Author: AVeryStrangeHoard

Michel Foucault is relatable not only to our modern day constructions of sexuality, but to the coded language and repression seen in our Victorian texts. Sexuality and power have a complicated and oddly paradoxical connection, especially in the production and reproduction of power, silence, and sexuality. The act of speaking about sex “has the appearance of deliberate transgression” because of the carefully maintained silence and disappearance of all non-normal sexuality (Foucault, 6). This idea that sex is both invisible yet everywhere, and that language or speaking is extremely significant, really reminded me of Goblin Market. The fruit, “sucked and sucked and sucked the more”, seem to have a strong sexual imagery (Rossetti, 476). If eating the fruit represents a sex act, then it’s even more interesting that they are sold. The goblins become more othered by their vocal and enthusiastic speech about sex. They sell and give voice to what Lizzie and Laura aren’t supposed to even look at- nothing to see, look away from sexuality. While Laura actively goes to the goblins wanting fruit, Lizzie speaks to the goblins- acting against the normal mode of sexuality, silence- but does not want fruit. Foucault also looks for “who does the speaking, the positions and viewpoints from which they speak, the institutions which prompt people to speak about it and which store and distribute the things that are said” (Foucault, 11). The goblins, as an “institution which prompt people to speak about it”, exchange sexuality for some self/identity/part of you. The poem seems reinforces this idea with references with Jeanie. Because of her transgression-eating the fruit- her identity becomes synonymous for sexual transgression. This reciprocal and strange process seems to also happen to Laura. In the last stanza of the poem Laura is the only name said and is tied to a warning about sexual transgression. The “institution” of goblins prompted speech about sex and seem to make Laura and Jeanie ‘others’ for eating the fruit. However Lizzie does not feel this same stigma. She speaks about sex, or perhaps enters into the realm of sexuality, but does not eat the fruit. The absence of the sexual act seems to let her identity remain normal or unidentified. I wonder then, why the goblins attacked Lizzie and in the way they did. Does her being covered in fruit translate to the way sexuality is being assigned by society whether you consent or not? I’m not sure where these connection might lead, or if they’re fruitful (pun intended), but I think they’re interesting.

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?

Walter Hartright is the main narrator of Wilkie Collin’s The Woman in White however he is not trustworthy. From the start the reader is told by Walter that he has put together these narrations to prove his beloved Laura’s identity as though the reader is judge and jury in the court of her life. Walter seems to pride himself on the virtue of his motives, on his ability to stay above the other men in the story who are driven by greed or malice. Whereas Percival wants Laura for her money, her property, Walter is convinced that his love for Laura is honest and pure. However the language that Walter uses about Laura contradicts that, as Perkins and Donaghy point out in their piece A Man’s Resolution: Narrative Strategies in Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in White “her ability to fit into the role of a charming and innocent young girl is more important than the individuality he is supposedly reclaiming” (393). Walter does not love Laura, he objectifies her.

After hearing the Counts conditions Walter decides “it was hard, when I had fastened my hold on him, at last, to loosen it again of my own accord- but I forced myself to make the sacrifice. In plainer words, I determined to be guided by the one higher motive of which I was certain, the motive of serving the cause of Laura, and the cause of Truth” (591). The repetition of “I” with active verbs like “I had fastened”, “I forced”, “I determined”, and “I was certain” shows how Walter is ultimately concerned not with Laura’s identity, but his own action. This is reinforced by repeating “my” and “myself”. All these sentences revolve around Walter and what he owns. The only mention of Laura- the supposed benefactor in all of this- is in her comparison to “Truth” (591). This does not give her agency or a voice however, it pushes her farther away from any real characterization. She is an entity, like Truth, or God, or “My Wife” (589). These words condense large ideas with many different meanings behind them and therefore fall flat as actual descriptions of who Laura really is. Walter doesn’t see Laura as a human, but an idea. He is fighting not because the law is unfair and was used to strip Laura of her identity or because he loves Laura, but as Perkins and Donaghy say, “because the values Walter upholds exist to protect property” (400). The story even ends with Walter Hartright and his property. In fact, he never succeeds in giving Laura her identity. To the end Walters hand rules the narration and seems to erase Laura from the pages. Perhaps Wilkie Collins is suggesting that to love in the Victorian sense, through courtship and marriage, is to erase a woman’s identity to privilege their husbands actions.

In The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins, the binaries that are used in society- male/female, virtuous/villainous, domestic/foreign- are repeatedly broken, confused and overlapped. One passage that captures this fun house mirror effect is in the discussion between Percival and the Count about Lady Glyde’s death. To Percival’s exclamation “you make my flesh creep!” (327) the Count replies “Your flesh? Does flesh mean conscience in English?” (327). This seems to be intended to tease Percival about his ‘conscience’ but when looked at with special attention to the binaries presented in the book the passage is more about how virtue and honor are thought of in Victorian England. The first assumption about flesh and conscience brings the readers mind straight to virginity. A virtuous woman is a virgin. In other words your conscience is clean if your flesh is clean. Is the Count then criticizing the English obsession with virginity? In addition to this he adds the addendum “in English” (327), not England. He seems not to be making a point about English culture but the English language. What ideas are conflated with virtue? What does virtue mean about a person? With this in mind I believe this passage is meant to make the reader question the language of conscience and virtue whenever it is brought up in the book.

However another meaning for this passage is a commentary on how throughout the story the truth is told on people’s faces. Often times a character just ‘knows’ when looking at someone’s face, especially with the character of Anne Catherick. Her every emotion and thought is clearly written across her face in a similar sense to Laura Fairlie (this seems to change when she is Lady Glyde, but that is a discussion for another time). Both of these women are praised for their feminine characteristics which seem always to include their lack of guile. Here flesh and conscience are clearly linked in ways that they are not with the male characters. Fosco and Percival both trick people by outward impressions of virtue and honor but are in actuality contemplating murder. It is interesting to me then that the ability for trickery seems linked with masculinity when women are often labeled as the more mischievous and treacherous of the sexes.