"Figs to fill your mouth" Christina Rossetti

Today I am going to show how Literature contributes to the sexual representation of food, using Christina Rossetti's famous poem "Goblin Market" (1862).

Christina Georgina Rossetti was an English poet who wrote a variety of romantic, devotional, and children's poems. She was born in 1830 and died in 1894. (Wikipedia)

Goblin Market is about two sisters, Laura and Lizzie. Lizzie is tempted by the Goblin men who sell exquisite fruit and she becomes unsatisfied, once giving in.

I am going to do a short analysis on the following sections:

1. Lizzie's first tasting of the fruit

2. The goblin men's attack on Laura, and 

3. Lizzie's second tasting of the fruit. 

Below is the fifth stanza which shows Lizzie tasting the fruit:

             

Pre Raphaelite art, google image

Lizzie uses hair to pay for the fruit. In the Victorian period hair was very sexual, women often wore their hair up and Pre- Raphaelite art was viewed erotically with women with lots of red hair on show. Therefore, this would have been read as a sexual exchange. 

Rossetti uses  the device of repetition, which emphasises the action and implies oral sex. 

Below is the section where the Goblin men attack Laura:

This section epitomises the Goblin Men as a sexual threat. They represent rape by food. Rossetti uses sexually violent language, like a semantic field of force: 'Stamp'd' and 'squeez'd'. The smearing of fruits onto Laura's face acts as  a euphemism for sexual abuse. Laura's mouth mirrors the sexual organ the Goblin Men wish to penetrate with fruit.

Lastly, is the stanza where Lizzie is reunited with the tastes of the fruit:

 During the Victorian period romantic relationships of the same sex were not often noticed, as it was common to have very close friendships with those of the same sex. Therefore, in this scene it is hard to decipher whether this was a love between two sisters or an act of sexual desire.  I will refer to the implicit portrayals of sex.

Within Laura's dialogue the act of kissing, eating and loving are used interchangeably. This blurs the boundaries between each activity and represents Laura as food, and food as sex. Repetition is used here again, like in the fifth stanza.This reflects on the unsatisfying desire. The act of eating is made sexual in this section, as Lizzie is only able to taste the juices by licking them from her sister's face, which presents the bodily contact as a sexual encounter.

 Overall, the exotic fruit in this poem represents lust, sexual desires, temptations and threats. Food appears as sexual within this poem, as it is used implicitly to reveal themes of sex.

Works Cited:

•   Rossetti, Christina. Goblin Market and other Poems. Cambridge: Macmillan, 1862.