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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