Goblin Market

• What themes does goblin market link to?

  Intense emotion and struggle

  Conflict and resolution

  Gender and power
• goblin market has a fantasy reference and elements
• gobbling market instead of goblin market so it's food related
• Fruit is a theme of women being consumed, maids are often virgins and men are goblin salespeople
• deep sexual undertone in goblin market
• goblin market has a nursery rhyme tone and the first time reading would make the question is it appropriate for children
• Laura is the tempted one in goblin market (laura - whora)
• Lizzie is the cautious one in goblin market
• Lizzie tells us the story as an omniscient narrator
• The goblins are compared to vermin like "cat" and "rat" but there is a continuous fairytale tone, also predator prey links to laura and lizzie
• "Laura stretch'd her gleaming neck" shows laura offering her neck, sexual association and vulnerability, could link to Rosetti's brother Dante being obsessed with painting the female neck
• "Buy from us with a golden curl" is asking for Laura's hair in payment, serial killer behaviour like taking a memento and selling her body, her hair is something immediate that can be taken, both girls are blonde and angelic so by giving away her hair she is giving away her innocence
• "Twighlight is not good for maidens" could like to Nora and the outdoors
• "Do you not remember Jeanie" suggests jeanie is dead, could link to anne-marie and the three important women here and in maude clare
• "took their gifts both choice and many" shows fruit is also drugs
• A03: women were forced into a life of prostitution as men were placid, easy and offered them drugs, if the women ran away they wouldn't get the drugs so they would stay
• Laura and Lizzie are young, only about 15-18 years old so they are servants and virgins
• Absence of parental figures in goblin market
• "gnash'd her teeth for baulk'd desire, and wept" side effect of ecstasy and addiction
• "her hair grew thin and grey" shows Laura aging, early menopause and there is a depression in aging, links to Nora when she gets older and she is no longer pretty
• "But put a silver penny in her purse" sexual reference to female genitalia in Victorian times - prostitution
• must call them goblin men not just goblins
• "give me back my silver penny" shows lizzies strongest part and authority
• Nora leaves a dolls house similarly to Lizzie but she leaves her duties burdened on everyone else whereas lizzie deals with her duties and issues on her own
• Lizzies assault was worse than lauras, do you get more attacked because of sisterhood and resistance?
• The end of goblin men sounds like a chant of different woman's voices being heard and warning their children, being the parental guidance laura and lizzie didn't have
• goblin men ends in a traditional way as its resolved like a fairytale
• A03: between 1859 and 1870 Rosetti worked with "the house of charity" which is a place of refuge for women forced into prostitution
• A03: 60% of women experienced prostitution before marriage when this was written
• A03: In Norway, American industrialisation meant men migrated to find work in America, women were left to fend for themselves and they turned to prostitution, escalation of prostitution made government act to protect and criminalise
• It's because of their gender that laura and lizzie are preyed on
• Laura and lizzie are more powerful when they work together as sisters
• The goblins' power is tied to their masculinity and sense of manhood "merchant men"
• A03: married women were seen as the property of their husbands in law and didn't receive the same education as men
• lack of male voice = power of femineity
• The goblin men are never described as positively "rat-faced" but their voices "sounded kind and full of loves" male manipulation
• there is internal conflict in resisting sexual temptation in goblin market
• A03: at the beginning of the victorian era women were seen as innocent and naïve with little sexual desire and men were blamed for taking advantage of women but at the end of the era women were blamed for enticing men and acting on their sexual desires
• conflict is caused when men don't get what they want in goblin market
• resolution comes from people who care about you and want to help you, sisterhood in goblin market as lizzie gave herself up for Laura and suffered worse abuse