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capitulated, she is no longer wanted. They no longer woo her; only Lizzie can hear their cries. Laura is thrown into despair: (Laura) gnashed her teeth for baulked desire, and wept As if her heart would break. (267-8) All Laura can think about is the fruit she can no longer get: She dreamed of melons, as a traveller sees False waves in desert drouth With shades of leaf-crowned trees, And burns the thirstier in the sandful breeze. (289-92) Her despair is like one spurned in love, she will no longer eat and becomes useless; she does no work on the farm and begins to waste away. She realises too late the mistake she has made and rues it: She gorged on bitterness without a name: Ah! fool, to choose such part Of soul consuming care! (510-12) Here Rossetti portrays the woman who has lost everything for love-her soul has been consumed. ~his is the danger facing women, in her opinion. They must choose either independence and self-respect,or dependence and loss of self. Some critics, such as Gilbert and Gubar, have suggested that the bitter repression is in fact embodied by Lizzie, reclaiming Laura for domesticity and taking her away from the freedom and creativity that they believe the goblins’ fruit represents. However, in light of the bitter descriptions of both the goblins (who, significantly, are all male) and the painful description of the sorrowful, soulless state of Laura after sampling their wares this would seem to be a rather limited reading of the poem in my opinion.~The fruit damages Laura, causes her to waste away and disrupts the running of the farm that seems to clearly represent female self-sufficiency and harmony. This is no ordinary domestic setting; the whole farm is run by the sisters with no interference from men-in fact they are not present at all, even at the end of the poem. Lizzie and the reclaimed Laura seem only to have daughters and although ‘now wives’ there is no mention of their husbands. Men are superfluous to their lives.~ They are certainly not longed for and the goblins’ fruit neither; it is seen as a dangerous addiction, it is surely not the freedom and independence that Gilbert and Gubar claim it is. In fact when Lizzie goes to the goblins to get more fruit for her dying sister but refuses to eat any herself she is met with the kind of abuse that women could expect (and often still can) when refusing the romantic advances of men: One called her proud, Cross-grained, uncivil; Their tones waxed loud, Their looks were evil. (394-7) and they eventually go on to try to force her to eat their wares by pushing them into her mouth and physically attacking her. This scene seems to closely resemble a rape, and whether we take it to represent an actual physical assault or the more widespread and intense pressure placed on women to conform matters not: Lizzie is clearly not refusing something which is desirable in the eyes of the author. This attitude towards men who won~t take no for an answer can be seen in Rossetti’s mocking No, Thank You,John (1859), where the female speaker of the poem is making it clear in what might well then have been considered very ~’ ,. unladylike tones that she is not interested in his repeated advances: Rise above Quibbles and shuffling off and on: Here’s friendship for you if you like; but love,- No, thank you, John. (29-32) The sisters are free before the goblins come along-the only domesticity is that which they choose and do for themselves. Rather than being returned to a situation of repression, when Laura is saved by Lizzie she is described in glorious terms as being: Like a caged thing freed, Or like a flying flag when armies run. (505-6) As a fantasy of feminine freedom and self-sufficiency Goblin Market is very powerful; Laura and Lizzie live alone, provide for all their own needs and are happy doing so: theirs is a picture of domestic bliss of the best kind. They have succeeded in creating a space outside patriarchy~ for themselves. Their world is completely free of any male influence and when the goblins appear chaos ensues-they are a threat to the harmony in which the sisters live. They appear to have been perfectly happy before the arrival of the goblin men and do not seem to have felt they lacked anything: Laura rose with Lizzie: Fetched in honey, milked the cows, Aired and set to rights the house, Kneaded cakes of whitest wheat, Cakes for dainty mouths to eat, (202-6) ~ The sisters are portrayed as being in harmony with nature: Wind sang to them lullaby, Lumbering owls forebore to fly, Not a bat flapped to and fro Round their rest: Cheek to cheek and breast to breast Locked together in one nest. (192-7) All they need is around them; they have no need of outside interference and do not even use money of which they have very little; the only thing Laura has to trade for the fruit is herself, her hair. This is significant as it is firstly symbolic of women’s lack of economic power and also important if we look at the biblical imagery of the poem: Laura loses her strength after cutting her hair like Samson but unlike him she has betrayed herself. In trading part of herself she loses all her power and independence: ” I have no copper in my purse, I have no silver either, And all my gold is on the furze That shakes in windy weather Above the rusty heather.” “You have much gold upon your head,” They answered all together: “Buy from us with a golden curl.” (118-25) They have no need of money until the goblin men come along and only then need it to protect themselves and obtain what~ Laura now must have. Food and accommodation are certainly not the only things that the sisters are self-sufficient in, however. They seem to be emotionally and spiritually replete and only the interference of the male goblins serves to disrupt this. The sisters plunge from an idyllic state to misery and danger once Laura has tasted the forbidden fruit, dr ~ing clear parallells with the biblical story of the Fall. Lizzie,