Goblin Market Summary & Analysis

Where the goblins come from and why they target women is never explained. They are simply a fixture of the unidentified, idyllic, rural environment in which the poem is set, and seem to exist only in order to tempt young women into buying and eating their fruit. The way the goblins describe their fruit is pointedly sexual and suggestive of ripeness and voluptuousness. The goblins’ evocative language is intended to seduce women by encouraging them to imagine the pleasures of eating their fruit.

At this point in the poem, it is unclear exactly why the goblins are so dangerous, but both sisters seem instinctively to recognize that the goblins pose a sexual threat. Rossetti’s language in this passage emphasizes the sisters’ bodily response to the goblins. Lizzie’s desire to hide her head and conceal her blushes and the sisters’ “tingling cheeks and fingertips” suggest that they are titillated or sexually aroused by contact with the goblins. They are fearful, but also curious, and sexual curiosity was believed by many Victorians to be dangerous to women.

Lizzie tries to prevent her sister from endangering herself by looking at the goblins. However, Laura’s curiosity proves to be too great a temptation, and she not only looks at the goblins but tempts Lizzie to look as well. The exotic nature of the fruit, which initially frightens Laura, now excites her—this plays into European fears of foreigners (particular those from colonized nations) as being primitive, sinful, and overly sexual. By giving in to temptation and satisfying her sexual curiosity, Laura is transgressing the boundaries of acceptable behavior for women at the time.

Lizzie is not just fearful of the goblins and the consequences of eating their fruit, but also of the strength of her own sexual desire and curiosity, which is evidenced by her “tingling cheeks and fingertips.” Such feelings were widely considered to be unwomanly and inappropriate. This fear is so strong that Lizzie abandons her own sister.

The goblins’ resemblance to animals suggests that they are wild, untamed, and dangerous. Some of the animals are commonplace but distinctly predatory, like the cat, and may suggest that the goblins intend to take young women for their prey. Interestingly, Holman Hunt’s famous painting of a fallen woman, The Awakening Conscience (1853), includes the image of a cat playing with a bird before killing it, symbolizing the predatory behavior of men who seduce women and then discard them (Hunt was known to Rossetti through his involvement in the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, established by her brother).

This is the moment when Laura loses her self-restraint, which previously made her cautious of the goblin men. It is presented as a point of no return, ominously foreshadowing her eventual metaphorical “fall” through eating the forbidden fruit.

The goblins’ slyness suggests that they intend to trick or deceive Laura in some way, while the word “leer,” meaning to look at in an unpleasant and lascivious way, emphasizes that their trick has a sexual element. Essentially, the goblins conspire together to tempt Laura, laying out their luscious fruit on a golden dish and weaving her a crown as a gift. They understand that, in choosing to linger, Laura is interested in them and their fruit and will be receptive to their persuasions.

The goblins attempt to delight, persuade, and flatter Laura into accepting their fruit. Laura’s scruples about not being able to pay for it are significant. She does not want to be in their debt, perhaps because of the goblins’ reputations or because there is something unseemly about accepting a present from dangerous (goblin) men. She is also generally presented as an innocent and honorable woman, and finds it dishonest to take the fruit without paying.

Laura explains that she cannot pay because all her “gold is on the furze,” another name for gorse: a yellow, floral shrub. This statement emphasizes Laura’s relationship to the natural world, which, like other sources of wealth, keeps her fed and sustained. It is also suggestive of her rural innocence and inexperience.

Refusing to accept Laura’s reasons for not taking the fruit, the goblins persuade her to cut a lock of her hair to offer in exchange. In doing so, the goblins symbolically transform Laura’s hair into a commodity with commercial value. She symbolically sells herself for the forbidden fruit, and this act strongly aligns her with the fallen woman in Victorian culture.

Laura’s sensual enjoyment of the fruit—which she “sucked until her lips were sore”—is juxtaposed with biblical references. The phrases “honey from the rock” and “man-rejoicing wine” allude to God’s provision of good things for his faithful followers. That the goblin fruit seems sweeter than that honey and stronger than that wine suggests that its goodness is only an illusion and that in accepting and preferring it, Laura is being led away from God.

The goblins’ fruit has a mind-altering effect on Laura. Her bewilderment and lack of awareness of her surroundings foreshadows the anxiety, sorrow, and absentmindedness she will experience due to her fixation on the deadly fruit (already indicated by her removal of the fruit pit). Lizzie’s scolding is useless because the fruit has already poisoned Laura’s mind and destroyed her peace.

Lizzie’s scolding is useless to Laura, who has already succumbed to temptation and eaten the fruit. This is, however, the first time the reader is presented with evidence of the goblins’ dangerous effects on women. Lizzie’s cautionary tale about Jeanie, who ate their fruit, was abandoned, and died in her prime, foreshadows a probable fate for Laura. Jeanie’s story might also be read metaphorically; it reflects a common trajectory for fallen women in Victorian literature and art, one in which they experience a sexual “fall,” are abandoned by their seducers, and eventually die. The barrenness of Jeanie’s grave, on which no vegetation will grow, symbolizes the way that the goblins have robbed her of opportunities for marriage and motherhood—which the Victorians viewed as the ideal state for women.

Laura does not yet realize the danger she is in, but her admission that she still hungers for the fruit despite eating a great deal of it alerts the reader to this danger. The sensuous language Laura uses to describe the fruit to Lizzie is also significant. As if adopting the goblins’ way of speaking, Laura tries to tempt Lizzie with the offer of fruit.

The profound peacefulness of the sisters’ slumber is the calm before the storm. Shortly thereafter, Laura will become obsessed with the goblin fruit that she can no longer buy. Lying together in the same bed, the sisters are described interchangeably with imagery that emphasizes their purity, innocence, and inherent worth. This is important because, according to nineteenth-century beliefs, so-called fallen women were often considered to be impure and contaminated. Rossetti rejects such a view.

The sisters are presented as model homemakers in the style of the so-called “Angel in the House,” an important Victorian cultural figure created and popularized by Coventry Patmore. According to nineteenth-century mores, ideal women were supposed to be meticulous household managers who were committed to making their homes as comfortable as possible for their families. That Laura is absentmindedly fulfilling these duties shows the reader that something is wrong.

Lizzie’s contentment is contrasted with her sister’s worried, intense desire for the goblin fruit; this shows that it has already poisoned Laura’s mind and destroyed her inner peace. Lizzie’s gathering of flags, or irises, might also be an allusion to Mary, the mother of Jesus. According to floriology, or the symbolic language of flowers, irises are symbols of the Virgin Mary. Once commonly called “sword lilies,” the iris is associated with the pain that pierced Mary when Jesus was crucified. In Lizzie’s hand, irises seem to foreshadow her act of self-sacrifice for her sister.

Laura is heartbroken at discovering that she cannot hear the call of the goblin men and, therefore, cannot buy their fruit. Like Jeanie before her, the goblins have abandoned Laura after giving her a tantalizing taste of their forbidden fruit. Laura conceals her despair from Lizzie, perhaps because Lizzie has already warned her about the goblins, but perhaps also because Laura feels ashamed of the strength of her desire. Again, Laura is aligned with the figure of the fallen woman in Victorian culture, who is often represented as consumed with regret and despair, especially after she has been forsaken by her seducer.

Without the goblin fruit, Laura is overcome with grief. Her once golden hair is transformed, becoming thin and gray like an old woman’s—just as Jeanie’s did. Laura’s hair is an extension of herself and a reflection of her spiritual, emotional, and physical health—or unwellness in this instance. Furthermore, Laura’s inability to grow more fruit suggests that she has become, in some sense, barren and unable to support life. If the goblins’ exotic fruit represents a desire for forbidden things that were deemed unacceptable for women at the time, the fruit also makes it impossible for Laura to survive in her once accustomed role as a domestic woman.

Laura’s overwhelming desire for the goblin fruit causes her to age prematurely. She refuses food, begins to waste away, and is brought to the brink of death. At this point, cautious Lizzie overcomes her fear of the goblin men and of the consequences of interacting them and decides to meet the goblins at nightfall to purchase fruit for Laura. Lizzie prepares for this act of sisterly self-sacrifice by putting a silver penny in her purse to use as payment, showing that she is more cautious and aware of the goblins’ threat than Laura was.

The goblins mistakenly believe that Lizzie is susceptible to their seductive sales pitch. They try to tempt her, describing their fruit in a deliberately sexual way and urging Lizzie to imagine its taste and the feel of the fruit in her mouth. Lizzie refuses their offers, however, and instead attempts to purchase the fruit, tossing them a silver penny as payment.

Lizzie’s determination to pay for the fruit with money, rather than offering a lock of her hair as payment (like Laura) or accepting the fruit as a gift or debt (like Jeanie) is significant. If read symbolically through the lens of nineteenth-century anxieties about women’s sexuality, Lizzie refuses to become “fallen,” even though she risks much for her sister’s sake simply by meeting and talking to the dangerous goblin men at nightfall. When the goblins realize they cannot seduce or persuade Lizzie to eat of her own free will, they change tactics, becoming violent and brutal. Their attack, during which they batter Lizzie’s body and attempt to cram food into her mouth, strongly evokes a sexual assault or attempted rape.

Lizzie is described at length using imagery that symbolizes strength, purity, and moral uprightness in the midst of trouble and danger. She is compared to “a royal virgin town” with a “gilded dome and spire,” an allusion to her white skin, golden hair, and innate purity and which also seems to align her with Christian cities under siege by invading forces. Try as they might, the goblins cannot “tug her standard down” or force her to debase herself by eating their fruit. Importantly, despite the fact that she is physically violated by the goblins, who scratch her flesh and tear her gown—an image of sexual violence—they cannot defile her purity or force her to “open lip from lip” to eat their fruit.

Lizzie’s mental daze mirrors Laura’s after meeting the goblins and eating their fruit for the first time. This mirroring or replication of experiences, which might seem like a minor detail, is significant; it suggests that Lizzie’s sacrifice will undo or reverse the damage caused to her sister by eating the fruit, bringing them back to the idyllic, peaceful lives they previously enjoyed. In light of the poem’s many biblical resonances, it is also possible to read this moment of mirroring as alluding to the traditional Christian belief that Mary was the second Eve who reversed the curses brought on humanity by the first Eve’s disobedience to God. Lizzie, aligned with Mary, saves her fallen sister, Laura, who is aligned with Eve. Lizzie’s act of self-sacrifice also aligns her with Christ, who experienced the pain of crucifixion and death in order to save the world from sin. Lizzie’s Christlike nature is emphasized by her instruction to Laura: “Eat me, drink me, love me.” This echoes Christ’s words to his disciples at the Last Supper, during which he told them to eat his body and drink his blood.

On hearing that Lizzie braved a meeting with the goblin men, Laura is distraught, and begins tearing her hair in grief. She fears that Lizzie will become dejected, listless, and withered just as she has become.

Sucking the fruit juices from her sister’s battered body, which she “kissed and kissed” “with a hungry mouth,” Laura begins to revive. This miraculous moment of healing, brought about by Lizzie’s Christ-like act of self-sacrifice, is also sexually charged and homoerotic, indicating that the poem lends itself to more complex readings than just religious allegory or fairytale. When sucked from her sister’s body, the delicious but poisonous fruit is transformed into a bitter but restorative medicine. After Laura drinks it, she seemingly loses control of her body, leaping and writhing like one possessed. In contrast to the erect, upright imagery associated with Lizzie’s ability to withstand the goblin attack, Laura is compared to towers that crumble during an earthquake and a ship’s mast struck by lightning. Like Christ, who withstood crucifixion and death before rising from the dead to eternal life, Laura seems temporarily to succumb to the ordeal and drops down as if dead.

Lizzie, who has just withstood a violent physical assault, cares for her sister throughout the night. On waking in the morning, the siblings find that Laura has been restored to health and youth; symbolically, Laura’s life, which seemed to be at risk, has dawned again. Her hair has been restored to its golden color, signifying the return of her health, joy, and peace of mind.

That both Laura and Lizzie become wives and mothers is significant. In many nineteenth-century narratives and works of art, fallen women die, are transported out of England and into the colonies, or are otherwise denied opportunities for marriage and motherhood—which, together, were commonly viewed as the ideal state for women at that time. With Laura and Lizzie, Rossetti seems to counter the pervasive message that fallen women were largely irredeemable. Laura’s instruction to her own and Lizzie’s daughters to support one another and cling together “For there is no friend like a sister,” creates a vision of female solidarity and care to counter the dangers of predatory (goblin) men.