A Marxist Criticism of Goblin Market

In addition Rosetti’s treatment of her female characters is, in some ways, important for revealing the prevailing ideologies of the time, as well as perhaps other more radical ones which were shared by the poet herself. Her depictions of the two sisters, Laura and Lizzie, can be viewed largely as a perpetuation of Victorian superstructure, which is (as defined by Bertens, H.) ‘the general process of social, political and intellectual life’. Lizzie, who has maintained her innocence, possesses the rudimentary understanding that one’s moral response to evil should be to avoid it and experiences a kind of ascension as a result. Her resistance against the goblin attack is described in terms of the colours white, blue and gold, with reference to a ‘royal virgin town’ (418), which link Lizzie by association to the Virgin Mary or, as D. M. R. Bentley and Diane D'Amico propose, Marian. This association is important as Lizzie steps into the assumed role of the redeeming Christ figure.  Now that she has succumbed to temptation, and has fallen Laura has no such moral compass and becomes ostracized as a result. She no longer tends to household duties: she neglects the livestock, stops baking and sits, brooding, by the fire. Laura’s refusal to attend these chores further places her outside the domestic sphere, because she is no longer able to perform the tasks that will someday give her value as a wife. That marriage is the main goal of the female characters in the context of the poem is implied by Lizzie’s musings of Jeannie’s fall and subsequent death:

‘She thought of Jeanie in her grave,
who should have been a bride…’ (312-3)

Jeannie represents the archaic belief in Victorian society that the ‘fallen women’ is bound to die early. This latter reading is evidenced in ‘Goblin Market’ through Lizzie’s physical deterioration. She ages prematurely:

‘Her hair grew thin and gray;
she dwindled, as the fair full moon doth turn
to swift decay…’ (277-9)

and experiences a loss of reproductive ability.  When Laura tries to cultivate a fruit tree from the kernel stone of one of the goblins' fruits, watering it with her tears, the pit does not take root and grow.  

In Laura, however, Rosetti asserts her belief in redemption and restoration for the women who transgress. That the writing of ‘Goblin Market’ coincided with the period during which Rosetti worked at the Highgate Penitentiary attests to this belief.  While Jeannie dies because of her sins, Laura is restored. Laura openly tells Lizzie of the bliss she experienced in eating her fill of the ‘sugar-sweet’ fruit (183), without compromising their relationship at all. Rather than rejection, Rosetti writes of the closeness, almost co-mingling of the sisters:

‘Golden head by golden head,
Like two pigeons in one nest’. (184-5)

Rosetti’s attitude towards unconventionality is significant, for she seems to encourage, by her writing, an ideology of acceptance rather than judgment. Laura is able to live a ‘normal’ life by the end of the poem and becomes a respectable wife and mother, whereas in Rosetti’s society, women once ‘fallen’ could not regain respectability. It appears then, that Rosetti is not necessarily condemning sexual exploration as sinful, but rather she questions whether to do so would be profitable.

For a Marxist critic, the exploitation of one social class by another is explored extensively with regards to modern-industrial capitalism. For some, the result of this exploitation is alienation; a state which comes about when a worker is made to perform repetitive tasks of which he or she has no overall grasp. These alienated workers have undergone the process of ‘reification’, which is a term used in Marx’s major work, ‘Das Kapital’. It concerns the way, when capitalist goals and questions of profit are ‘paramount’, workers are ‘bereft of their full humanity’ and thought of as ‘hands’. People, in a word become things. To sum up:

‘The capitalist mode of production generates a view of the world – focused on profit – in which ultimately all of us function as objects and become alienated from ourselves.’ (Bertens H.)

        It is notable, therefore, that when Rosetti describes her chief antagonists, the goblins, they are portrayed as animal like. They are likened to cats, rats, snails, wombats etc; attributes that firmly separate them from human men. This condition results from the damaging effects of living under a capitalist regime, effects that have gradually caused the goblins lose touch with their own humanity.

        Rosetti also explores the concept of ‘reification’ by reference to her female character, Laura. Her lack of coin with which to purchase the goblin’s fruit places her in the precarious position of dependence on the goblins. Her acknowledgement that the only gold she possesses is to be found on the ‘furze’  (120) begins a short negotiation that takes place, in which party offers an alternative form of payment for the fruit. Laura’s suggestion of the yellow flowers on a bush is rejected in favour of a more personal payment – a lock of her own hair.  This is significant on a number of levels. Firstly, Laura’s hair is golden, so it is associated with monetary value. Also, it is literally a part of Laura – something that she must cut from herself in order to give to the goblins. Finally, hair is biblically symbolic of a women’s pride; to cut her hair is to defile herself in the eyes of a religious community. Specifically, gold hair in Victorian society often represented innocence threatened by defilement and was connected to commerce by the associative colour, according to Elizabeth Gitter. Therefore, Laura is literally selling herself in order to experience the fruit and, in the eyes of Marx, becomes alienated from her humanity as a result.

        The implications of ‘Goblin Market’ are wide ranging and ambiguous, just as are the views of its author. Rosetti pulls down the ideological boundaries of femininity and sexuality through her characterization and language, only to reestablish them at the poem’s close. Yet, to a Marxist critic, this is evidence of the turbulent times Rosetti found herself writing in and analysis reveals the underlying ideologies which were present under the surface of the seemingly conventional Victorian world.