Goblin Market/Symbolism
Symbols in this poem vary from the use of fruits, the moon, flowers, sisterhood, money and water. Firstly, even though, the title of the poem: Goblin Market seems self-explanatory, as we can instantly assume that this poem is about a fruit-market which is run by goblins this sounds like it’s a poem which sounds like a fairy-tale/fantasy or maybe a story which focuses on little kids. Although, it is strongly argued against that this Is not a story aimed at kids as most of the sexy-stuff which appends In the poem Is Implied, rather than It being explicitly described.
This is because most lines are almost ‘ludicrously-erotic’ thereby It cannot be said that this Is suitable for It being aimed at young children/SLD. So we can Infer that this title Is very deceptive as there Is a lot more going on under the surface of the Image of a fruit-market. Furthermore. The title Is very deceptive to the readers as from the title we are only told that the poem is about a market but we aren’t given much detail on hat type of market it is and what is being sold by the goblins.
The underlining deception of this poem is that this poem is about the Victorian ‘marriage-market’ which is a term referred to the underhand manipulations many men and women undergo in order to marry and move up the hierarchy in society. The symbolism of fruit in this poem is that it symbolizes the temptation which is openly displayed in society. Alternatively, it could also be said that it is a metaphor for sex and because it’s being advertised everywhere it is being perceived as a product which can be ought.
This refers back to the fruit being a huge temptation as the ;fruit’ Is a given object used In the poem to describe people who have been tempted and given Into temptation. Rosettes states, In the poem In line 406-407: “Held her hands and squeezed their fruits, against her mouth to make her eat”. This is an intense imagery being portrayed in the poem as the Goblins have pinned Lassie’s hand and are now trying to force-feed her, the juice of the ‘fruit’.
This thereby, can be argued that the rut’ is not in fact the actual fruit but instead it is a figure of speech which is being used to describe the action of the intense image of violence and rape. Alternatively, the use of the flowers in the poem symbolizes the fragile purity of women who haven’t been married yet and have not given into temptation of those goblin fruit. However, in reality it is known that flowers can be ‘plucked’ so in a sense this can represent the loss of purity from those individuals. The loss of purity can therefore indicate that the women have given Into temptation of the goblin fruit.
Evidence of this Is given In the poem as Rosettes states In line 150-151: “ate their fruits and wore their flowers, Plucked from bowers” the use of the word ‘bower’ can have multiple meanings as it can either be read to be a shady part of a garden or it is also used for suggested the loss of virginity when it says that the flower’ has been ‘plucked’ from a ‘bower’ Furthermore, this poem primarily focuses on female heroism and sisterhood as the main characters- Laura and Leslie- are both living in a fantasy parallel universe with a distinct lack of human contact with men.
So thereby, we can read the poem by closely understanding the relationship and bond these 2 sisters have. Rosettes states in the poem “for there is no friend like a sister”, this quote represents sisterhood as it infers that Laura and Leslie will always be there for each other and also it was with the help of Leslie that Laura was able to live a normal life after she had still given into temptation. This was purely because of the fact that she was lucky enough to have a sister to redeem herself from being a similar tragedy like the character of Jeannie.
