Blog 2.1 ''Goblin Market'' by Christina Rossetti

Christina Georgina Rossetti was an English poet, who was born and raised in London. She was born in big family: she had a sister and two brothers. All her family was connected to poetry and writing. Her mother gave her education at home. Christina Rossetti was a devout member of Evangelical Church- her life was connected to church all the time. She is famous for her variety of romantic, devotional and children's poem. She started to write in early ages. Her famous poem was "Goblin Market". She wrote it when she was 31 years old. It appeared in her first poetry volume, Goblin Market and Other Poems, and was illustrated by her brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti. It is a long narrative poem that has irregular rhyme and meter.

          The poem is about two young sisters, Lizzie and Laura, who were closed to each other, and about goblin men, who were selling fruits: “Come buy, come buy” their luscious and tantalizing fruits”. Lizzie didn’t listen to them and run home, but Laura was weaker  and wanted the fruits very bad. So this bad men  got her attention and she got too weak and decided to buy fruits. But because she didn’t have any money she paid with a lock of her golden hair and a tear that is more rare than pearl (127). Next day she wanted to have more and more fruits, but she couldn’t hear their voices anymore:”Must she no more pasture find, gone deaf and blind?”(258-259). Laura started to have withdrawal symptoms just like people who are on drugs do. Her hair started grew thin and gray and she refused to eat. Lizzie began to fear that something bad can happen to her sister and she decided to go to them and buy the fruit in order to save her sister’ life. Carrying a silver penny, Lizzie went to them and wanted to buy a fruit with the money. Goblins didn’t like it and smeared the juice and pulp of their fruit on her face. Lizzie ran home and with her  kisses saved her sister. And after years they both were married and lived happy lives.

          This poem has a lot of symbols. Like we see two sisters are the main characters, and of cause they are symbols. I can compare these two sisters to Adam and Eve from the Bible. Lizzie was warned by Laura not to eat the fruit.and we can see that in a Bible  Eve was warned by God not to eat the fruit from the Tree. Laura, who didn’t listen is a symbol of victim .She eat the fruit ,so she did did forbid thing. Her sister Lizzie is a symbol of Adam, who tried to warn her sister not to take these fruits: “Their offers should not charm us, their evil gifts would harm us” (65-66).She is also a symbol of an angel, who is always next in order to help. In her sacrifice we can also compare Lizzie to Christ. As Lizzie took the fruit to save her sister’s life, the same  did Christ. He offered himself to take our place and saved all us. Goblin men are symbols of Satan, who try to do everything to make the girls eat the fruits.

                 There are a lot of fruits mentioned in the poem: ”Wild-free born cranberries, Crab-apples, blackberries, apricots, strawberries…..”(5-15). Fruits have different types of symbols in this poem. The goblins' fruit   symbolizes temptations of Adam and Eve from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.  There are forbidden fruits ,that girls should not taught, just like in a Bible story, the only fruits were forbidden. I  can also see the forbidden fruit  in order of  female sexuality. In some way it also related to  females, their knowledge about the world.
            I can also see the symbol of sisterhood: we see the  comparing  of  two sleeping sisters to a pair of "pigeons in one nest." (184-186).We also can see some flowers here. Flowers in "Goblin Market" are something beautiful and pure ,something that is opposite to goblin’s fruits

            This poem has also archetypes that are very clear to see. Lizzie represents pureness and innocence; she is willing to help her sister no matter what. She behaves only in the best  way she can and she is like Jesus or even a  hero, because she saves her sister. She is also an angel, who always next to her sister, and always there to help her. Laura had the archetypes of the weakness and victim. The goblin men had the archetypes of many evil faces, such as Devil and  death, something bad. Fruits are sins that are following us all our life and if we are weak like Lizzie we are most likely have them a lot.

              I understand this poem in different ways. First of all I see here a bible topic of the Garden of Eden, because it has two main  characters just like in a Bible story and it shows us, what can happened to you if you are trying to do bad things. Also I see this poem about sisterhood and family, how it is important to have ones that care about you and can save you no matter what. I personally believe that every person should have someone who cares of you and there are no closer people than your family.

           I also can  see here a topic of sexuality. All these fruits are different kind of people that we meet in your life journey, and every person is different ,just like fruits. This poem teaches you to be very careful of picking up people in your life and specially bringing them close to you . It is also about personalities and how all people are different.

Work cited:
1.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christina_Rossetti
2.http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/crossetti/rossettibio.html
3.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goblin_Market