The “Goblin Market” is a narrative poem by Christina Rossetti believed to have been written in 1862. The poem tells about two sisters Lizzie and Laura of whom one (Laura) falls ill after eating a bad “goblin fruit” and then gets healed through her sister’s bravery. The poem “Goblin Market” contains a lot of symbolism on addiction to sex and drugs.
The poem is largely about addiction to sex. Laura is unable to resist the temptations of the luscious "goblin-men". The men make calls for her to go and buy the luscious fruit that they sell at night. Seemingly the "goblin fruit" is symbolic of sex, and any mention of Laura being addicted to the fruit may as well be taken as her addiction to sex. Lizzie wants her sister not to be like Jeanie, a young bride-to-be who passed on after eating the goblin fruit prematurely sometime before her marriage. From this, it is apparent that Laura’s addiction to the Goblin fruit is indeed addiction to sex from which brides were warned not to engage in before marriage during the Victorian times.
The reference to sex addiction comes through the mention of the “market” which is being referred to as a sex market where young girls are sold for sex. The goblins are the men who steal young girls being sold for sex. Eating the fruit is comparable to having sex and going by the scale of the "Goblin market" it follows that there was plenty of addiction to sex. When Jeanie died from the addiction to the “goblin fruit” or having sex, the poet states that the flower son her grave did not bloom. It could be symbolic of the fact that the sex-crazed or addicted men raped and murdered her. It appears that her death was not caused by natural means but was a result of a sexual act/s gone wrong mostly from the making of the men.
Further evidence of sex addiction comes through Lizzie. When Lizzie was trying to help her sister she was beaten by the goblin men in an alley at night. The men forced her to "eat the fruit" which may mean that they raped her. This incident gives weight to the sex addiction of the society in general and of the men in particular.
There is a contradiction on whether the poet meant sex when mentioning about the goblins. When Lizzie is able to save her dying sister by letting her lick off the goblin juice from her lips, it dispels the symbolism of goblin fruits being sex.
The addiction to drugs is described in different words throughout the poem. The poet states that Laura “sat up in a passionate yearning” to show that she loved the fruit so much that she becomes extremely passionate about it. The extreme desire which can only be termed as addiction is described using strong phrases. Further ahead she is described as gnashing “her teeth for baulked desire and wept as if her heart would break” (Rossetti, 266-268). These are signs of physical addiction whereby she is in actual pain just as it happens to drug addicts especially those addicted to hard drugs such as cocaine and heroin.
In many cases, people addicted to drugs are warned through reference to other people they know whose lives got destroyed by drugs. In this case, Laura gets warned through her cousin Jeanie, who ate too many goblins that she ended up dying. Thus is a common parallel intervention that gives weight to the addiction status of Laura to the goblin fruits.
The theme of addiction to drugs and addiction is evident through the Laura’s experiences at the Goblin market. After Laura had eaten some goblin fruit, she cannot think of anything else a part of when she was going to eat the next fruit, and this can be said to be some addiction. She cannot wait for the next fix or taste of the next goblin fruit. In her final recovery, Laura has to take some goblin juice brought to her by Lizzie, and this matches with the withdrawal symptoms of some hard drugs such as heroine. Heroin addicts are given methadone- a chemical with almost similar effect as heroin but less harmful, and this helps them in their recovery journey.
The themes of addiction to drugs and sex are evident in Christina Rossetti’s poem “Goblin Market”. First, Laura craves dearly for more of a goblin fruit she ate, and she cannot seem to find peace until she quenches her desire for the fruit. Her addiction to the fruit equates to addiction to drugs because it comes full with the physical manifestations of pain and suffering just as it happens to people addicted to hard drugs such as cocaine and heroin among others. So severe is the addiction to the fruit that Lizzie had to save Laura by allowing her to suck off the fruit’s juices from her lips for her to live. The addiction to sex comes forth through the men who exploited girls sexually and seemingly raped and murdered them. The Goblin fruits are symbolic of sex and in essence, Laura's addiction to the fruits mean her addiction to sex. In the end, the symbolism of goblin fruits being sex is put into question but in all the theme of addiction to sex and drugs is clear.
Work Cited
Rossetti, Christina. Goblin Market. 2016. 16 April 2016 <http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174262>.
