Allegory In Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market

'Goblin Market ' by Christina Rossetti is centered heavily around the Christian faith. Rossetti makes many parallels between the characters and circumstances in the poem with stories and people of the Bible. Rossetti uses the characters Laura and Lizzie as representations of Eve, a sinner, and Jesus Christ.

'Goblin Market ' shows parallels with multiple parts of the Bible throughout the entire poem. The introduction of the allegory begins when two sisters, Lizzie and Laura, are tempted to buy wicked fruit by a clan of male goblins. This begins the comparison of the sisters and the goblins with the story of Creation and the Garden of Eden. Lizzie knows that the tree that bears the fruit is evil and will harm them and tries to get her

Laura 's submission to the goblin 's temptation is representative of Eve and Adam 's eating of the forbidden fruit and fall to temptation in the Garden of Eden. The long list of fruits could also be representative of the many different temptations that humans will face during their lives on Earth, “Figs to fill your mouth,/ Citrons from the South,/ Sweet to tongue and sound to eye;/ Come buy, come buy” (Lines 28-31). The list of fruits sound delicious and seem so pleasant but just like temptation and sin, it does not bring satisfaction, but rather emptiness, loss,

The sisters, Lizzie and Laura, can be related to Biblical figures. Laura 's decision to try the dangerous fruits of the goblins have a strict consequences and punishment, just as Adam and Eve had when they fell to the temptation of the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. Biblical references are made when Laura begins to eat the fruits of the goblins. Laura “sucked their fruit globes fair or red:/ sweeter than honey from the rock. Stronger than man-rejoicing wine, Clearer than water flowed that juice” (Lines 128-131). These lines are a direct reference to Psalm 104:15, “wine that gladdens human hearts, oil to make their faces shine, and bread that sustains their hearts” and Psalm 81:16, “I will satisfy you with honey out of the rock.” Laura begins to crave the fruit once she has tasted it, however she can no longer hear the call of the goblins. Laura becomes weak and ill when she realizes that she can no longer hear the goblins to retrieve more of their enticing and delicious fruits. Laura “sat up in a passionate yearning,/ and gnashed her teeth for baulked desire, and wept/ as if her heart would break” (Lines 266-268). The gnashing of her teeth for baulked desire is comparative with the description of Hell in Luke 13:28, “There will be weeping there, and gnashing of teeth” (NIV). Laura 's powerful and baulked desire for the goblin 's fruit is described in a hellish way in this particular passage of the poem, allowing the reader to have a better understanding of