and the second being that the two does not share each other’s intense anguish but shares the
essential and constructive perspective of feminist ideologies. Lizzie displays an immense self-
restraint and Laura becomes the victim of the goblin’s fruit.
Evaluation
From the above discussion, it can be said that the source gives an insight of the
psychoanalytical perspective of the two sisters. Lizzie is an angel who is emotional and
submissive whereas Laura is labeled as a monster by the goblins who resists and shows immense
resistance to their evil influence. The source demonstrates the character of Lizzie and also
embraces the concept of gender binary in a way that does not remove it but displaces it. The
feminine attribute of desirous towards the goblin fruit causes a blushing sight of the subject and
soon replaces it with the trait of masculine rationality. The description of feminine traits by
Laura towards her sister is seeing dwindling in the expectation of the goblin’s fruit however her
intelligence and fortitude is the contributing factor when she successfully gets the fruit from
them.