Goblin Market Themes

In many folktales you can see common themes. Many of these folktales include reoccurrences of not so intelligent protagonists getting tricked by (usually sexually attractive) antagonists, and the same characters giving up something in exchange for something totally not worth it in the end. These themes are incredibly clear in The Goblin Market. While reading some folktales, I noticed that The Woman Who Humored Her Lover at Her Husband's Expense and The Story of Mr. Vinegar had the same themes as well. In The Goblin Market, two sweet, innocent, pure girls (girls so pure they were represented by being gold and pearl in aura, almost God-like) face a daily temptation. These girls live their life hearing the calls from these so called “goblin men” to buy their fruit. This could be a

This story is about a beautiful, tempting woman whom’s husband loves her. He speaks so highly of her and then that turns around and bites him in the butt. She is cheating on him. Her other man wants to have this fancy meal so she convinces her husband to go out and get her all of this food because she “wants to have company”. She tells the other man that she will just give him the food she cooked and pull one over on her husband. When her husband comes home with one guest, she tells him he needs to go out and get more friends. While he’s doing that, the wife tells his original guest that he was planning on castrating him and gives her lover the food. The guest, of course, runs away when he hears that. Then, the husband comes home and the wife tells him he ran away with two geese. He yells that the man can keep one if he gives him the other. The guest thinks he’s talking about his testicles so he continues running. As weird as an example this is, it still works. The common theme is of trickery. The goblins trick the girls, while the woman tricks her husband and the