Incestuous Lesbian Love in Rosetti's "Goblin Market" 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./
Fruit juice mix
Hermetic fruit jam and juice
Rossetti was interested in figures locked in embra...'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 knows 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.
Vernon Laura, unlike her sister, is interested in the goblin men. She thinks the goblins are full of love and they have much to offer: "Cooing all together:/ They sounded kind and full of loves/ In the pleasant weather." Lizzie is afraid of the goblin men. So afraid that once the...