"Men Sell Not Such in any Town": Christina Rossetti's Goblin Fruit of Fairy Tale

Although Goblin Market has long enjoyed a reputation as one of the finest of children's poems¹ and has repeatedly been labeled a fairy tale, in line with Christina Rossetti's own insistence on this point, there has been no serious, extensive consideration of Goblin Market as a children's poem drawing upon the themes and forms of traditional children's literature. This is true because, in large part, readers from the beginning to the present have had difficulty concentrating on anything other than the framework of Christian allegory—a more "adult" genre—which is so apparent in the poem. This overriding critical attention to the allegorical moral, while it has produced a number of instructive and illuminating readings, has been less than entirely satisfactory. It is the contention of this essay that only by viewing Goblin Market as a tale for children, a tale which is structurally based on the interweaving of the predominant nineteenth-century strands of children's literature—the fairy tale and the moral tale—can the poem's true moral, for children and adults, be understood. Further, it is the interplay between moral tale and fairy tale that allows Goblin Market's thematic statement to be utterly subversive and yet ultimately moral.

I

In 1898, Mackenzie Bell, Christina Rossetti's early biographer, quotes Christina's surviving brother as having written: "I have more than once heard C[hristina] aver that the poem has not any profound or ulterior meaning—it is just a fairy story: yet one can discern that it implies at any rate this much—that to succumb to a temptation makes one a victim to that same continuous temptation; that the remedy does not always lie with oneself; and that a stronger and more righteous will may prove of avail to restore one's lost estate."² The ambivalent reaction to the dual elements of fairy tale and allegory are neatly summarized by Bell's commentary on a contemporary critic:

James Ashcroft Noble, in a penetrating essay called "The Burden of Christina Rossetti," . . . says that "Goblin Market may be read and enjoyed merely as a charming fairy-fantasy, and as such it is delightful and satisfying; but behind the simple story of two children and the goblin fruit-sellers is a little spiritual drama of love's vicarious redemption, in which the child redeemer goes into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil, that by her painful conquest she may succour and save the sister who has been vanquished and all but slain. The luscious juices of the goblin fruit, bitter and deadly when sucked by selfish greed, become bitter and medicinal when spilt in unselfish conflict." This is admirably and eloquently put, but it may be questioned whether the critic has not perhaps somewhat overstated the case for didacticism in the poem.

[pp. 206-07]

With only a few dissenting voices,³ the moral of Goblin Market has, then, from the beginning been seen primarily within the framework of the Christian allegory of temptation, fall, and redemption. The goblin fruits become the forbidden fruit of Genesis and Revelation, the fruit of illicit sensuality. Knowing she should not, Laura trafficks with the goblin men, buys their fruit with a golden curl and a single tear. Having once eaten of the fruit, she is no longer a maiden and can no longer hear the goblins' cry, "Come buy, come buy" (1.4).⁴ She is saved from death only by the redemptive act of her sister Lizzie. Laura's commentary at the end that "there is no friend like a sister" becomes a tribute to Lizzie's saving love.

The moral is very clearly stated and seems to fit the allegorical redemption:

For there is no friend like a sisterIn calm or stormy weather;To cheer one on the tedious way,To fetch one if one goes astray,To lift one if one totters down,To strengthen whilst one stands.

[ll.562-67]

It should be a neat and satisfactory ending, but it is not. Indeed...