Deconstruction_of_Christina_Rossetti's_Poem,_Goblin_Market

Over the years, poetry of the past’s decreasing attractiveness to modern readers has unquestionably provided several unequivocal and explicit truths regarding the state of the human condition. Christina Rossetti’s poem Goblin’s Market positions readers to challenge traditional beliefs and values held both in the Victorian era, and today. Christina Georgina Rossetti who was born on the 5th December 1830, lived to be 64 years old, and was a British poet, who wrote a variety of romantic, devotional, and children's poems. This poem in particular, was written well over two hundred years ago and still has extreme relevance to contemporary society as these feministic martyr-like women set the foundations for the feminism movements throughout history. These movements and messages are still relevant problems and are still relevant in today’s society and our modern way of life. Rossetti has written this poem with the idea to take the reader out of their comfort zone by writing about often confronting and taboo subjects that have become rarer as our history develops. As we see an increasing number of our modern poets write about vivid and obscure visual subjects it shows that we are no longer being brave by addressing these subjects and rebelling against the suppression and oppression of class, hierarchy, race and gender. Rossetti shows us through a number of poetic techniques, and beliefs, attitudes and values of forgiveness, independence and deception, that woman deserve equality in society. Throughout the free verse poem written by Christina Rossetti, a dark mood is portrayed and through that it is evident that intuitions, feelings and emotions rule this poem, making it clear that it belongs to the Romantic period of the 18th century. The context of this poem also portrays nature’s transformative powers as well as hidden religious symbols, like the forbidden fruit and Laura’s obsession to consume it. Rossetti has used these symbols to render an exotic and visually pleasing image which is capable of altering the human standpoint, thus further proving that it was part of this dark, Romantic Era, where the poet uses direct language, onomatopoeia, and supernatural forces to communicate the character’s intended sentiment. This poem has been written in third person, showing that while Rossetti was writing this, she wanted us to feel as though we were looking down into the two sister’s lives, giving us a feeling of importance and divine power. The group which she targets, ‘fallen women’, are the main contender to the plot that is unravelled throughout this poem; while men on the other hand, the group which the goblins signify, are silenced and have no say in this poem. The poem starts off as any other from this period, with the woman character ‘falling’ by giving into her desire for this magical and enchanted fruit after her sister warning her against it. Laura, the said fallen woman, no longer hears the cries of these elusive enchanted men and continues to seek for them all to little avail. While her desire and lust for the enchanted fruit heightens she becomes progressively more inanimate, “Her hair grew thin and grey; She dwindled, as the fair full moon doth turn To swift decay, and burn her fire away”. Until her sister can no longer bear seeing Laura like this, “To watch her sister’s cankerous care”, so she seeks out the goblin men to trade their fruit for her penny, a bargaining tool Laura had not possessed. She is then refused fruit by these enchanted folk when she tells them it is not for her, but for her sister, the goblins then “Hugged and kissed her, squeezed and caressed her... cuffed and caught her, coaxed and fought her, bullied and besought her, scratched her pinched her black as ink, kicked and knocked her, mauled and mocked her”. All the while Lizzie would not concede defeat; she then visits Laura whose obsession was quenched but not fed, bringing her back to life. Through the use of metaphors, similes, onomatopoeia, alliteration and rhyme, all poetic devices used to ultimately grab the reader’s attention and position them to empathise with Laura, as everyone has ‘fallen’ in some way or another during their life, whether it was dramatic and life changing or simply a lesson they have learned. “Days, weeks, months, years afterwards, when both were wives, with children of their own... Laura would call the little ones and tell them of her early prime... Would talk about the haunted men... their fruits like honey to the throat, but poison to the blood”; these lines could well denote that although Laura had ‘fallen’, she had been saved and through forgiveness had indeed continued on with a better knowledge of her surroundings and the perils now evident in her world. This poem was carefully written in order to rebel against the hierarchy and class dominated era, where it challenges the traditional beliefs that engrossed this Victorian society; where the upper class men or the ‘elite’ valued history, heritage, lineage and the continuity of their family line, as opposed to Middle Class’s value of progress, hope, honesty, decency, charity, and conformity. Throughout this poem the ‘Goblin Market’ is cleverly compared to that of the Victorian marriage market, a market where men hold the upper hand; and women are to trade their beauty and sexual availability (their only bargaining tools) for the security provided by a husband. Therefore every female entering this market is, in effect selling herself without any guarantee that the man will fulfil his part of the bargain. The significance of having a penny in her purse shows that she possesses a negotiating power that does not rely solely on her body and doesn’t need to trade with these elusive and obscure creatures on their terms. However, the power that women in the marriage marker have is transparent and in their male dominated society, where men were in no way obliged to stay faithful to their wives or mistresses, men still hold all the power; and in this male dominated culture male authority positioned itself as the objective voice of reason, thus regulating women to subordinate and inferior positions within society. Although as Rossetti has written this poem in third person it represents that she is narrating the story; which in turn signifies that Rossetti and only Rossetti is the unquestioned voice of ‘reason’, despite her gender and class among society; where she volunteered in a shelter designed for ‘fallen women’ consequently making her a member of the middle to lower class of society. By doing this Rossetti is promoting social acceptance through pulling down the ideological boundaries of femininity, allowing women to escape from extremes of categorization and puts optimism into society towards restoring the imbalance between men and women – a confidence that is exemplified by the unrestricted love and forgiveness that Lizzie shows by both ‘saving’ her sister and forgiving and accepting her back into society. Throughout this poem, discourses of deception, independence, feminism and forgiveness are promoted, which oppose those more frequently seen in society during this era; like those of masculinity and discrimination of things people could not change, like race, gender, and so on. One only has to look at the course of history to confirm such feministic oppression and the issues it has endorsed and brought to the world’s attention. Movies like ‘The Crucible’, ‘ She’s the Man’, and ‘Bend it Like Beckham’, as well as other forms of expression that have been used throughout history that promote feministic views and challenge the ‘norm’ of those times, have brought about debate and brought these issues to light for the better. Looking back Christina Rossetti would not have been so successful if she had not rebelled against the traditional beliefs that had been woven into this Victorian society through centuries of male authoritative positions and rule which had relegated women into an inferior position within the human condition, where the only discourse in which they could express themselves was the one that intrinsically debarred them. Therefore, this poem has posed readers to question our own beliefs and values, and has given us an insight to what the values and beliefs people of that time conveyed through everyday life. Rossetti has also helped develop modern poetry and has shown us, modern readers how to convey important values and outlawed subjects into humanity, through poetic expression and both modern and Victorian idioms. This successfully brings us out of out comfort zones to acknowledge these issues that have strangled and blinded both us and our civilization since the beginning of time. Rossetti and her poem Goblin Market are ultimately the foundation for feminist movements and promote both equality and fairness in the social order, something everybody should not have to live without.