Hi, all

I'd like your comments about my essay on Christina Rossetti's poem "Goblin Market," and it's a weird poem.  This is to be only 2 pages because it is a close reading; I did not write a conclusion because I'm still struggling with it.  Whatever you can suggest I'll be happy.  Thanks so much!  K

  The Relationship between Fruitfulness and Work in Christina Rossetti's poem                                                  "Goblin Market"

             Fruitfulness in Christina Rossetti's poem "Goblin Market" suggests the fruits of one's loins, such as the example of the sisters' children at the poem.  Fruitfulness can be determined as work in the fruits of one's labour where Lizzie gives Laura the antidote after Lizzie defies the goblins, and Laura's painful peanance to heal.  There is also, however, the antonym of fruitfulness as evident in the goblins' deathly produce that causes infertility leading to death in the examples of Jeanie, and in Laura's withering to an almost certain demise until Lizzie self sacrifice regenerates Laura's life.  The relationship between fruitfulness and work in "Goblin Market" is intertwined in that one shall reap from what one has sewn.

            Fruit represents fertility because its seeds produce the next crop, but in "Goblin Market," fruit is the opposite of reproducing; instead, it is the produce from the goblin orchard that ends the fertility in the maid's loins rendering her infertile and eventually dead.  As Lizzie entreats Laura to ignore the goblins, "  Their offers should not charm us, / Their evil gifts would harm us" (65-6).  Laura gorges on fruit but remains unsatisfied because the dark men's wares create a thirst or emptiness she cannot stop.   Jeanie does not bear children after eating the poisoned fruit:  her withered body causes the soil in which she is buried to be infertile as Lizzie cannot grow daisies on Jeanie's grave; Laura's suffering starkly reminds Lizzie that her sister is treading the same path.  If Laura does die, Lizzie would be unable to plant any flowers on Laura's grave; ironically, even while Laura lives, the stone-kernel she plants will not grow despite giving it the necessasry conditions, thereby symbolizing a potential life that could produce fruit but the dark men's taint kills any possibility. 

            When Laura brings the deadly effects of the poisoned orchard into the girls' haven,  Lizzie's upbraiding advances the plot to show the danger and possible consequence Laura will face:  "Do you not remember Jeanie, /  She pined and pined away; /  but dwindled and grew grey; /  Then fell with the first snow, /  While to this day no grass will grow /  Where she lies low: / I planted daisies there a year ago" (147, 154, 156-7, 159-61).  Prior to being poisoned,  Laura would work with Lizzie in that she "Air'd and set to rights the house, / Kneaded cakes of whitest wheat" (204-5); however, Laura slowly worsens until she no longer works with her sister: "no more swept the house /  But sat down listless in the chimney-nook" (293, 297) pining for the poisoned fruit, while her golden tresses " grew thin and grey" (277).   Her hair reflects her vitality, degeneration and her regeneration.

             Initially, her golden hair relates to the colour of wheat before the poison establishes itself within her, as in the moment when she and Lizzie hear the goblins, "Lie close," Laura said, / Pricking up her golden head: / "We must not look at goblin men" (40-1) and when her life is threatened, her hair colour signals her approaching death because her hair changes from gold to "her grew thin and grey" (277).  When she is healed, her hair returns to its golden, wheat-sheaf colour.  That Lizzie can endure the goblin men's assaults regenerates Laura emotionally and physically. Lizzie takes the goblins' weapon and uses it against them:  she reverses the curse forced upon Laura, "For your sake I have braved the glen" (473),  symbolized by her rebirth in the morning she recovers from her ordeal, and by the harvesters coming to reap the golden sheaves.