Class Blog

This Poem is Not for Babies

When I first read Christina Rossetti’s “Goblin Market”, I took it to be a poem about the dangers of female sexuality, pre-marital sex, race, and emotional entanglement, with a sexual assault (or, quite possibly, rape) scene thrown in for kicks and giggles. So hearing that this poem is for children kind of blew my mind. I mean, look at the scene on page 12:

 

“One may lead a horse to water,

Twenty cannot make him drink.

Though the goblins cuffed and caught her,

Coaxed and fought her,

Bullied and besought her,

Scratched her, pinched her black as ink,

Kicked and knocked her,

Mauled and mocked her,

Lizzie uttered not a word;

Would not open lip from lip

Lest they should cram a mouthful in:

But laughed in heart to feel the drip

Of juice that syrupped all her face,

And lodged in dimples of her chin,

And streaked her neck which quaked like curd.

At last the evil people,

Worn out by her resistance,

Flung back her penny, kicked their fruit

Along whichever road they took,” (12)

 

Well. That’s not disturbing at all. If there wasn’t a word limit on this prompt, I’d quote the preceding pair of stanzas, but I think the above gets my point across quite well. This poem uses the good sister, Lizzie, to suggest that nice young women don’t have sex. In fact, nice young women are so against pre-marital sex that it is impossible to rape them, because they just won’t “open lip from lip.” Great. It’s always encouraging to hear the suggestion that if women just resist hard enough, they cannot be raped (although the poem does suggest they can still be brutalized, and have “juice” sprayed all over their faces, which is does not sound pleasant in the least).

 

This stanza is more than just victim blaming, though. If Lizzie were to “open lip from lip,” like her younger sister did, she would become addicted to something she can never have again. In this case, that something is goblin fruit, although the juicy, juicy fruit is a thinly veiled representation of sex. That relationship between fruit (sex) and addiction is a clear warning to young women that if they start having sex before marriage, they will be unable to resist the temptation to do it again. In the poem, this addiction leads them to waste away, but it suggests a slightly less fatal outcome for actual Victorian women who give in to temptation. Victorian men wanted to marry virgins, so if a woman was found to be having sex, it probably wouldn’t have be good for her marriage prospects. In a society where marriage and procreation make up a woman’s entire purpose in life, losing the chance for those things to happen would mean an end to her future. The loss of a future is strikingly similar to the loss of a life, so suddenly, a deadly addiction to fruit makes a lot more sense in the context of Victorian sexuality.

Peter Pan is Lewis Carroll

A boat, beneath a sunny sky
Lingering onward dreamily

In an evening of July—

Children three that nestle near,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Pleased a simple tale to hear—

Long has paled that sunny sky:
Echoes fade and memories die:
Autumn frosts have slain July.

Still she haunts me, phantomwise,
Alice moving under skies
Never seen by waking eyes.

Children yet, the tale to hear,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Lovingly shall nestle near.

In a Wonderland they lie,
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summers die:

Ever drifting down the stream—
Lingering in the golden gleam—
Life, what is it but a dream?

-Lewis Carroll, 1871, Through the Looking-Glass

Carroll’s poem “A Boat, Beneath a Sunny Sky” is a more sophisticated re-write of the childhood nursery rhyme, “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” which punctuates the transformation that Alice goes through from adolescent youth to a matured young adult.

On a website I found online (http://shenandoahliterary.org), which told the background of Carroll’s writing of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass, Alice Pleasance Liddell was an actual person and not a fictional character.Carroll was friends with the Liddell family and would tell the Liddell children (there were three of them) stories about his own adventures while they would all hang out on a boat and Alice became his “muse”. This poem at the end of Through the Looking-Glass is just an autobiographical account of his relationship with Alice and the Liddell children as being something that engulfed his memories and haunted his dreams.

This is all very reminiscent of the tale of Peter Pan to me. Carroll was clearly saddened by the fact that Alice grew up and her youthful self still haunted him. Carroll is essentially begging Alice to never grow up, but that is only possible in his dreams and memories of her. He essentially took her and her two siblings to Wonderland through his stories, which is completely parallel to Peter Pan in the sense that Peter took Wendy and her two brothers to Neverland (Similar names for a childhood fantasy world… coincidence? I, personally, think not!). In both cases there are three children taken to an adolescent fantasy world where they frolic and roam free, with the little girl in the story being the center of attention and the fantasy for the man who is telling the story, yet alas, the girl must grow up eventually and leaves her mark on the guy who awakened her maturity or guided her through her transition. Carroll, like Peter Pan, realizes that children must grow up and be adults at one point- also there is the creepy factor that Carroll was an older man who probably spent a bit too much time with adolescent female children. Peter Pan could also be read technically as a really old man who chose to never “grow up” which may be symbolic of something else- but I digress.

So looking at Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland  tales with the context behind it now in mind, the text just seems to be autobiographical, or at least a retelling of events that actually occurred in the form of a “fictional”, fun children’s novel. Carroll is essentially keeping his memories of Alice in a metaphorical glass jar of sorts. He seems to embody the character that he saw Alice as, so her own personal narrative and personality is re-written by Carroll and that is the Alice we as a modern audience gets aquainted with.The children’s novel is Carroll’s way of keeping Alice youthful eternally, throughout time. An interesting connection between time and Alice is that in the modern movie directed by Steven Spielberg, Alice Through the Looking-Glass, Time is a personified character and Alice is running out of time throughout the movie to grow up and face the real-world where she is expected to marry and be a Victorian wife.

 

Also, here is a link to see some of the pictures that Carroll took of ALICE (who was brunette, by the way…).

Lizzie: Ophelia, Purity, and Rape

“White and golden Lizzie stood, Like a lily in a flood,– Like a rock of blue-veined stone, Lashed by tides obstreperously,– Like a beacon left alone in a hoary roaring sea, Sending up a golden fire,– Like a fruit-crowned orange-tree, White with blossoms honey-sweet, Sore beset by wasp and bee,–Like a royal virgin town, Topped with gilded dome and spire, Close beleaguered by a fleet, Mad to tug her standard down” (12).

As we discussed in class, this is the moment where Lizzie is sexually assaulted, however it’s written in this implicit language that we have become so familiar with. Lizzie is described as “white and golden”, and immediately a red flag goes up. The idea of whiteness has been prevalent as a virginic and pure symbol throughout our text and this is no different. By adding in the word “golden” Rossetti suggests that there is also a kind of gold standard that Lizzie has been held to. So not only is she “white”, she is “golden” in her whiteness. She then gets compared to a lily in a flood, and immediately I thought of the painting of Ophelia in the river. Not to mention Lizzie is seen as “like a rock of blue-veined stone”, similar to Ophelia’s cold dead body.

millais-siddal-ophelia

Consistently in this passage, Lizzie becomes objectified. She’s classified as a “beacon”, an “orange-tree”, and a “royal virgin town” (cough, cough virgin). These classifications then come along with descriptions of being pure and chaste and with otherworldly forces trying to strip her of her purity. All three of these symbols also resemble some aspect of being a women. The “beacon” as an object of light that is cherished and celebrated. The “orange-tree” as the bearer of sweet fruit (children), and the “royal virgin town, topped with golden dome and spire” ready to be infiltrated by an unwelcome force (her first sexual encounter). This language that Rossetti uses is quite reminiscent of a women’s first experience with sex, but one can’t help but lean towards the idea that it’s unwelcome. What really drives this home, is the line “Mad to tug her standard down”. This force, the goblins, that interact with her are not beneficent. They are trying to sway her away from her moral and pure goodness through sexual acts, bringing any possibility of a pure marital union crashing down. Thus bringing any future that she may have, down.

Now, so what? It’s always hard for me to find an answer to this question. Why would a sexual act that is not welcomed also be a method to bring a woman’s standard down? It’s not her fault that she’s being violated. In the Victorian era, it seems to me, that no matter what sexual act that is taking place, it is deemed deviant and the fault gets put on the woman. It is her responsibility to stay pure, and no matter what she must keep it in her pants. What’s funny, or really not funny, is that this sentiment exists even today with the pressure to not sleep around, and the horrible effects of rape culture. Consistently the blame gets put on the victim. They were asking for it. Did you see what they were wearing. They didn’t say no. Well they sure as hell didn’t say yes!

Wait, How Come Lizzie Gets Off (Scot-Free, Obviously, What Did You Think I Meant)?

Yikes. I never thought I’d have to look up fetish terms for educational purposes. Since the prof declared in class that BDSM is a legitimate topic of discussion, however, I retain my right to go there, as it were. Y’all have been forewarned.

If “Goblin Market” didn’t make you at least a little hot and bothered by the end, then you must have the libido of a [comment redacted]. Honestly, the poem has a little something for everyone. Do you fancy huge melons? Or, in case the vulgar connotation I’m suggesting didn’t exist in the mid 1800s, “fruit globes fair or red?” (Rossetti 4) There’s also the “ravish” fantasy, a kink to which Lizzie subscribes. The speaker mentions, in no fewer than two instances in the text, that being forced to consume forbidden fruit quite literally, uh, tickles her fancy (“laughed in heart” and “inward laughter”) (12-13). And who could forget the “juice that syrupped all her face, / And lodged in dimples of her chin, / And streaked her neck which quaked like curd?” (12) This juice, of course, originated from the goblins, who “squeezed their fruits / Against her mouth to make her eat” (12). In Japan, the sexual act in question is called bukkake: multiple men ejaculating onto someone’s face. Sounds like fun (as long as it’s consensual, obviously)!

Unlike Laura, Lizzie suffers no consequences from the ordeal because she refused to open her mouth and, essentially, ingest their cum (told you I’d go there). In fact, when the sisters reunite, Lizzie lets Laura drink from the “goblin pulp and goblin dew” in which she is covered (13). It turns out to be the antidote after all. Ostensibly, Lizzie’s brave interaction with the goblins showcases her dedicated love to her sister. Read the poem again and you notice how wrong the concluding stanza is about the whole situation. Lizzie, you see, derived pleasure from refusing to imbibe the fruit juices. This is known in BDSM circles as erotic sexual denial. While the short (and I think beautiful) stanza on page 13 goes on, through multiple similes, about how much of a stalwart paragon our hero is, neither she nor the speaker ever indicates that this was some onus. Au contraire. Whew! I could use a cold shower right about now…

Alice’s real fear

In class we’ve talked a lot about Alice growing and her desire to stay a child. At the beginning of Through the Looking-Glass Alice is talking to her cat about punishment and utters, “suppose each punishment was to be going without a dinner: then, when the miserable day came, I should have to go without fifty dinners at once! Well, I shouldn’t mind that much! I’d far rather go without them than eat them!” (116) One reason this statement is problematic is simply because one needs food in order to live. A second reason that this is an important part is that it makes evident Alice’s hopes to not grow, and perhaps shows her desire to avoid being nourished in a sexual way. Though it is not stated directly that the food eaten for these dinners would be sweet, the idea of fifty dinners is a whole lot of food. Eating that would be like a desperate attempt to satisfy some sort of desire. After experiencing quite unpredictable growth in the first half of the book, it makes sense that Alice is scared to become bigger and maybe even outgrow her home. Shortly after that statement, Alice speaks to the kitten about the weather. She says, “Do you hear the snow against the window-panes, Kitty? How nice and soft it sounds! […] I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says, ‘Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.’ And when they wake up in the summer, Kitty, they dress themselves all in green, and dance about — whenever the wind blows — oh, that’s very pretty” (116-17). There are a lot of different things going on in this passage. First, the fact that she likes that the trees wake up in a changed state, as green beings, reveals something that our assumptions about her may have gotten wrong. Perhaps it’s not the actual act of growing up that Alice is afraid of, maybe she is moreso afraid of the rapid speed at which this growing is taking place. The fact that Alice enjoys the uncontrollable weather, the snow, further suggests that she is not afraid of the inevitable change her body is going through. Adding to this argument her enjoyment that arises about the trees sleeping for such a long time, through a whole spring season. This insinuates that it is, in fact, the rate at which she will experience this change that terrifies her.

A second part of this passage that, when examined, reveals Alice’s beliefs is the banal idea of whiteness representing purity. Snow is the white quilt that would hypothetically cover the trees as they sleep and mature into changed beings. As they emerge into the summer season, the snow is gone. This loss of snow could represent a loss of purity. It is as if snow’s kiss is a goodbye to a young Alice; she is undergoing a change that dictates the rest of her life.

Fairies, Freud, and Prostitution: The Body as a Commodity in “Goblin Market” and Supernatural

At first glance, the poem “Goblin Market” by Christina Rossetti and the Supernatural episode S6E9 “Clap Your Hands If You Believe” (hereafter CYHIYB) tell very different stories. “Goblin Market” describes the tale of a woman tempted by goblins to buy their (sexual) fruit, and her sister’s heroic (and virginal) act of resisting the goblins’ advances while obtaining the fruit juice her sister needs to survive. In CYHIYB, brothers Sam and Dean are trying to solve multiple disappearances in a town that are attributed to UFOs, but the boys discover fairies are responsible after Dean is abducted.

Digging deeper, both Laura and Dean are changed by their experiences: Laura “dwindled, as the fair full moon doth turn/To swift decay” (Rossetti, 8) and Dean returns from his abduction able to see fairies while others can’t (see strongly-PG-13-rated scene below):

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vS3mH5d8SNQ”]

Both characters were involved in the selling/trading of bodies. Laura buys fruit for a “clipped…golden lock” (Rossetti, 4) of hair, selling a piece of her body in exchange for the magical fruit, and Dean is taken by the fairies as part of the deal they made with a local shopkeeper, a tithe in exchange for their working for him:

MR. BRENNAN: I asked him just to cure my hands, but he said he would do even better. He would make me more successful than I had ever been. He told me he’d bring a crew of workers, that I could save my business, save my name.
SAM: In exchange for?
BRENNAN: He just wanted a place for them to rest, to take of the fruit and fat of the land. I said yes. I wasn’t thinking.
SAM: And the fruit and the fat was?
BRENNAN: My firstborn. Not just mine. There’s been others. They’re not stopping. They’re not going to stop. (source)

Both stories involve fairies dealing in the trading of bodies, whether seducing the person into willingly participating, like Laura, or unwillingly “taken to service Oberon, the King of the Faery” as Dean is (source). In both cases the trading of bodies is incredibly sexualized – Laura’s very sexual pleasure in eating the fruit (Rosetti, 4) and Dean describing “being pulled to a sort of table,” and Sam interrupts with “Probing table!” This is followed by the already-mentioned theory of Dean being taken to sexually service King Oberon.

The fairies are intertwined with selling sexual pleasure and bodies – in other words, fairies are involved in prostitution. As we’ve seen in the “Prostitution” article we read for class, for a sexually repressed society there were a multitude of prostitutes able to make a living, estimates ranging from 20,000-80,000 within the article. Assumed prostitutes were treated to “lewd suggestions” based on appearance, according to the article. So if these prostitutes were so disgusting, yet often managed to make a tidy sum, where does that leave the terrifying, dangerous, seductive fairies? What makes them so much more dangerous than the others involved in the trading and selling of bodies?

Thinking about it from a Freudian perspective, fairies unashamedly take what they want, seduce who they want and suffer no repercussions: they are able to act on these deep, dark desires that Victorians would have but be unable to act upon; the Victorians could displace their dark desires onto these “other” creatures. Thus, the fairies are terrifying, not only for their actions of kidnapping and seducing, but also for what they represent: shamelessly indulging in one’s dark and sexual fantasies.

Works Cited: Rosetti, Christina. Goblin Market and Other Poems. Dover Thrift Editions. New York: Dover Publications, 1994. Print.

The Depiction of Culture in Victorian Art

Salammbo

I was immediately drawn to this image the moment I walked into the trout gallery during out last class. I am interested in the way in which the exotic was portrayed as something dangerous and threatening within this image. The contrasting colors of the pearly whiteness of the woman’s skin being overtaken by the contrasting dark snake is one of the many ways in which shading within this image seems to represent racial sentiments. The fact that the man in the background is watching this happen and blends into the background furthers this feeling of uneasiness and danger that is often associated with “the other” during the Victorian Era. I believe this shading is intentional for the author’s hopes to convey the danger of the exotic and other cultures.

I think it is important to analyze the artist’s choice of using a snake within this image. Snakes have the connotation of being evil, stealth, and sneaky. These connotations go as far back as the bible, whereas the snake tricked Eve into committing sin and giving into temptation. Thus, snakes generally represent deceit and allurement. One thing I didn’t think of upon looking at this image but that was brought up by a peer was the sensuality of  the woman’s face. In the image, the snake seems to be seducing the woman almost, while also constricting her. Perhaps this was meant to induce fear amongst viewers of other cultures being dangerous, exotic, and having the ability to tempt the innocent to sin.

Another aspect of this image I found to be very interesting was Professor Flaherty’s explanation that this picture depicted a sort of mash up of different cultures. The walls, the clothing of the man, the instrument, the materials; all belong to separate cultures. I believe that this indicated the tendency for Victorian peoples to lump ‘exotic’ cultures together into one ‘other.’ This seems to indicate that people of this time do not necessarily care about these cultures and their characteristics and uniqueness, but rather sees them as all the same, exemplifying the very definition of egocentrism.

All in all, this image represents both the fear of Victorians towards the exotic and their lack of education on the subject. This is just a theory, but at a time where travel and communication between people from across the world was very uncommon, the exotic or the ‘others’ likely became something of mystery. Tales of explorers may have reached those who have never left the country, but these tend to be exaggerated and changed through word of mouth. Furthermore, people tend to be afraid of things they don’t understand. Thus, this image represents both the fear of the exotic and the lack of knowledge on other cultures.

Look!  More Victorian Ghosts

Source: But it looks so real! The parallel rise of photography and Spiritualism

In 1862, amateur photographer William H. Mumler of Boston took a self-portrait in his studio, unaware of a ghostly apparition lurking directly behind him. It wasn’t until he viewed the resulting image…

Hablot Knight Browne, The London Stereoscopic Company; The Ghost in the stereoscope; 1856 - 1859. Image and original data provided by Rijksmuseum: https://www.rijksmuseum.nl

Hablot Knight Browne, The London Stereoscopic Company; The Ghost in the stereoscope; 1856 – 1859. Image and original data provided by Rijksmuseum: https://www.rijksmuseum.nl

 

Women and Pets as Domestic Objects

The print “Fannie’s Pets” captured my eye as it appears to be one of the most dynamic prints in the way the subjects appear to be moving, and who doesn’t adore the cute animals? The print features a woman outside, perhaps in a small garden, interacting with many species of birds: parakeets, ducks, a rooster, a peacock, etc. The light shines upon her and the animals so the audience’s attention immediately is drawn to those subjects. Behind the woman, on the left of the print, is a man crouched down in the dark, observing her.

This print brings to mind the role of Count Fosco in The Woman in White and his interaction with women and animals. The woman in the print seems to be interacting with the animals very naturally, while Count Fosco’s interactions with his pets are very strategic due to his training of them. He gives his pets treats when they perform to his satisfaction. He goes as far to call his birds his “children” (270). Count Fosco also gives his wife treats as she gives him his cigarettes which seems to parallel his treatment of his pets. He does not seem to have much of a sense of humanity or intimacy, instead his wife and his pets are objects of enjoyment and entertainment who are rewarded for how they serve him.

“Fannie’s Pets” creates a discourse with The Woman in White that shows the roles of women and domesticated animals to be more similar than different under the observation and manipulation of a Victorian Man. From the male view (assuming the audience takes on the viewership of a man or uses the man in the work itself), the main subject of the print is a woman and her pets and their values are both in their inherent beauty and entertainment-value. When the image is read through the lens created by The Woman in White, the woman and her pets are just objects to be manipulated and observed for enjoyment. There is further symbolism in the image of the birds flying and grabbing the garments of the woman, and while it might be a playful action, it seems to also represent freedom. Birds have the ability to fly away and the woman does not. Yet, this brings light to the captivating qualities that Count Fosco has over women and his manipulative nature towards his pets and women which really leave no opportunity for freedom.

You Don’t Own Me – Ownership and the Female Body

In Christina Rossetti’s poem, In an Artist’s Studio, we are guided around the studio of a painter who has depicted the same model as different characters. She becomes the queen, the virgin in a green dress, a saint, and an angel, but remains nameless throughout. The problem here is not just that the nameless girl remains nameless, but also that her body is used and objectified by this artist. She is no longer a person, but an aesthetic subject that is to be manipulated into a trope. Like Jen Marsh is quoted in Lee’s article “The Femme Fatale as Object”:

women are rendered decorative, depersonalized; they become passive figures rather than characters in a story or drama… women are reduced to an aesthetic arrangement of sexual parts, for male fantasies. (Marsh, The Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood)

Sure, the model is lovely, but that’s all she is. She is a passive figure to be manipulated in the way the artist wishes she could be. The depersonalization of women figures into tropes is too common, and in terms of Victorian literature, it is inherently connected to sexuality. The well-known trope of the Femme Fatale is played out in another poem: My Last Duchess.

In Browning’s My Last Duchess, the Duke is narrating a story about his last Duchess, who is depicted in a painting that he keeps behind a curtain. In the Duke’s eyes, she fulfills the trope of Femme Fatale because she finds pleasure in being looked upon and speaking with men other than him. He sees that she smiles at everyone, and does not value him over everyone else. The Fatale part comes into play when he seemingly murders her to keep her from smiling at everyone, and now keeps her behind the curtain. In this instance, her sexuality is totally under the control of the Duke for the rest of eternity: only he can look upon the “spot of joy” on her cheeks.

Like Marsh and Lee assert in the essay, the Duchess is literally reduced to aesthetic parts – the painting to look upon and then move on from to other paintings. She no longer has agency – she is trapped in a painting, posed beautifully forever. The Femme Fatale is fascinating only because of what she used to be, the amalgam of fear over “female malevolence” and therefore, a control over her own sexuality. Now, as an object, she can be controlled and fascinate her onlookers on command.