Goblin Market

I haven't read a huge amount of poetry, but having stumbled across 'Goblin Market' by Christina Rossetti, I wanted to write down my ideas about it.

Read or listen to the poem first: link

In overview it's about two sisters. Laura falls to some sort of sickness/melancholy as a result of eating the fruit of 'goblin men'. Lizzie goes to the goblin men to try to get some more of the fruit, to ease her sister's illness. When she refuses to eat the fruit herself, wanting only to buy some, Lizzie is essentially roughed up by the goblin men. As a result shes ends up covered in squashed fruit. She escapes home where Laura kisses her to get some of the fruit juices. The result is initially to send Laura closer to death, but then she is healed.

There are a lot of sexual and possibly feminist type themes in there. But to me it sounded like an insane explanation of the gospel. The fruit is desire. Slavoj Zizek has said (somewhere on the Zizek! DVD) that freedom is to escape desire (desire for enjoyment). Laura is beaten by it, she desires. But Lizzie, her sister, goes through the same temptation and escapes without giving in to desire. Her refusal first leads to suffering:

They trod and hustled her,
Elbowed and jostled her, 
Clawed with their nails,

As she withstands the temptation and suffering, she is portrayed as heavenly:

White and golden Lizzie stood,

When Lizzie returns home she shouts at her sister to come and eat the fruit juices from her, which will presumably save her. Although it's highly sensual, this has to reflect something of Christian communion/eucharist:

Eat me, drink me, love me;

Laura's eventual recovery after eating the crushed fruit juices from her sister is described as:

Life out of death. 

It is a remarkable recovery, she is renewed:

Laura awoke as from a dream,[...]
Her gleaming locks showed not one thread of grey,[...]
And light danced in her eyes.

I think all the observations I've made are pretty obvious, I haven't gone into a lot of depth and I've ignored all the sexual/feminist themes. As far as the sexual themes, I think that many Christians think of relationships (and sex) as a pattern, a picture of the communion between man and God. The bible says that there will be no marriage in heaven, maybe because people will be fully relating to God. The conclusion of the poem is this:

'For there is no friend like a sister
In calm or stormy weather;
To cheer one on the tedious way,
To fetch one if one goes astray,
To lift one if one totters down,
To strengthen whilst one stands.'

This last part says that family is important. I think the fact that it focuses on sisters, together with the earlier eroticism, is what may appeal to queer or feminist theorists. To follow the reading that Lizzie is a Christ like figure, it might help to consider what the bible says about Christians being part of God's family:

For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother

Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers.

Link: Poem audio and text at Loudlit.org