Fall 2016 – Page 4 – Victorian Sexualities

Is Elizabeth Siddal the Femme Fatale?

Perhaps the last thing that comes to mind when reading Christina Rossetti’s poem The Goblin Market is the concept of the femme fatale. However, there are a few instances in the poem where Lizzie, the older sister, seems to possess some femme fatale-like qualities. In this post, I’ll examine how Rossetti’s definition of the femme fatale in her poem In an Artist’s Studio can be applied to Lizzie in The Goblin Market.

The term “femme fatale” was shaped by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in the mid 19th century. Members of the group included artists like Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who depicted a self-absorbed and beautiful femme fatale in his painting Lady Lilith, among others. And although Christina, Dante’s sister, was never officially a member of the Brotherhood, she played a crucial role within the group. Her poem In an Artist’s Studio was written in 1856. The poem references Dante’s art stuido and the many portraits of Elizabeth Siddal, the model for most of Dante’s work at the time.

In the poem, Rossetti notes how “one face looks out from all [Dante’s] canvases,” referring to the many portraits of Elizabeth Siddal. Through Dante’s paintings, Rossetti explains, Elizabeth can be depicted as anything, from “a queen in opal or ruby dress” to “a saint [or] an angel.” Now, the femme fatale, as defined on Merriam-Webster, is an attractive woman who causes trouble for the men who become involved with her. Dante spends all of his time and energy painting this one woman with “all her loveliness,” so Elizabeth must be at least somewhat attractive. Another line from Rossetti’s poem also hints that Dante is obsessed with Elizabeth: “he feeds upon her face by day and night.” The word ‘feed’ suggests that Elizabeth is Dante’s sustenance, in which case he physically cannot live without her and her beauty. At the end of the poem, Rossetti adds: “Not wan with waiting, not with sorrow dim; / Not as she is, but was when hope shone bright; / Not as she is, but as she fills his dream.” Rossetti explicitly states that “she” never waits for the man sorrowfully, but she did when he had hope, when she was in the man’s dream. This description precisely defines a female fatale, a beautiful woman who appears in a man’s dream but not in reality–at least, not for long periods of time.

Now, what if I told you Elizabeth Siddal’s nickname was Lizzie? Because it was. In fact, many articles refer to her as Lizzie, not Elizabeth.

In The Goblin Market, Lizzie isn’t the traditional femme fatale. The poem states that her sister has golden curls, so presumably Lizzie does too, an attractive feature for a young woman. Similar to the face in the paintings, though, she doesn’t seek to cause trouble. However, when the goblins attack Lizzie, tearing her gown, soiling her stockings, stomping on her feet and trying to make her eat the fruit, she resists, ultimately annoying the goblins and causing them to give up instead of submitting to them like another more submissive woman might.

Are both of Rossetti’s characters modeled after Elizabeth Siddal? Perhaps, but more importantly, her definition of the femme fatale in her poem In an Artist’s Studio can also be applied to Lizzie in The Goblin Market, connecting the two poems.

Things are Getting Hairy in “Goblin Market”

In this post I would like to address the vivid descriptions and usages of hair in Goblin Market by Christina Rosetti. I contend that hair is used in this piece as a symbol of sexual consent and female sexuality, and that Laura’s giving away of her hair is reinforcing gender norms and a form of self-subordination. I would also like to discuss the sexualization of blonde women in particular, not only as a Victorian trend, but in general.

The obsession with hair in the Victorian era is not only evident in Dante Rosetti’s many paintings that we viewed in class, but can also be found in the abundance of hair jewelry (mostly mourning jewelry) Victorians were so fond of. Laura and Lizzie in the poem are described as being blonde “Golden head by golden head” (6). In order to purchase the goblins’ fruits (aka to partake in their sexual orgy essentially) she had to ” “Buy from us with a golden curl” ” (4). Elisabeth Gitter points out in her book The Power of Women’s Hair in the Victorian Imagination that in primitive societies giving up a lock of one’s hair or shaving it was a customary practice brides were forced to undertake, linking this practice inherently with sex or virginity loss (Gitter 938). By giving the goblins her hair to purchase their fruit or partake in the sexual deviancy, she is tricked into giving away her sexual purity as well as simply subordinating herself to the male goblins by giving her intrinsic treasure or currency that is her rare, beautiful hair. This physical selling of the self to men of a different race or breed also reinforces Victorian gender roles not only of men as predators/ “more dominant” but also of women being easily tricked into giving into sexual desires (even to men of a lower class or minority race) which can have major consequences on their class status or reputation, or in Laura’s case, her health (possibly a moral suggestion that being this easily persuaded, giving up oneself in the premarital circumstance may lead to venereal disease).

It is also important to note that in the Victorian era it was typical for women to have long flowing hair as it was a symbol of youth, fertility, and beauty. Women’s hair was usually only cut in times when the woman was ill or committed to a mental asylum or prison. While this was done for ‘cleanliness’ cutting a woman’s hair was also the quickest way to take away a woman’s confidence, making her docile and compliant to the prison or asylum’s discipline. In this way Laura was docile and compliant to the goblins, unable to let them go even after they left her presence, she was constantly thirsting for their fruits and under their persuasion.

I find it additionally interesting that both women are blonde. The fiery red or blonde hair is a common trope throughout Victorian literature. Gitter also cites Medusa, Philomena, and Saint Agnes as literary figures that have been depicted with golden hair, in their cases the unique hair acts as a “prosthetic tongue” to their inner persona, displaying how unique, rare, and valuable they are as women not only in physical beauty but in their intrinsic worth (Gitter 939). I found this reading interesting and important when speaking about Laura in that “Her hair grew thin and grey” (8) after she had given herself up to the goblins. This suggests that by giving consent to the taking of her sexual purity by relinquishing her hair she has lost not only her physical appeal but even her intrinsic worth in that her beautiful hair can no longer speak to the good of her character’s well-being. In this way the text suggests that by giving up your virginity either/and before marriage or to a lower class/minority race, a woman is not only physically devaluing herself but giving up her moral/spiritual worth as a person.

Blonde bombshells still thrive past the Victorian era as well which is certainly an area for further research and how blonde-ness seems to tie in with overt sexuality over time (for example, sex symbols like Marilyn Monroe) and how many women seek to be blonde in order to channel this because “blondes have more fun”. (Just an interesting side note I have no direct thoughts nor more words to get into this, but it could be suggesting that both Laura and Lizzie were already either overtly sexual women or that they were simply extremely attractive in a sexually pleasing way)

Whose dream, indeed?

Alice deconstructs her fantasy herself. By saying “You’re nothing but a pack of cards!” she denies the existence of the part which she had built with her imagination (102). Nobody in the dream reminds her, like perhaps the rabbit telling her to wake up, in her sister’s voice, for instance. Although the cards to rise up in what looks like an attempt to attack her, they are harmless as she had already denied them of their life and she wakes up moments after. In this way, she is in control of her dream—at least, how it ends.

The way the second dream—of Through the Looking Glass—ends is quite similar as well. She seizes “the tablecloth with both hands: one good pull, and plates, dishes, guests, and candles came crashing together in a heap on the floor” (225). Way to assert power over everyone and everything in the dream! Here she had not yet even grown back to her own size yet, but there is little hesitation in the way she ruins the party.

Then this leads to her grabbing the red queen and declaring that she would “shake you into a kitten”—another ending where she peels off the identity that she had constructed in her dream—or, perhaps, the identity that had been constructed by the dream (225). And she shakes it, until it does become the black kitten, as she had ordered it to be.

All this power assertion makes an interesting intersection with the moment where Alice wonders to whom the dream—which is, then the story—belongs. Is the red king’s—a male figure—or Alice’s? The red king doesn’t have much to call a presence throughout the story, and all that wondering of whose dream is it—and why the red king, of all characters?—has given me the idea that perhaps Lewis Carroll is the red king. So it is indeed the question of whose story is it—the author’s, or Alice’s?

I do believe that the story itself is an argument that the story belongs to Alice. The moment of considering whose dream it, in fact, works to bring up the possibility of this actually being Alice’s story, not the author’s. And the story goes to much length to show how Alice asserts her power, as seen in the moments above and many more, over this story. On top of that, she loves it. Both the dreams are nothing short of a great nightmare, considering all the absurdities Alice goes through in them, yet to Alice, they are not troubling—“what a wonderful dream it had been” (102).

So perhaps these dreams were all just Alice’s attempt to get away from the bleak reality of growing up to become a Victorian lady taking care of the house, and explore her sexuality and her desires to become powerful. And perhaps, this all is only proof that she has no actual power of what happens to her in real life, and this story is actually all in Carroll’s dream, and should he cease to write she would disappear with a small poof.

But the stories end not with such sadness, but instead with Alice’s sister picturing Alice’s future.

… how she would keep, through all her riper years, the simple and loving heart of her childhood; and how she would gather about her other little children, and make their eyes bright and eager with many a strange tale, perhaps even with the dream of Wonderland of long ago; and how she would feel with all their simple sorrows, and find a pleasure in all their simple joys, remembering her own child-life, and the happy summer days.

So the story is Alice’s—she has taken it to be her own, so that it would accompany her through the moments of her journey in real life. And if even that real life is “but a dream”, then even her life as she grows is in a way just another Wonderland (231). This way, despite all the social construction and gender conventions that may attempt to stop her, she would own her own life fully and wholly as well.

Here, Hold This Pig, It Will Make You Look Older

Throughout Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll seems to be attempting to force Alice into womanhood. The most obvious example of this is that Alice is in a constantly growing. She never has control over her growing; she just blindly drinks and eats and grows uncontrollably.

Another example of this involves the baby that turns into a pig. The Duchess just throws the baby at Alice to “nurse”. Not only is the baby literally thrown at Alice, leaving her little choice but to catch it, but also Carroll’s use of the word “nurse” brings up some red flags. As discussed in class, nurse can mean to hold or to feed. Breast feeding is associated with motherhood and therefor womanhood because they were basically synonymous in the Victorian era, so by placing Alice in a position where she is expected take care of a baby, Carroll is essentially forcing Alice in to a more mature role then she is probably not ready for.

This seems to be a type of trend for Carroll. He is also a noted photographer of little girls. Through our studies of images so far, it has become apparent that muses for his works are generally women. By having girls be his muse, Carroll has depicted them in a role for woman once again.

This is an interesting concept to investigate considering our classes’ contemplation of Carroll’s desire to photograph children. I have not done enough research to see how deep Carroll’s desire runs.

I think it is easy to say that Alice in Wonderland is simply a coming of age story and that Alice being placed in adult situations has less to do with Carroll’s desire to mature little girls and more to do with Alice’s natural progression in to womanhood. It’s hard for me to see the novel this way though considering Carroll’s other hobby. I know a new criticism critic would disagree with me, but that’s okay. I just can’t get over Carroll’s photography and the implications that would have on his writing.

Andromache + Propaganda

This piece– “Andromache in Captivity”–is a reference to the character Andromache from Greek mythology. After Troy fell to the Greeks, Neoptolemus forcibly takes Andromache as his concubine, enslaves her brother, and murders her child. This image depicts Andromache in the aftermath of the Trojan War, when she is living as a captive in a foreign land.

In the image, Andromache’s suffering at the hands of her captor is being used as a propaganda tool. In colored versions of the art piece, Andromache’s skin is quite pale, in contrast to the darker olive and brown tones of the people in the street. Additionally, she is dressed in black clothing (which for Victorians signified deep mourning) in contrast with the bright robes of her captors. Andromache is mourning the loss of her home, her family, and likely her freedom (or purity, perhaps), while her captors celebrate and debauch themselves in the streets.

Furthermore, Andromache has been painted as the Western victim of a decadent and savage society. Notice that the other people in the image show lots of skin (some are even nude), while Andromache is covered head to foot. By subtly contrasting color of textiles and fullness of cover, the painter implies that Andromache is pure while her captors (and their women) are less civilized and more savage. When looking at the painting, it becomes clear that many of the figures, especially the women, appear to be watching Andromache. Their stares indicate that Andromache is merely an object or a spectacle, underscoring her lack of agency and utter powerlessness.

Additionally, fears that European women would be kidnapped and raped by foreign men played a large role in the justification and the proliferation of colonialism. Artwork such as this fuels the notion that foreign cultures (here, the Greeks) pose a danger to white, Western women and ought to be treated as a threat. Of course, this justification of colonialism is ironic, because colonizers posed a significant danger to foreign women. Indeed, fears of foreign men raping white women were weaponized by colonizers to justify the colonial mission, which often included raping foreign women with impunity. Analyzing images, such as Andromache in Captivity, illuminate the ways in which colonialism was represented and justified in art and culture, and can be helpful in understanding the role of art in shaping and circulating the (narrow) view of foreign cultures.

http://www.troutgallery.org/

http://allart.biz/photos/image/frederic_leighton_40_captive_andromache.html

Literally Columbus: Language and Colonialism in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Christopher Columbus

In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Alice plays the role of the traveler through the rabbit hole into a foreign land who, despite speaking the same language as the natives, perpetually finds herself confounded by their alternate interpretations of words and symbols, confusing her cultural expectations. The scene in which Alice is presented the thimble from her own pocket as a prize for having won the race along with all the other animals immediately reminded me of Christopher Columbus’s description of trading with indigenous populations in his “Letter to the Sovereigns, 4 March 1493”: “Everything they have or had they gave for whatever one gave them in exchange, even taking a piece of glass or broken crockery or some such thing, for gold or some other thing of whatever value.” Columbus presents the natives as ignorant and naive because of these trades, which he views as imbalanced. Alice is equally puzzled by the presentation of the thimble, and “thought the whole thing very absurd, but they all looked so grave that she did not dare to laugh; and, as she could not think of anything to say, she simply bowed, and took the thimble, looking as solemn as she could,” (Carroll 20). For her, the ordinary, everyday object of a thimble would not qualify as a prize, but she plays along with the animals’ assumptions just as Columbus does.

These misinterpretations of objects as symbols demonstrate the relative values of objects and therefore the different meanings created based on those values. For Columbus, gold meant wealth because an arbitrary system in his culture had decided it, but for the native Americans, who did not necessarily have a use for gold, it was much less valuable. Therefore, even broken objects which were new and potentially useful like glass would have been seen as more valuable. For Alice, likewise, the animals had perhaps (it’s difficult to tell in a book of animals running around with human objects) never encountered sewing before, and may have therefore seen thimbles as interesting, exotic, and valuable. Each member of the exchange brings with them their distinct ideology, which affects their interpretation of every word of the conversation in a way that is usually not acknowledged except in interactions between different cultures. (This kind of misinterpretation happened over and over again when Columbus was involved, often in ways that were both hilarious and tragic.)

The wordplay and double meanings play a similar role in the books, revealing the types of misunderstandings that occur between groups who encounter each other during colonial conquest. At the same time, this confusion is used to develop the world in which Alice cannot assume anything about standards for politeness (she offends the mouse without meaning to) because none of the standards of her home apply. This sense of constant discomfort and discovery and reevaluation of “normal” that Alice experiences as she tries to converse with the inhabitants of the other world is a part of her broader challenges involved in growing up. When children reach the age in which they are moving beyond the home and their hometown school for the first time, they are forced to confront other cultural expectations and rethink the supposed universality of their own beliefs. Therefore, the use of homophones and misunderstandings plays a double role in the novel, showing both the colonial nature of Alice’s encounters and also creating a space for her to develop as a person of the wider world.

Who’s your Daddy (ugh, gross) – Older Men as Gatekeepers of Sex

I almost hate myself for this title, but it’s too relevant to this topic. Just look up the definition of “Daddy” on Urban Dictionary, and prepare to be grossed out (Depending on your kinks, I guess, but incest terminology is not one of mine.)

One of the most fascinating things about our culture today is the idea that older men are the gatekeepers of female sexuality. In our country today, our sex education system is totally screwed/skewed towards teaching “abstinence” and reinforced with things like “purity pledges” or “purity balls”. Similar to debutante balls in that girls are making their debut as women, instead of age-appropriate dates, their fathers sign a pledge to keep their daughters pure. If you look at the pictures, these girls look like child brides wedding their fathers. Their fathers are ultimately guiding them into the realm of ~womanhood~, and get to choose when they do this.

In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Alice explores concepts of womanhood in a safe, dream world of Lewis Carroll’s making. He allows her to test the waters of femininity, so to speak, by caring for pig-babies, having tea parties, and changing sizes quickly. In the sequel, Through the Looking-Glass, Alice’s concept of the home is literally flipped, and she makes her way across a chessboard with the hope of becoming a “queen” at the end. Along the way, she learns about the backward nature of adulthood, and as a pawn, she can’t see the rest of the chessboard. It’s a metaphor, perhaps, that children cannot see the “big picture” of life – maybe a euphemism? Children don’t know the “birds and the bees” – or the way adults procreate? They don’t quite have knowledge of mortality or puberty, perhaps.

So just as Alice gets close to the end of the chessboard, she is rescued by a white knight. An older man, with kind eyes who helps/allows Alice to cross the river (menstruation reference?) to become a queen (an arguably less veiled metaphor for womanhood). He tells her that she will transform when she crosses the river. He believes that she’s sad, and therefore tries to cheer her up with a rhyme before saying goodbye. Is this chapter, this description about the White Knight seems like Lewis Carroll’s way of saying goodbye to Alice as she enters womanhood. It seems like he’s giving her permission to become an adult and to leave him (and possibly his affection, as he might not be as attracted to adult Alice as curious, childlike-Alice). In this way, he’s the gatekeeper of her sexuality. Only after he gives her permission and guidance can she leave him to “cross the river”.

And at the end of the next chapter, Alice is growing and shaking and yelling at the people around her until she wakes up two chapters later. A metaphor for sexual release perhaps, now that she’s received permission from her father figure?? It sure has another context when thinking about Lewis Carroll’s fascination with her.

The Pleasure in Danger

I was particularly drawn to the overtly sexual Salammbo image in the Trout Gallery and how it actually seemed very similar to the cover photo on Christina Rossetti’s children’s poem Goblin Market. Salammbo shows a luminous, white woman, naked except for a snake draped and intertwined around her body. The snake seems locked around her torso, ultimately in control, yet the woman has a look of pleasure on her face. A man looks on from a shaded corner, playing an instrument that may tame the snake and the woman. Similar to this, the cover for Goblin Market depicts a young, pale woman, being crowded by grimy goblins. She wears a white dress that blends in with her skin and serves to accentuate her figure. The goblins play the same role as the snake in the Salammbo engraving as they hold the woman in place and drape themselves over her body. The woman, though in a seemingly compromising position, does not appear upset, and instead looks longingly into the distance.

When reading The Goblin Market it became most interesting to me that forces of nature control these two women in the images. In Rossetti’s poem, Laura, one of the sisters in the story, is drawn to these goblin men selling luscious fruits and is described as having “stretched her gleaming neck” towards them and their fruits (Rossetti 3). Once she gives a locket of her golden hair to them (literally giving a piece of her body over to them) she devourers the fruit and “sucked and sucked and sucked the more / Fruits which that unknown orchard bore” (Rossetti 4). She enjoys the fruit and giving in to her desire, even though she knows it is wrong. Similarly, the woman in Salammbo looks to be in bliss despite the snake and on-looking man. In both cases, natural elements, whether it be fruit or animals, overtake the women as men (male goblins counted) watch on. Goblin Market is meant to be a warning against engaging with forbidden temptations, yet the text shows a woman receiving some amount of ecstasy from it. The Salammbo image also serves to warn the viewer of the exotic snake and creepy man, yet lures the viewer in to the women with the look of pleasure on her face. In this way, it seems like both instances are overtly showing exoticism as dangerous and seductive, yet also proving the pleasure that can be taken from engaging with these exotic experiences. If these exotic experiences can be replaced with sexuality, a type of danger and otherness to those who want to keep up certain appearances in the Victorian era, the two sources might show a hidden look into the joys of engaging with forbidden sexual acts or sexuality.

Joseph Marie Augustin Ferrier, Gabrial. Salammbo. 1889. Trout Gallery, Carlisle. Web. 3 Nov. 2016.

Rossetti, Christina. Goblin Market and Other Poems.New York: Dover Publications, 1994. Print.

"Salammbo" (1889) by Gabrial Ferrier, etching — “Salammbo” (1889) by Gabrial Ferrier, etching

“Goblin Market” at a Frat Party

Quite obviously, the poem Goblin Market has a plethora of sexual undertones. We see these undertones most notably in two places. First, in the beginning when Laura and Lizzie see the goblin men:

(The line right before this passage is “Laura bowed her head to hear”)

Many of the words in this passage are subtly (or not so subtly) sexual, like blushing, clasping, lips, close, fruits, hungry, and thirsty roots. The line “who knows upon what soil they fed their hungry thirsty roots?” definitely makes me think of sexually transmitted diseases. The interaction that Lizzie and Laura are having in the previous passage reminds me of how two girls would act at a party if one of them wants to go home with a questionable guy. Here is what I imagine the previous passage would be like if the scene was set in a college party:

A guy comes over to Laura and Lizzie to hit on them. He lets it known that he is single and ready to mingle. Laura is interested in the boy, while Lizzie tries to ignore him. The girls stand together to whisper about the boy. Lizzie tells Laura to stay at the party with her, because if she goes home with strangers she could get an STD.

The second passage where we see strong sexual undertones is on page 4 when Laura buys the fruits.

There are many examples of sexual words in this passage, like sweeter, fruit, man-rejoicing, tasted, lips, and most obviously, suck. When Laura cuts off a piece of her golden hair, it can be seen as a symbol of her losing her purity, or virginity. By crying right after cutting her hair, Laura could be showing that she is sad about losing her purity. This passage really reminded me of a one night stand. If the passage above was set in a college setting, here is what I imagine it would look like:

Even after Lizzie warns her not to, Laura decides to go home with the boy from the party. She has sex with him, losing her virginity. She cries a little after, maybe because she is sad about losing her virginity, or maybe the sex was just that good? She also may have given him a blowjob, or three. After, Laura leaves his room, all out of sorts, on her walk of shame back to her dorm.

I was shocked to discover that this poem was written for children, because it has so many sexual references. I was also surprised at how this poem written in 1862 is so relatable to a 2016 college campus. Perhaps what has made this poem so popular across centuries is that it has timeless themes.

Orientals and Goblin Men

collections.troutgallery.org/Obj14636?sid=80770&x=945214

During our recent visit to the Trout Gallery, the image that intrigued me the most was the one entitled Salammbo. In this image, a pale naked woman is lying across a bed while being entangled by a giant snake. Off to the side, a fully clothed, swarthy looking man conceals himself in the shadows, starting at her ominously while playing his musical instrument. The setting appears to be in an foreign land due to the black snake, the apparel of the swarthy man, and the pictures on the wall that resemble ancient Assyrian engravings. While examining this image, two things come to mind: an obvious sexual tone and exotic themes.

The sexual tone is pretty evident due to the nudity of the woman, the snake (a phallic symbol) being wrapped around her, and her suggestive body language; she does not appear to be attempting to fight off the snake since her right arm is thrown over head and because of her closed eyes and pleasurable facial expression. In terms of exoticism, there are certain aspects of the setting that make the image exotic such as the snake, the swarthy man, and the wall engravings. Both the giant black snake and the Assyrian images are certainly not from England, or from the West in general. The clothing and dark skin of the man seem to indicate that he is also non-European. I also interpreted the setting of the image to be an intentional implication of orientalism since all the foreign objects are displayed in a bizarre and sexual way that implies that it is a stereotypical critique of the East. A Westerner would probably view the image and think, “This setting is obviously foreign! Who else but the orientals would lie with wild beasts in a strange room while others look on?”

The sexual and exotic themes of Salammbo reminded me of Laura and Lizzie’s encounter with the goblin men in Christina Rossetti’s poem Goblin Market. When Laura buys fruit from the goblins, the language seems overtly sexual. Her consumption of the fruit is described as thus: she “sucked their fruit globes fair or red…she sucked and sucked and sucked the more, fruits which that unknown orchard bore, she sucked until her lips were sore” (Rossetti 4). The instance in which the goblins swarm and try to force feed Lizzie can also be interpreted as being sexual because the scene eerily mirrors a gang bang/orgy since she “would not open lip from lip lets they should cram a mouthful in: but laughed…to feel the drip of juice that syrupped all her face…and streaked her neck” (Rossetti 12).

Meanwhile, the goblin men are described as possibly being foreign since Laura asks the question, “Who knows upon what soil they fed their hungry thirsty roots?” (Rossetti 2), hinting that the goblins are from other lands or “soils.” Either way, the goblins men are clearly not human and are strange, which is similar to the exotic themes of Salammbo. By being foreign like the figures of Salammbo, the goblins are portrayed in a dangerous, bizarre, and “sexual” manner. The woman in Salammbo lies with a snake, a dangerous animal, and the goblin men, who are vicious and animal-like, have a “sexual” encounter with Laura and Lizzie. The goblins are therefore outsiders who cannot be trusted by the sisters, much like how Westerners of the Victorian Era deemed foreigners such as Asians as “orientals”, strange violent folk from the edges of the world.