Temptation and Fallen Women Theme Analysis

“Goblin Market” is a complex poetic allegory about sexual temptation. Writing in the mid-nineteenth century, at a time of strict societal expectations regarding women’s behavior, Christina Rossetti was intensely interested in the plight of fallen women—those women who, by society’s standards, were perceived to have given in to the temptation of engaging in sex outside of marriage and who were subsequently shunned. Rossetti’s fairytale-like poem focuses on two sisters, Laura and Lizzie, one of whom succumbs to sexual temptation with near-fatal consequences, while the other withstands temptation and saves her fallen sister. While it is tempting to read “Goblin Market” as a warning to women to avoid sexual temptation, Rossetti’s allegory also lends itself to more complex readings. In contrast to many other representations of fallen woman in nineteenth-century art and literature, Rossetti’s fallen woman, Laura, never loses her purity and is ultimately saved through the self-sacrificing love of her sister. Rossetti thus seems to argue, against the dominant view of her time, that fallenness is not a permanent state and that fallen women can be saved and reintegrated into their communities through the compassion and support of their unfallen sisters.

Opening her poem with the goblin men’s seductive cry, Rossetti immediately establishes them as figures symbolic of sexual temptation. The goblins seem to exist solely in order to tempt young women to purchase their delicious but poisonous fruits, which they describe in terms that are unmistakably erotic: from “Plump unpecked cherries”—simultaneously suggestive of virginity and sexual ripeness—to voluptuous “Bloom-down-cheeked peaches” that invite the buyer to touch as well as taste. Their sales pitch is effective; when Laura and Lizzie hear it, they crouch close to the ground and hide themselves not just to avoid looking at the dangerous goblin men, but seemingly also to hide the evidence of their sexual arousal: their blushes and “tingling cheeks and finger tips.” The goblins are an object of curiosity and desire, and their exotic fruit functions as a metaphor for forbidden desires that cause young women to transgress the boundaries of acceptable feminine behavior at the time. While Lizzie runs away to prevent herself from looking at the goblin men or sampling their fruit, Laura finds the spectacle of their bodies—which resemble animals—irresistible. Although the goblins use gentle, seductive language to persuade the women, their potential for sexual violence is foreshadowed by their animalistic appearances, which hint at their wildness and unpredictability.

Laura suffers a kind of symbolic sexual fall that is set in motion when she disregards her sister’s warnings and looks at the goblin men, sensuously stretching forth “her gleaming neck” because her “last restraint is gone.” Although Laura is apprehensive about accepting the goblins’ fruits without paying, they persuade her to cut a lock of her hair and “Buy from” them “with a golden curl.” In nineteenth-century culture, locks of hair were considered to be precious and were exchanged between lovers, friends, and family members. Symbolically, the goblins commodify a part of Laura’s body—a part associated with love and intimacy—so when Laura cuts her hair in exchange for the fruit, she symbolically sells herself and becomes aligned with the fallen woman or prostitute. Her immediate regret is signaled by the fact that she “dropped a tear more rare than pearl,” however she sucks the fruit “until her lips [a]re sore,” with a violent intensity that is distinctly sexual. Here, Laura is not just aligned with fallen women but with the biblical Eve, the archetype of the fallen woman, who ate forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge and was expelled from the Garden of Eden. Like Eve, Laura similarly loses her innocence after eating the fruit; the desire to purchase more preoccupies her thoughts, and when she finds that the goblins have abandoned her, she pines away, ages prematurely, and refuses to eat. Following a pattern established by many works of art and literature about the fallen woman, the goblin men abandon Laura after seducing her, destroy her peace, and bring her to the verge of death.

Rossetti allows Laura to avoid the typical fates for fallen women in nineteenth-century literature, however, which are death, exile, or transportation to the colonies. In doing so, Rossetti seems to suggest that fallenness is only a temporary state rather than a stain that remains on a woman for the rest of her life and that complete rehabilitation and reintegration into her community remains possible. Laura’s rehabilitation is made possible by her sister, Lizzie. Lizzie knowingly puts herself in danger by confronting the goblins at nightfall to buy more fruit for Laura; she understands that, like Laura, she might be tricked into eating their fruit herself. However, the goblins, finding that they cannot persuade Lizzie to eat, violently attack her. Not only do they scratch her arms and pull out her hair, but they try to force fruit into her mouth in a scene that resembles a sexual assault. Lizzie withstands their attack and refuses to eat. Triumphantly returning home to Laura, Lizzie instructs her to lick the juices from her face with the sexually suggestive words: “Hug me, kiss me, suck my juices,” “Eat me, drink me, love me.” Despite their sexual undertones, Lizzie’s words evoke Christ’s instructions to his followers at the Last Supper to drink his blood and eat his body. Laura is revived by sucking the fruit juices from Lizzie’s body, as if she has taken part in a sisterly version of holy communion. Lizzie, then, functions as a Christ-like figure, whose self-sacrifice and willingness to risk death enables her to purchase the redemption of her sister.

The poem concludes years later, with Laura explaining to her own and Lizzie’s daughters the importance of sisters protecting and supporting one another, “For there is no friend like a sister.” Rossetti thus argues that fallen women are not inherently tarnished or irredeemable, and can be reclaimed through the love and labor of other women.