Christina Rosetti's "Goblin Market" hints incestuous lesbian love as an alternative to a heterogeneous relationship. "Goblin Market" is about a woman's [Laura] attempt to create a perfect, true love relationship with a man which ends with her hope and love dashed to the ground. With her heart broken and her dreams shattered, Laura turns to her sister, Lizzie, for the comfort and security she once looked for in a man. This in turn forms an incestuous bond between the two sisters. In the poem, Rosetti uses many vivid images to literate an incestuous lesbian love affair between two sisters.

At the beginning of the poem we learn of two sisters, Laura and Lizzie, who have a close relationship: "Crouching close together/ In the cooling weather,/ With clasping arms and cautioning lips,/ With tingling cheeks and finger tips./ 'Lie close,' Laura said," Here the two sisters are hiding together, secretly gazing on the goblin men. In the poem the 'goblin men' represent the human figure of man. We soon find that Lizzie is very apprehensive of the goblin men and she warns her sister of impending danger: " 'We must not look at goblin men,/ We must not buy their fruits;/ Who know

s upon what soil they fed/ Their hungry thirsty roots?' " This is Lizzie's first warning, two more times does she warn her sister of the goblin men. Laura refuses to listen to Lizzie.

With the bought goods of fruit in her hands now, Laura becomes mesmerized by the succulent, sweet taste of its sexual nectar: "Then sucked their fruit globes fair or red:/ Sweeter than honey from the rock./ Stronger than man-rejoicing wine,/ Clearer than water flowed that juice;/ She never tasted such before." Here we see that Laura immediately becomes enamored with the fruit offered to her. She becomes addicted: "She sucked and sucked and sucked the more/ Fruits which that unknown orchard bore;/ She sucked until her lips were sore;" In this line Laura saps all the succulent juices from the fruit. She has never tasted love so sweet. As soon as she drinks all the juice from the fruit in her possession she immediately wants more, but she only finds herself to be without anymore fruit. Laura is sad and alone. The goblin men have strangely disappeared.

Upon returning home Laura is met at the front gate by Lizzie. It is now to the point in the poem where we see Laura setting herself up for destruction. She has become addicted to the goblin fruit, so much that she will go in search of it again when the morrow comes. Not only is Laura addicted to the fruit, but she has also given a part of her body to the goblin men. We could say that she shares a heterogeneous love relationship with the goblin men. Laura has left herself to the mercy of man. It is when Laura returns the next evening to search for the goblin men that she discovers that they are no where to be heard or found. Only Lizzie can hear the goblin's cry: "Laura turned cold as stone/ To find her sister hear that cry alone." Laura now realizes that she will never be able to taste the succulent fruit of the goblin men again.

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Approximate Word count = 1278
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)