This was my third time reading Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti. I continue to see how scary it is to be a woman, like Laura or lizzie in a society where they can be tempted by little goblin men into sucking fruit from them and it bringing pain towards the women in the end. When I first read this story, I had trouble finding any sort of symbolic meaning, because of how long it was, but as I saw what both lizzie and Laura go through, I began to see the symbolism of gender roles specifically in the era this was written, as well as sisterhood/womanhood. The goblin men in this story are seen as evil, tempting men, covering up their evilness with selling delicious, juicy, sweet fruit, to women , the fruit in this story symbolizes temptation that the women feel when these goblin men approach them with the fruit.
The women in this story can at first just be seen as fragile, naive, but in the end I think both are equally strong. Although lizzie does eat the fruit from the goblins, Laura will do anything for her to be back in good health, so she goes and pretty much risks her life to make her sister feel better by sucking the juices off of the goblin men and bringing it back to lizzie, so that she can be brought back to life. This shows how the sisterhood between both girls is stronger than the temptation of the goblin men.
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