Collective or Individual Identity

In Christina Rossetti’s Goblin Market, sisters Lizzie and Laura have two very different experiences with the “goblin men” selling fruit. These goblins are described in very animalistic terms, often having tails, fur or claws. They are dark, and don’t walk, but tramp or scurry. In most ways they are different from the two sisters. However, the relationship the goblins have with each other is oddly similar to the relationship of the sisters. On page 474, the goblins are described separately “One had a cat’s face/ One whisked a tail/ One tramped at a rat’s pace/ One crawled like a snail” etc. However, when the goblins act they do so “all together” (474). This contrast of multiplicity and oneness is repeated with the recurrence of the phrase they [action] all together. Laura and Lizzie, while they often behave very differently, are described as together or somehow linked. When they sleep they are “Like two blossoms on one stem/ Like two flakes of new fall’n snow/ Like two wands of ivory”(478). While I don’t think the relationship the goblins have is comparable to the relationship of Lizzie and Laura, I think it’s interesting how the relationships that people or beings have with each other is used to define the individual. Because of their larger identity goblin or girl, their more individual identities- Laura, Lizzie, snail, cat- are erased. In the last stanza of the poem most of the, for lack of a better word, characters are identified by their larger identity: “fruit-merchant men”, and “wives” or “sister,” except for Laura (488). Is she identified because she has become the new Jeanie—the warning to stay within your prescribed roles? But what if instead Laura has her identity because she ate the goblins’ fruit? Is there something about her journey ‘through’ the fruit and back to life that allows her to claim herself?