vamenro's blog

My first paper’s conclusion

‘Come buy our fruits, come buy…’, if anybody reads the poem (Goblin Market), who doesn’t remember this verse? Without any doubt, the most significant  and catching in ‘Goblin Market’. As soon as I chose this authoress, Christina Georgina Rossetti, I gradually became aware of my knowledge about her was minimum and I should do a hard work of searching. This led me to took a long time in front of my laptop exploring on the Internet universe. As a result, I read several biographies, a bit of Victorian Era and a lot of poems.

Feelings, sensations, contradictions, thoughts, rhyme, verses, ideas, senses…all of this invaded my mind in a short time and I came across with a contradiction between her poems and her biography and I started to fell intrigue about her.

So, I started to inquire hard into her most significant personal experiences to get the right impression from her to come to several conclusions as well as to write a clear and organized work which let you to synthesize all the available information about this famous writer.

‘Day after day, night after night...’,  as Christina Rossetti expressed in her poem I realized that Chrisitina Rossetti could have two personalities: one known by the documents and searchings of her time and other totally different which was hidden in her poems.

Christina Rossetti hadn’t two personalities for the sake of it. She was determined by the Victorian morals and women in that time hadn’t any freedom or consideration. During the Era symbolized by the reign of British monarch Queen Victoria, difficulties escalated for women because of the vision of the “ideal women” shared by most in the society. The legal rights of married women were similar to those of children. They could not vote, sue, or own property. Also, they were seen as pure and clean. Because of this view, their bodies were seen as temples that should not be adorned with makeup nor used for such pleasurable things as sex. The role of women was to have children and tend the house. They could not hold a job unless it was that of a teacher, nor were they allowed to have their own checking accounts or savings accounts. In the end, they were to be treated as saints, but saints that had no legal rights. This is the question by Christins Rossetti couldn’t express herself in society and she had to camouflage it in verses.

‘Flying, running, leaping, Puffing and blowing, Chuckling, clapping, crowing, Clucking and gobbling, Mopping and mowing, Full of airs and graces, Pulling wry faces…’,these verses are full of vitality. A vitality Christina Rossetti couldn’t carried out. It’s a pitty but on the other hand, the only positive thing is she made excellent works.

‘No man can carry: Half their bloom would fly, Half their dew would dry, Half their flavour would pass by…’ . As we can see feminism was as I have said before, her dream. It was what she was looking for and waiting to happen any time now. She never enjoyed of it but she was a pioneer to put it in poems.In “Goblin Market” in particular, she pulls down the ideological boundaries of femininity, allowing women to escape from the extremes of classification: an angelic Virgin Mary, devoid of sexuality, or an Eve, punished for seeking knowledge. Rossetti puts her unswerving hope in Christ and heaven for the restoration of her society; a hope perhaps exemplified by the unconditional love Lizzie shows in both “saving” and accepting her sister. Without boubt, this was her real personality.

‘It never saw the sun, It never felt the trickling moisture run…’, and she never had a satisfactory sexual life. She was twice on the point of marriage and because she was a devout Anglican. She was instructed by her mother in a religion life but Christina Rossetti had another point of view of Anglicanism, that is to say, she gave to religion another and more positive meaning: as a way of changing society. Rossetti puts her unswerving hope in Christ and heaven for the restoration of her society; a hope perhaps exemplified by the unconditional love Lizzie shows in both “saving” and accepting her sister.

‘For there is no friend like a sister ,In calm or stormy weather;To cheer one on the tedious way,To fetch one if one goes astray,To lift one if one totters down, To strengthen whilst one stands…’, the poem could be an allegory to his sister but I don’t think like others that she was a lesbian. Since my point of view, she was pretty repressed about sexuality and it sometimes could had led to confuse her to the point of desiring women, too; but I think she wanted and loved men. She was very fond by men, although she could have a grudge against them because Victorian society was made to them, not for women.

‘And for the first time in her life, Began to listen and look…’ I don’t know when Christina Rossetti began to notice she was not made to live in a Victorian Society but she wrote ‘Goblin Market’ after having stayed at the Highgate-based penitentiary for ‘fallen women’, St. Mary Magdalene Home, where Rossetti was working as early as 1859. So, she was pretty involved in the world of prostitution and how women were treated. She lived this in first-hand and this is the reason which ‘Goblin Market’ talks about prostitution, too. Goblins could be men in a brothel.

I speculate that Rossetti claimed the poem to be for children to avoid the flood of questions and attention she would have had to endure had she suggested that it  actually contained more adult themes than ones that were suitable for children. She did right in that sense because time after,  society has known who has been Christina Rosseti and what she expected from society. Anyway, the meaning of “Goblin Market” is entirely subjective and open to interpretation by its readers, and that, I believe, is how Christina Rossetti would have intended for it to be.

Subjective is a very complex term and poesy is totally subjective. Every person interpret it in a different way and the amusing thing about it is that  personality is full of opinions and points of view. The good point is the most of people coincide. So, poesy and personality go by the same hand. Both are very subjective but the most of people think the same; but opinions don’t coincide is well because it’s very interesting to see the different options that people have for the same person or for the same poem.

To sum up, Christina Rossetti’s personality appealed to feminity, to the women’s rights, to the women’s knowledge, to the women’s sexuality and to the women’s freedom. She was inside a very strong woman and she would like to say high and clear: I’m Christina Rossetti! This is my point of view, my interpretation, my feelings, after all, my paper.

If you want more information, you should seek advice from Weblography.

I can’t say goodbye without invite everybody to promote feminism because a lot of women have suffered in history and nowadays it is our daily bread to achieve men and women on equal terms. ‘Come buy our fruits, come buy…’ ‘Day after day, night after night...’ (Goblin Market)

You can travel through  the different pages of this paper clicking on the images: