Fruits of a Woman
In early writings women are depicted to be inferior to men, in all ways. They
have no distinct role other than being a wife to her husband and a mother to her children.
They are not individuals themselves. They aren’t able to express themselves while men
have the natural right to be the controller of all things. The poem "Goblin Market" by
Christina Rossetti is a very controversial poem since it deals with themes such as women
sexuality, sex, and curiosity in a metaphoric way all describing the nature and virtue of
temptation’s to woman. Before Rossetti no other writer had made such a direct approach
describing a woman’s sexuality. Writers such as Amelia Lanyer attempted to cross those
lines however did not, while Rossetti fulfills our imagination with her visible details of
sexuality.
In the Victorian period women are well known for their purity and morals.
“Goblin Market” shows a different side of women and the things they were going
through. In the poem we see the goblin men trying to lure all young beautiful young
ladies to eat their fruits. However once they have eaten the fruits they are no longer pure
hearted. Their youth gets taken away and their lives become dreadful. These fruits are
used as sweet temptation to take advantage of the sisters. The fruits are metaphorically
used to represent sex. We can decipher this when we read the poem because as readers
we know when a young women’s virginity is taken away, society views it as the end of
her life. An example of this is shown when the narrator writes, “She thought of Jeanie in
her grave, / who should have been a bride; / but who for joys brides hope to have / fell
sick and died / in her gay prime” (2). These few lines tell us what happened to a young
maiden who also gave into the temptation of partaking in the fruits of the goblin men.
However we see the tragedy that happens, she loses her virginity that once held her place
as a bride. When young women have sex before marriage they are no longer pure and
hopes of marriage are no longer an option for them. If this idea is still present today in
our advanced society we can only imagine the pressure that was put on females in the
time of the “Goblin Market”.
Rossetti uses many examples symbolizing the fruits to be a representation of sex.
Another example of this in her writing is when she describes the Goblin men raping
Lizzie. She portrays this scene to us vividly when she writes, “They trod and hustled her,
/ …clawed with their nails/… tore her gown and soiled her stocking,/ twitched her hair
out by the roots, stamped upon her tender feet/ held her hands and squeezed their fruits/
against her mouth to make her eat” (4). We can see the physical abuse men have toward
women. Men ensnare women into their web; they are then judged by men and called
whores if they have sex and called prudes if they don’t. We see this in today’s society as
well as “Goblin Market”. The author illustrates this to us when she writes, “One called
her proud, / Cross-gained, uncivil ;”( 3). This is what the goblin man accuses her of being
after she refuses to participate in their feast. Like men accusing women of being prudes
she is being accused of being too proud. She does not want them to strip her purity like
they’ve done too many other young maidens.
The poem “Goblin Market” is similar to the bible’s Adam and Eve, and the
representation that Amelia Lanyer took of it. They both describe the women taking the
fruit. However the bible makes Eve to be blamed while Amelia Lanyer describes the
scene to us, claiming that Eve was trying to please her husband by offering him this
sweet fruit. Neither version was aware of the actual consequences to their actions.
On the other hand in Rossetti’s poem Laura and Lizzie both are aware of what has
happened to those who ate the fruits of Goblin men.
Christina Rossetti wrote the “Goblin Market” with very expressive poetry. Every
line contains a patterned rhyme scheme. This style of writing with its intimate details
gives readers an opportunity to see the words come alive. Women writers before tried to
share the same ideas of sex in their writing however were not able to deliver such a
straight forward representation of what was going on in that time period. The poem
touches on the sexual pressures placed upon all females. These pressures are traditional
however we see our society has not changed much because some of these ideas are still
around today.