To what extent do female characters in 'Goblin Market' repeat 'familiar cultural stereotypes'?
             With its noticeably rich rhyming and fable-like narrative, 'Goblin Market' by Christina Rossetti can easily be interpreted as a children's poem. However, it is also the tension between form, content and language that encourages the question of whether or not 'Goblin Market' might be considered a feminist text. Rossetti's long narrative poem presents two very alike sisters, Lizzie and Laura, who are blinded by temptation of malicious goblin merchants haunting their world in the woods and alluring passing maidens with their sumptuous fruits. It is continually believed that the community within which the two female characters are placed mirror the everyday notion of life for a typical woman in a patriarchal society. The roles and themes in which female characters are associated with follow typical stereotypes that women feel are necessary to support but are also inflicted upon them by the male dominated societal rules. Rossetti presents these through the repetition of 'familiar cultural stereotypes' presented in 'Goblin Market'.
             In Rossetti's 'Goblin Market' we see the 'self-sacrificing angel' representation, in relation to the character Lizzie. It is notable that Rossetti's chosen descriptive language can be criticized in the views of a feminist as Lizzie is characterized to be 'Like a lily in a flood,' as she offers herself to the goblins in return for her sister Laura's spiritual return. This renowned symbol of nature exemplifies purity and innocence, a 'stereotypical representation female authors have succumbed to the lure of1'. The delicacy of such an object of nature appears fragile and at great risk when against the 'flood', perhaps a symbol for the alluring temptations of the world around us. F...