Christina Rosetti's "Goblin Market"
...to purloin” (ll.116-117). The goblins strike a deal with her. They tell her that she can buy some fruit for a lock of hair. Laura then “clipped a precious golden lock, / [s]he dropped a tear more rare than pearl” (ll. 126-127). The goblins then let her eat the fruit, and she “sucked their fruit globes fair or red: / [s]weeter than honey from the rock, / [s]tronger than man-rejoicing wine” (ll.128-130). Once she tastes the forbidden fruit, she becomes obsessed. Laura’s obsession with the goblins and their fruit begins to take over her life. Once she has experienced the fruit, or the world of passion, she can never go back. Her obsession begins to affect her health. She “pined and pined away; / [s]ought them by night and day, / [f]ound them no more but dwindled and grew grey” (ll.154-156). She can think of nothing else but the fruit. Even though she ate plenty of the fruit, she can never get enough, and her “mouth waters still” (l.166). She spends her days “in an absent dream” (l. 211). Her obsession completely takes over her life, and she is “listening ever, but not catching / [t]he customary cry, / ‘Come buy, come buy’” (ll.230-233). Laura has tasted the forbidden fruit of passion, and now she must deal with the consequences. Her obsession is slowly destroying her. Her “hair grew thin and grey” (l.277). Lizzie sees the effect the fruit is having on Laura, and decides to do something about it. Lizzie is the Christ-figure of the poem. She sacrifices herself for her sister. She visits the goblin market, and refuses the fruit. The goblins then get angry, and “held her hands and squeezed their fruits / [a]gainst her mouth to make her eat” (ll. 406-407). She then goes back to Laura full of the juice. She tells Laura to “come and kiss [her]” (l. 466). Lizzie even uses the words of Christ at the last supper when she tells Lizzie to “eat me, drink me, love me” (l. 471). She sacrifices her body for Laura. Laura then “clung about her sister, / [k]issed and kissed and kissed her” (ll. 485-486). Lizzie has saved her s...