Author: Death

In class and throughout people’s blog posts, it is clear the consensus on Goblin Market is that it is a paean to sisterhood and a rebuke of the sexual predations of men. That is certainly true to some extent, especially the first part, as the last six lines are a literal evocation of the power of sisterhood. However, the poem’s approach to men is more complicated than just a rebuke.

First, look at this section of the last stanza of the poem, where we meet up with the sisters years after Laura is saved: “Afterwards when both were wives/with children of their own;” (Rosetti pg. 15). Goblin market ends on the idea of it’s two leads happily married to unnamed husbands and with children, a reversion to the norm that does not exactly match with the evocation to sisterhood at the very end. Perhaps there is something in the fact that the husbands are unnamed and irrelevant, instead of dominant, in their relationships to their wives as presented to the readers. Or this is an unwanted conceding to her publisher brother, perhaps, but I feel uncomfortable making such claims without any direct evidence. For whatever reason, the best outcome Rosetti can conjure is one where a woman falls into the demands of the patriachy, but finds that it is really barely a hassle. Whatever the goblin men represent in the poem, it is an individual issue rather than structural one.

Looking elsewhere in the poem, this limitation of the representational quality of the goblin men is present in more places. Twice in the poem, both around the middle of the fourth stanza and the middle of the last stanza is this line, always said after mentioning the fruit the goblins sell: “(Men sell not such in any town)” (Rossetti pg. 3/pg. 16). This line highlights the exotic and strange nature of the fruits by comparing to the safe, normal, british, fruit sold in towns. ‘Town’ is especially important word choice here, emphasizing the idea of civilized order through towns and cities, and contrasting this to the wild forests the goblin market meets at. But of course, it is not just the fruit that is being divided into civilized and uncivilized: it is the men who sell it as well. The men in town sell reasonable fruit for reasonable prices (and one must imagine these civilized town men are the kind that Lizzie and Lucy end up marrying). But it is the strange goblin men who are declared uncivilized and sexually dangerous that are the threat sisterhood must  combat.

Goblin Market is certainly preoccupied with the threat of men. But with this evidence in mind, the threat specifically comes from men who do not come from ‘here’.

We begin the novel Dracula with several chapters featuring Johnathan Harker, who slowly realizes he is in a monstrous situation and slowly transforms from a mild real estate agent to one capable of daring deeds when necessary. Given that we know he knows Dracula has left to London, it is potentially easy to expect when he reenters the narrative that he will reenter a reluctant action hero, ready to take the fight to Dracula for good. However, when he meet him next, he has this to say: “… I do not know if it was all real or the dreaming of a madman. … The secret is here, and I do not want to know it. I want to take up my life here, with our marriage,” (Stoker Pg. 115). Instead of a brave hero, Harker is uncertain and unsure, wanting to sweep it all under the rug and start over like it never happened. Just looking at this part of the text, there could be a number of internal reasons for this response. To utilize therapy speak that Bram Stoker would not have been aware of, this is likely a more realistic trauma response than resolutely deciding to head directly to Dracula’s new house with a gun. However, events in later chapters reveal that this explanation is not why Johnathan wants to bury his experience.

The explanation Johnathan himself gives comes after Mina has journals to Dr. Van Helsing, and the doctor has responded in letter form. He writes, “She showed me in the doctor’s letter that all I had wrote down was true. It seems to have made a new man of me. It was doubt as to the reality of the whole thing that had knocked me over. … But now that I know, I am not afraid, even of the count,” (Stoker Pg. 200). Here is the bold hero we may have expected, 95 pages later. It only took direct proof to banish the uncertainty and make the hero appear. Not that a man Harker has never met saying the experience was true without any evidence counts much for real proof, but no doubt it was the authority granted in Helsing’s title as doctor that did all the work. Note the emphasis of ‘doctor’s letter’ in the first line. There, then. Question answered. Not exactly much to make a blog post over, is it?

I disagree. If what was holding him back was uncertainty, why not determine a way to resolve it, instead of burying it? The answer to this question is clear when you look at both quotes. In the first, he is unsure if he went through an awful experience or underwent ‘the dreams of a madman’. This potential of madness means he must do nothing, because to do anything on the matter would risk acting on madness, or even worse, confirming it. The only thing a respectable English man is to do is to forget the matter entirely. Thank goodness Helsing arrives with his ‘doctor’s letter’ certifying truth, and thus sanity, taking the risk of madness from the situation entirely. Johnathan Harker swears he does not fear Dracula, but his fear of being perceived as mad is certainly here to stay.

In Dracula, Bram Stoker shows how the societal pressure against madness led many to hold themselves back in fear.

” ‘The moor is very sparsely inhabited, and those who live near each other are very much thrown together. For this reason I saw a good deal of Sir Charles Baskerville. With the exception of Mr. Frankland, of Lafter Hall, and Mr. Stapleton, the naturalist, there are no other men of education within many miles. Sir Charles was a retiring man, but the chance of his illness brought us together, and a community of interests in science kept us so.” (Conan Doyle 19).

Within this sentence, there is a great contradiction. This comes from Dr. Mortimer’s relaying of information about the case to Holmes, and so this description of Sir Charles’ social circle functions as a cast of suspects, but there is a crucial flaw: Dr. Mortimer does not actually list out all potential suspects. In the first sentence, he defines that because of the population of the moors, everyone who lives there knows each other (and thus, hypothetically, would know of Sir Charles’ habits of going on a walk every night). However, Dr. Mortimer does not actually list everyone. He specifically lists all ‘men of education’ in the area, which is not only limits the pool in terms of gender, but one of class, as having a higher education has a consistent correlation with having the level of wealth accesible only to the upper class, and this was certainly true in victorian england as well. There are obvious implications to this exclusion: upper class (white) men are the only people worth noting, at least to Dr. Mortimer’s eyes. This is not exactly surprising, considering that Dr. Mortimer is a devout phrenologist. What is more fascinating is that this personhood blindness directly interferes with any investigation attempt, because Sherlock Holmes is unaware of anyone else who resides near Sir Charles, and it is highly likely that any women or people of lower class or people of color in the area would have a greater chance of having a grievance with Sir Charles than the deceased’s pseudoscience friends. Dr. Mortimer’s inability to see anyone who does resemble him as a person hurts his chances of solving the death of his friend. Potentially, if Sherlock Holmes were to point this out, it could be intentional, but he the usually astute detective makes no mention of it. Considering how much Arthur Conan Doyle wants Sherlock Holmes to look correct, we must imagine this inability to see people who are not wealthy white men as people extends to the author as well.

“Upon a lowering afternoon in November, with the yellow fog low upon the flat meadows, and the blinded cattle groping their way through the dim obscurity, and blundering stupidly against black and leafless hedges, or stumbling into ditches, undistinguishable in the hazy atmosphere,” (Braddon 114).

This passage contains more highly evocative landscape description, which is prevalent throughout the novel. The specific feeling being evoked here is a deep dread and uncertainty, with repeat references to fog and obscurity and unseen ditches. There is something wrong in the air here, Braddon is saying, who knows where danger may lie. This uncertainty is combined with recurring features of the British countryside, with flat meadows and cows and hedges, which Braddon’s primary audience would generally see as bucolic and peaceful. This seemingly peaceful setting enhances the sense of unease, continuing the theme of dark secrets and hidden dangers being present in a familiar environments that runs so strongly throughout this book and sensation novels as whole. The placement of this section passage is important, starting chapter fifteen. In chapter fifteen, two notable events occur: Phoebe and Luke get married, and Robert returns to Audley Court to fully begin his investigation. This opening passage strengthens both by priming the reader for hidden threats. The Marks’ marriage only occurs because of the threat of physical violence, and the evocation of unease in the opening passages helps to highlight that despite victorian ideals of marriage, this is a very dangerous situation for Phoebe to be in and it is unlikely to stop being so at any time. For Robert’s section of this chapter, the feeling set up in the reader by the opening passage underlines the fact that he is investigating a dangerous matter that has likely already resulted in one man’s death and could easily lead to his. The passage at the start of chapter fifteen may be seen as just environmental description, but it has a definite role in supporting the main events of the chapter.