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Goblin Market by Amirul Afiq (193317)



The Goblin Market poem and the relations with today’s world



Goblin Market was written by Christina Rossetti and published in 1862, alongside with the publication of Goblin Market and Other Poems. One of the main ideas of Goblin Market is to describe the power of feminism, and also the effects from sexual abuse of unknown men, in which is really related to the social norms during the Victorian era, when some women at that time especially on the lower class faced prostitution, hence the term ‘fallen women’ was introduced at that period.


The “fallen women”, as drawn by Dante Gabriel Rossetti on his works Found. (He happens to be Christina Rossetti’s brother.)


The poem begins with the words:

Morning and evening
Maids heard the goblins cry:
“Come buy our orchard fruits,
Come buy, come buy"

Which describes the situation of women being persuaded by men to get laid with them with satisfying pleasure they can endure, as some of them can be easily fooled. As even so, in the poem, Laura said:

 “We must not look at goblin men,
We must not buy their fruits:
Who knows upon what soil they fed
Their hungry thirsty roots?”

Which explains that they should not be fell with an unknown man’s wishes, and agreed by her sister Lizzie. However, Laura later fell with them, and eventually tried out their “goblin fruits”. Then, Laura realized that she had been fooled, the same fate as with her friend Jeanie:

Day after day, night after night,
Laura kept watch in vain
In sullen silence of exceeding pain.
She never caught again the goblin cry:
 “Come buy, come buy;”—

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,
In earliest winter time
With the first glazing rime,
With the first snow-fall of crisp winter time.


In the end, Christina describes their own sisterly love, which empowers the meaning of feminism:


Would tell them how her sister stood
In deadly peril to do her good,
And win the fiery antidote:
Then joining hands to little hands
Would bid them cling together,
“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.”

And so, what does Goblin Market do relate with today’s world?

Today, we do see feminist movements happening around in the world, particularly in the United States with the #MeToo movement, that the sexual harassments is still happening around the modern times with wrongdoings towards women by men themselves, and it’s even more strengthening with the Women’s March happening at the same place that shows the power of feminism that able to topple down the powers of men. Although that the poem had been published a long time ago, it seems to myself as it is still relevant today until there is a permanent solution to end this. Even so, both parties should have a better thought about what’s best for both parties to go along without having to harassing each other and may end up hurting one’s party to left suffering.

By Muhammad Amirul Afiq bin Hazamee (193317)

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