Name: Mary Xicotencatl

Prof: Chamutal Noimann

ENG 334-004 Children’s Literature

December 21st, 2014

Women in the 19th and 20th century

Introduction

Throughout the course of history, a wide variety of authors implemented hidden messages in their literature. Many of these messages were representations of what was happening in society, two texts, "the goblin market" written by Christina rosette and 'the sick rose" by William Blake focused on the theme of fallen women. This paper will prove that during the 19th and 20th century, women were considered to be inferior beings with no rights. They faced constant oppression in a society dominated by the male. The paper herein thus provides a full-scale discussion of the thematic relationships between the two texts through an insightful analysis by using secondary sources of the original texts.

Discussion

The Goblin Market

Holt provides a profound analysis in her article about the content of the story in the poem, "Goblin Market." The poem was written in 1862 (in the 18th century) as a manifestation of the plight that women went through at that time. Holt notes that the author of the poem, Christina Rossetti made a an insightful presentation of two sisters, Lizzie and Laura who were forced to endure carnal lust just to embrace a higher and perceived purer realm of human sexuality, which is marriage (Holt 51). The poem is evidence of a strong thematic expression of renunciation that revolves around the lives of the two beautiful sisters. In the end, the two sisters subdue their fervent feelings for carnal lust, and they embrace their spiritual nature by getting married in a traditional Victorian marriage. However, the main theme and subtle undertone in the poem as argued by Holt and other prolific literature analysts is feminism.

Feminism An incisive analysis by Holt into the poem depicts the dearth of male description and participatory segments until the end of it. Men are not mentioned as largely as the two sisters, a factor that shows subtle feminism. In the poem, men are the sellers of the goblin fruits in the local market but their actual mentioning is not extensive since the author focuses mainly on the lives of the two sisters, Lizzie, and Laura. Lizzie is depicted as a religious one due to her staunch Christianity affiliation. She is portrayed as a person who rescues her sister, Laura by playing the critical role of spiritual and earthly redemption (Russell, 143).

Holt is insightful in exposing the depth of lust that the men selling goblin fruits at the market are showing. The men are subtly expressing their harbored objectivity for women. Holt notes that at the beginning of the poem, the author shows how the men objectify women. The men sing a perpetual song as an indirect message to women that they crave for them sexually. The men use cryptic sexual explicit messages such as overt descriptions of their fruits that have hidden sex meanings to express their lust for the women. They use the selling of fruits to mark their bodily desires to women in the market (Holt 53). The underlying motive in the selling of fruits is to satiate their lust through enticing the women into bed. The selling of the fruits is just a smokescreen strategy to lie to the eyes of passers-by that they are selling the fruits for money. However, their motive is clear, especially by singing the continual songs that cleverly seeks for sexual favors from the women who come to the market to buy the goblin fruits (Russell 148).

The symbolism that the Christina Rossetti uses in the poem is evidently clear-cut according to Holt. The author uses symbolism to reveal that Laura lost her virginity by agreeing to buy the goblin fruits from the market. The symbolism surrounds the whole episode that describes the purchase of fruits as a way of submitting to the cunning ways of the goblin sellers in soliciting for sexual favors from the buyers of their fruits. Thus, the "purchase" of the fruits is akin to agreeing to her defloration by the goblin men, which emphasizes the use of symbolism in the poem. In a critical sense, Laura buys the goblin fruit, and her sensuality is dulled that she notices afterwards that she has been deflowered.

The author perpetuates the thematic aspect of feminism when she equates the man (a seller of goblin fruits) who executes the defloration of her sister to animals. Holt analyzes that the author, Christina is critical in ensuring that she demeans men by comparing them to animals after her sister's defloration tragedy. Christina describes the men as having animalistic characteristics since they enticed her sister, Laura by giving her the goblin fruit and dulling her sensuality for the purposes of satiating their carnal lust with her.

Thus, the theme that is largely evident in the poem is the depiction of feminism as a tool that Christina uses to assert woman's position in the society. Through the poem, Christina tries to show how men are objectifying women by seeking for sexual favors in the name of selling goblin fruits in the market. The evidence is showed in the way Lizzie's sister, Laura succumbs to the trick played by the sellers of goblin fruits that cost her virginity. The men manage to give her the goblin fruits, which dull her sensuality, and she gives in for sex (Scheinberg 134).

The Sick Rose by William Blake

The poem talks about a rose and a worm but depicting a deeper meaning than just a simple rose flower and the worm. The sick roses as depicted by Blake and the joyous worm are two different aspects of life with a diametrical opposite. The sick rose ends up being destroyed by the worm, a factor that evokes deep imagery that the sick rose symbolizes innocence while the worm symbolizes experience in love matters (Miller, Mark and Donald 225).

The rose exists as a beauty symbol of love that is later infected by the worm. The worm in this case shows that it symbolizes something bad or evil such as the biblical serpent or a phallus. In this sense, the evident theme is akin to the portrayal of gratuitous scenes of sex and some subtle attempts to expand its acceptability boundaries (Miller, Mark and Donald 225). Naturally, love is thought, supposed, and felt as something beautiful. Even with the various challenges that lovers get in relationships, the place of love can never be replaced especially with the intensity of feelings, beauty, and joy it brings to people.

However, in this case, the worm symbolizes love that is destructive through the phrase used "dark secret love." The theme that is talked about in the poem is the innocence that is destroyed by the experience of the worm through the destroying the rose.

Conclusion

By connecting the theme to the feministic theme in the goblin market poem, the two poems reflect on the power of experience of other forceful agents in destroying innocence of love. In the case of goblin market poem, Laura's virginity is lost through her submission by succumbing to the cleverly ways of the sellers of goblin fruits in the market trying to solicit sex by using cunning sayings in the selling of the fruits. On the other hand, the sick rose is a renunciation of the power of evil agents or forces that can destroy the innocence of something, in this case symbolically women. Women are known to be the harbors of pure love as depicted by the rose, but the worm wears the skin of a man who destroys the rose. The destruction can symbolically mean infidelity or adultery of a man to a woman.

Thus, both poems try to show women as weak beings especially in the times they were authored, which is during the 18th and 19th century. However, the poems also depict the struggle of women in trying to emerge as strong as men even with the perceived notion that women can be manipulated used or cheated.

Works Cited

Holt, Terrence. 'JSTOR: Victorian Poetry, Vol. 28, No. 1 (Spring, 1990), Pp. 51-67'. Jstor.org. N.p., 2014. Print. 8 Dec. 2014.

Miller, Dan, Mark Bracher, and Donald D. Ault. Critical Paths: Blake and the Argument of Method. Durham: Duke University Press, 1987. Print.

Russell, Elizabeth. Christina Rossetti: Contemporary Feminist. 1st ed. 2014. Print. 7 Dec. 2014.

Scheinberg, Cynthia. 'BOOK REVIEW: Lynda Palazzo. CHRISTINA ROSSETTI's FEMINIST THEOLOGY. Basingstoke And New York: Palgrave, 2002.’ Victorian Studies 46.1 (2003): 131-133. Print.