The Annotated Edition
The Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti
Two sisters, Laura and Lizzie, come across goblin merchants offering enchanting magical fruit that’s hard to resist.
§01Quick summary
What this poem is about
Two sisters, Laura and Lizzie, come across goblin merchants offering enchanting magical fruit that’s hard to resist. Laura succumbs to temptation and pays a steep price, while Lizzie puts herself in danger to save her sister — turning the poem into a tale of desire, peril, and the strength of sisterly love to pull someone back from their own poor decisions.
§02Themes
Recurring themes
§03Tone & mood
How this poem feels
The tone evolves throughout the poem's lengthy journey. It begins with a seductive, almost breathless energy, as the goblin cries sound playful and inviting. However, it turns into something truly dark and sorrowful as Laura's situation deteriorates. Then, during Lizzie’s rescue, the tone shifts to one of urgency and warmth, ultimately settling into a gentle, hopeful calm at the end. Rossetti maintains a fairy tale quality throughout, allowing her to explore themes of desire and bodily harm without sounding clinical or preachy.
§04Symbols & metaphors
Symbols & metaphors
- The goblin fruit
- The fruit embodies forbidden desire and temptation in a highly alluring way. Its extraordinary taste leaves anyone who eats it longing for more of something that’s unattainable — a vivid representation of addictive or destructive yearning.
- Laura's lock of hair
- Hair in Victorian poetry frequently symbolizes femininity, identity, and self. When Laura pays with a lock of hair instead of coins, she is exchanging a part of herself for pleasure — a cautionary reminder that giving in to certain desires carries a price that’s hard to reclaim.
- The goblins
- The goblins are merchants of temptation—charming, persistent, and ultimately predatory. They represent figures of male sexual threat, commercial exploitation, or the forces in the world that capitalize on other people's weaknesses.
- Lizzie's body as antidote
- When Lizzie presents her juice-smeared skin to Laura, her body transforms into a vessel of healing love instead of mere selfish pleasure. The very substance that once harmed Laura through desire now heals her through sacrifice — the meaning of the fruit is entirely flipped.
- The market
- The goblin market represents a realm of transactions where everything, even parts of yourself, comes with a price. Rossetti, writing during a time of swift commercial growth, portrays the market as a place where innocence is constantly vulnerable to being traded.
- Sisterhood
- The bond between Laura and Lizzie serves as the moral center of the poem. While the market thrives on self-interest, sisterhood thrives on unconditional love and mutual protection. Rossetti portrays it as the only force powerful enough to repair the harm that temptation inflicts.
§05Historical context
Historical context
Christina Rossetti published *Goblin Market and Other Poems* in 1862, with illustrations by her brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti. In Victorian England, society was highly concerned about female purity, the risks of the marketplace, and the increasing visibility of women who had "fallen" from respectability, often due to poverty or exploitation. Rossetti was actively involved with the St. Mary Magdalene Penitentiary in Highgate, a sanctuary for women who had been prostitutes, and many readers recognize that experience in the poem's depiction of a woman shattered by a single moment of weakness. The poem is also part of a vibrant tradition of fairy-tale and ballad writing that Rossetti and her Pre-Raphaelite peers admired. Its unique blend of rich sensory details, moral depth, and female solidarity struck a chord, leading to its enduring interpretation as a work about temptation, addiction, sisterhood, and the economics of desire.
§06FAQ
Questions readers ask
At its core, the poem makes the case that love — particularly the self-sacrificing bond between sisters — is the only true remedy for the harm that unchecked desire can inflict. While temptation is both real and potent, so is solidarity, and Rossetti clearly champions the latter.
Many readers and critics interpret it this way, and the poem's imagery backs this up—Laura's lush, almost sensual description of the fruit, her physical decline after that one encounter, and the physicality of Lizzie's cure all carry sexual undertones. Rossetti never spelled this out, but her focus on fallen women makes this interpretation difficult to ignore.
The fruit represents a symbol of forbidden desire that offers complete satisfaction in the moment but ultimately leaves the person hooked on something they can never obtain again. It serves as a metaphor for any harmful craving — whether it's sexual, chemical, or something else — that promises pleasure but leads to dependency.
Once Laura has given in and tasted the fruit, the goblins no longer need her — she has already paid her dues. The silence she endures serves as both punishment and confinement: she is left yearning for something she can no longer reach, which is what causes her to wither away.
Lizzie approaches the goblins, offering to buy fruit to bring back to Laura, but she chooses not to eat any herself. The goblins turn on her, attacking and smearing the juice across her skin. When she gets back to Laura, she invites her to lick it off — and since it was given in love and sacrifice instead of selfishness, it serves as an antidote rather than a poison.
It features strong feminist elements: the main heroic act is carried out by a woman for another woman, the poem focuses on female vulnerability and the importance of female solidarity, and the goblins clearly represent predatory male figures. There's debate over whether Rossetti intended to make a feminist argument, but since the 1970s, the poem has served as a key work in feminist literary criticism.
The closing scene, where both sisters are now grown, married, and warning their children, brings the fairy tale into a relatable domestic context. This moment also changes the poem's purpose: it becomes a story that women share to safeguard the next generation, transforming a narrative of suffering into a source of shared wisdom.
Rossetti employs a loose ballad-like structure with varying line lengths and persistent rhyme schemes to echo the mesmerizing, chant-like quality of the goblins' cries. The rhythm draws the reader in just as the fruit entices Laura — this choice in form strengthens the poem's themes.
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