Comparing Christina Rossetti’s Goblin Market and William Wordsworth’s T

Comparing Christina Rossettis Goblin Market and William Wordsworths The Thorn On the surface, the poems Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti and The Thorn by William Wordsworth appear to be very different literary works. Goblin Market was written by a young woman in the Victorian period about two infants who develop a special bond through the rescue of one sister by the other. The Thorn was written by the Romantic poet William Wordsworth about a middle-aged man and his experience overlooking a womans stirred breakdown. Material to understanding the works Goblin Market and The Thorn is recognizing the common underlying themes of sex and gender and how these themes affect perspective in both poems. In Christina Rossettis Goblin Market, the main foci are on feminism and the oppression of women by men. The first part of Rossettis message is given through her thoughts on feminism, which is surely a major theme in this poem. For instance, the two main character s, Laura and Lizzie, reside free of any positive male interaction. Considering Rossettis background as part of Victorian society, the conclusion can be made that Rossetti longed for a place where she could be free of masculine overbearance. Even so, she understood the impossibility of any such personally ideal world. The poem illustrates this realization by including the Goblin men, who seem to haunt the female characters. The Goblin mens low-pitched cries sustain the girls. Laura and Lizzie constantly hear the goblins in the forest Morning and evening / Maids heard the goblins cry (Rossetti, 1713.) Even while the characters were alone or in the exclusive battlefront of women, the presence of the Goblin men exist... ...seful miscommunication between men and women. Lastly, when looking through the imagined perspective of the thoughtless male tricksters, the reader is shown the heartlessness of men. After this readers final consideration, the main theme in each of the pr esented poems is that both authors saw women as victims of a male dominated society.Works CitedJackson, Geoffrey. Moral Dimensions of The Thorn. Wordsworth Circle. 10 (1979) 91-96.Mermin, Dorothy. fantastic Sisterhood in Goblin Market. Victorian Poetry. 21 (1983) 107-118.Rossetti, Christina. Goblin Market. The Longman Anthology of British Literature Vol. 2B. Ed. David Damrosch, et al. New York Longman, 1999. 1712-1724.Wordsworth, William. The Thorn. The Longman Anthology of British Literature Vol. 2B. Ed. David Damrosch, et al. New York Longman, 1999. 319-325.