This expropriation and the tension it causes mimics the treatment of female embodiment in the Victorian imagination at large, in which feminine symbols are forced into instability and cause chaos for those ensnared-particularly women.ĭante Gabriel Rossetti, Lady Lilith (1866-68, altered 1872-73). However, when operating symbolically in a male-generated signifying system, her assertive acts are expropriated in the interest of male power and control. Many readings of Goblin Market focus on Laura as a guilty victim of her own willingness to be seduced, but Laura’s actions may also represent self-assertion of her own embodiment. The fruit itself is bought with a snip from the very body upon which it wreaks havoc. Her hair grays, her eyes sink, the color fades from her mouth, and Lizzie is left to tend to the domestic and agricultural tasks alone. When Laura snips a curl from the “gold upon her head” (123) in exchange for the fruits sold by the eponymous goblins, we see this doubling cease. This twindom, however, is dependent on their health. “Golden head by golden head” is how they rest together, “Like two wands of ivory / Tipp’d with gold for awful kings” (189-190). A pair of sisters in Christina Rossetti’s 1862 poem Goblin Market, the two girls presumably live alone on a homestead and are depicted as near-identical and of indeterminate age. The story of Laura and Lizzie begins with a lock of hair.
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