{"id":1015,"date":"2017-11-20T23:37:13","date_gmt":"2017-11-21T04:37:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/?p=1015"},"modified":"2017-11-30T11:37:38","modified_gmt":"2017-11-30T16:37:38","slug":"goblin-market-animal-tropes-and-instinct","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/2017\/11\/20\/goblin-market-animal-tropes-and-instinct\/","title":{"rendered":"Goblin Market: Animal Tropes and Instinct"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Christina Rossetti\u2019s \u201cGoblin Market\u201d, it can be argued that there is a definitive ranking of the species mentioned in the book– the sisters, Laura and Lizzie, are obviously higher ranked than the savage, sexually driven goblins described in the poem. However, there is a startling resemblance between the two that can be derived from a short paragraph. <\/span><\/p>\n

When the goblins are introduced, they are described with animalistic qualities. For example, \u201cOne had a cat\u2019s face, one whisked a tail, one tramped at a rat\u2019s pace, one crawled like a snail\u2026\u201d (Rossetti, pages 2 and 3) With animalistic qualities come a more sub-human and primeval quality to the description. Rosetti chose these animals wisely; snails and rats are seen as disgusting by humans, and cats are seen as sneaky. When reduced to nothing but an animal, the point that Rossetti tries to make come across more bluntly: the goblins are sneaky, kniving, and have malicious intent. Thus, they are described as these more hideous creatures. <\/span><\/p>\n

While the animalistic, \u201csubhuman\u201d comparison of the goblins to different animals are expected, the comparison of Laura to an animal is surprising to readers: \u201cLaura stretched her neck like a rush-imbedded swan\u2026\u201d (Rossetti, page 3) At first, it was surprising to me that the passage would compare Laura to an animal. If she is seen as the \u201coriginal inhabitant\u201d and thus pure creature of her habitat, why is she degraded to an animal? And even though she is described as something so graceful and pure, she is still degraded to nothing more than an animal. <\/span><\/p>\n

This is because in these few lines, Rossetti is trying to prove that even though goblins are very unequal than humans, they still have the same quality of instinct. In this case, both the goblins and Laura rely on their sexual instincts in order to make decisions. The goblins cry out to Laura hoping to take away her purity, and her curiosity and instinct eventually lead her to comply. Since animals are normally seen as more instinctual than humans (who are seen to rely on thought process and reason), Rossetti can degrade her characters to nothing but animals to get the factual point across. <\/span><\/p>\n

What I am really trying to say using this passage here is that even though the goblins are seen through a more brutal lens, in reality everyone is an animal no matter their background, and must bend to their instinct at one point. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Christina Rossetti\u2019s \u201cGoblin Market\u201d, it can be argued that there is a definitive ranking of the species mentioned in the book– the sisters, Laura and Lizzie, are obviously higher ranked than the savage, sexually driven goblins described in the poem. However, there is a startling resemblance between the two that can be derived from … Continue reading Goblin Market: Animal Tropes and Instinct<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3641,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[123801],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2017-blog-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3641"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1015\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}