Tag: Mental Health

Content Notes: Discussions of Anorexia, Child Death, Compulsory Heterosexuality, Corrective Rape, Incest, Orthorexia, Starvation and Sexual Predation

We have previously covered both the historical context behind Goblin Market and the religious interpretations bursting from its prose. But now we turn to a more universal experience. Hunger. Hunger for food, for others and for love. As well as the hunger to rebuke our desires.

Divine Sapphic Triads

In her essay, Mona Reed argues that historical sapphic literature should not be confined to obvious erotic acts.^[1] Paralleling Adrienne Rich, she supports the examination of disguised love, such as shared feminine joy, sisterhood and intimate friendship.^[2] In this case, we can consider the relationship between Laura and Lizzie as not just one of biological sisterhood, but as a sapphic joining of the two girls.

Using this foundation, Reed states that the Goblin Market itself purveys the destruction of women through the coercive nature of compulsory heterosexuality.^[1] Compulsory heterosexuality (hereafter referred to as comphet), is a sociological phenomenon first posited by Rich.^[2] She asserts that all children are brought up to believe that straightness is not only the default, but an essential requirement. Put differently, society is built around the sublimation of any experiences outside of the dominant straight lens. Like young girls can be lured by the promises of delicious fruit, so too are children disciplined into the delights of a purely heterosexual lifestyle.

But just as the fruit leaves dear Laura destitute, so too does heterosexual dominance rely on the destitution of women. In a strictly straight (and albeit Western) paradigm, the agency, power and control are consistently given to the man, whereas the woman is expected to submit to their authority. Now, this isn’t true of every heterosexual relationship, trust me I live in the North East. More precisely, it is the societal standard by which other relationships are measured. Especially within Victorian England.

This idea is supported historically as Christina Rossetti never married, and in fact, denied three suitors. ^[3] Although it should be stated, the first was denied because he converted to Roman Catholicism. Moreover, Christina Rossetti admired Saint Æthelthryth for her ability to maintain her virginity despite being married twice.^[2] In rebuking the standard to bear children and accept intimate relations, she challenged the heteronormative dynamics of the time. In a similar vein, one can view Lizzie and Laura’s castigation of the Goblin Market as their rebuking of heterosexual ideals, although taken a step further.

Whilst it might not be a full on celebration of sexual sapphicness, Reed presents a compelling alternative to a standard dyadic pairing of the girls. She states that:

“Rossetti [suggests] that women should form queer, homo-social triad unions with Christ so they can abandon the institution of heterosexual marriage that leaves women feeling unfulfilled and emotionally depleted.”^[1]

The reason we can view this as queer is twofold. Firstly any undermining of the traditional heterosexual dynamic, especially that which involves same gender relations, allows itself to be viewed as inherently queer. For they are considered outside the norms of the society. But, even more so, Reed argues that Christ (and to some extent Lizzie) can be viewed as gender subversive. According to Reed, Rossetti regarded God as neither male nor female, instead containing an essence of both and yet beyond our conceptualisations of gender.^[1]

Additionally, she put forward that if one accepts Laura as Eve, then one must view Lizzie as Adam. She too is tempted and tested to see if her heart waives from God, through the fruit of the Goblin Market.^[1] However, Lizzie never strays, and she takes on the pain of her Eve-like figure. In this way, Lizzie can seen as a bigender figure, taking on both aspects of male and female whilst never renouncing either. A deliberate countering of bimodal sex based ideals. Through this, we could see Rossetti as glorifying a homosocial order devoid of masculine interference. A place where women can take on the roles of both binary genders, whilst communing with God in a vaster capacity than ever before.

I genuinely enjoy this interpretation presented by Reed, but we should ground it slightly. Whilst I believe that authorial intent should never be considered the official version of analysis. It is critical to state that this framing was likely not Rossetti’s intention and, at best, she intended a more religiously orientated view of sisterhood. Although Reed’s viewpoint is equally valid, we should not allow it warp our view of Rossetti. She was unequivocally a racist, classist and anti-Semitic poet, views which do not support the interpretation of her as a lesbian ally. Any reading of Goblin Market as sapphic happens in spite of, not because of, her own beliefs.

The Sanguine Made Sweet

As stated in my first Goblin Market post, Christina Rossetti had deep ties to the gothic literature movement. As researched by David Morrill, her uncle John Polidori wrote The Vampyre, one of the oldest works of Western vampire literature.^[4] Additionally, her grandfather was a noted admirer of the gothic romantics, and Rossetti invested much time in her antecedent’s library. Her environment being inundated with gothic horror seems to have bled into Goblin Market too.

On a purely aesthetic level, there are many similarities to gothic vampire novels of the time. Fair maidens tempted by the allure of unusual animalistic men, delighting in their own logic to ensnare victims in a way that drains the body until it wastes away. Additionally there is the focus on biting, sucking and consuming as the cause of the wasting away. Although Goblin Market arguably uses proxy vampirism through the fruits. Even the trickling of juices seems like a stand in for a more sanguine liquid.

But in the details, Morrill argues there are clear comparisons to Polidori’s The Vampyre. Firstly, in how the vampire Lord Ruthven entices his victims. It is not merely in his honey words and rakish demeanour, but importantly in his charitable acts which always led to those cursed by it to sink into misery.^[4] Put simpler, in giving to others Lord Ruthven ensured that they would become vulnerable, so he can feast upon them. Similarly, the charity of Rossetti’s goblins results in the downfall of Laura. By offering her fruits for the simple prize of a lock of hair, they make certain their corruption spreads and that they are able feed on her youth.

The offering of her lock of hair also mirrors another vampiric tradition in Morrill’s view. Just as Lord Ruthven has to be invited into an abode, so too must the goblins be invited into Laura’s body.^[4] Morrill explicitly links this to religious themes, that the vampire represents the devil, that evil incarnate cannot enter a person’s soul unless they consent to it. The consent can be achieved through trickery or deceit, but irregardless, the power rests inside the individual to rebuke or court evil within their heart. Even more so, the goblins never seem capable of leaving the glen to enter the girls’ house, as if they are barred from the Edenic gardens. And therefore can only feast on the innocent good when invited to.

Building on this, both Lord Ruthven and the goblins can be seen as stand ins for the men who would prey on young women. Lord Ruthven rather by design is a debonair predator that feasts on the youthful vitality of women until they are nothing more than monstrous husks which cannot be saved.^[4] The goblin men similarly prey on young girls, causing Laura to also waste away into virtual nothingness. Laura even wakes up on the night after the market, desperately gnashing and gnawing, like she has been molded into a vampire and is desperate to feed. It is like she has become the goblins themselves and has been reduced to animalistic hunger.

Whilst I would not go so far as to state that Goblin Market comprises a form of vampire literature, I would say there are clear inspirations drawn upon. Some of this could be similar cultural touchstones, after all Polidori and Rossetti were devout Anglicans and it is not unlikely both would comment on the nature of evil. But others such as the enticement through charity and predation seem to be at least indirectly inspired. However, Morrill’s comparison does seem to miss certain conventions of vampirism, like it being contagious. Though he is not the sole researcher to establish these connections.

The Sanguine Made Sapphic

Rebecca Little combines themes from the previous sections to attest that Goblin Market is an example of homoerotic vampirism, in a similar vein (pause for silent chuckles) to Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla.^[5] Carmilla is a tale of the titular vampire, and her unrepentant hunger for Laura, the fair maiden. At 18, she meets Carmilla and is exposed to a world of sensual temptations and delights. However, in one of the first cases of “Bury Your Gays”, the vampire is executed for her depraved sapphic nature. And Laura is returned to Christian heterosexuality.

Conversely in Goblin Market, it is our Laura who performs the role of vampiress. In the scene where Laura eats the goblins fruits, Little points to this section as key to her vampirism:

“Suck’d their fruit globes fair or red:

Sweeter than honey from the rock,

Stronger than man-rejoicing wine,

Clearer than water flow’d that juice;”^[6]

Here we can discern how the fruit starts as honey sweeter from the rock, a biblical reference to Psalm 81:16, wherein God would delivered those faithful to him honey from a rock.^[7] Subsequently it becomes man rejoicing wine, seemingly distancing the juice from a more Eucharistic drink. And finally, it is like water, the essence of life itself.

Little compares the taste journeying from sweet to intoxicating to necessary to that of a vampire’s first indulgence in blood.^[5] Furthermore, I’d argue it becomes more basal. As it goes from God’s food, to an association with God’s food, to ordinary water necessary for survival. In this way, the possibly heavenly fruit becomes a simple consumable, an item for survival detached from the Lord’s grace.

Little builds on this by paralleling the fruit to the Apple from The Tree of Knowledge. As Eve was cursed with the Knowledge of sin, so too does Laura become afflicted with the knowledge of heterosexuality.^[5] By partaking in this erotic feast, Laura inherits a taste of heteronormative practice, indulging in the saccharine addiction of socially approved decadence. However, this indulgence comes at a cost. Her metaphorical virginity is taken, and she is transformed into a vampiric figure, a creature lacking the purity befitting a young girl.

Laura is forsaken with no way to imbibe in heterosexual desire. As a result, she is a ravenous monster, gritting her teeth at night in a restless stupor for the echoes of delight.^[5] And in the day she is static, practically asleep, allowing herself to wane away. Unable to handle even the trivial tasks that once presented her such nourishment both physically and spiritually. So to save her sister, Lizzie goes to the goblin men and braves their attempt to violently impose heterosexuality on her.

Although never stated by Little, this scene could be seen as a form of corrective rape. This is where queer individuals are forced into sexual relations with the opposite sex to “cure” their queerness. Combined with the previous imagery of straightness siphoning Laura’s humanity from her, we could recognize Lizzie as actively resisting the draining.

Resistance which is met by the Goblin Market punishing her for not succumbing to compulsory heterosexuality. Combined with the vampiric lens, Lizzie becomes our virtuous woman, resisting the parasitic wiles that seek to drain her body and soul. To put it concisely, she is able to defy both heterosexuality and vampirism through her fortitude.

But it is the final feast with Lizzie covered in juices for Laura to suckle on that the vampiric elements are fully on display.^[5] In this scene, Little argues the juices are a proxy for Lizzie’s blood, in a manner reminiscent of how wine is a stand-in for Christ’s essence. Therefore, we could regard Laura consuming this blood in an erotic manner as simple lesbian vampirism. This would be conceived as an incestuous relation by a cursory viewing. However writers used social taboos like incest to hide lesbian romance. Rossetti might be attempting something similar, or at the very least, is accidentally recreating the paradigm.

More importantly though, is that Laura’s feasting seemingly cures her vampirism. Unlike more modern lesbian vampire stories, the sapphic relationship is not framed as the corruptive element but the panacea for the corruption of comphet infection. The wasting away caused by a life of heteronormative pining is cured by the redemptive power of “sisterly” affection.

Although the feasting is painful for Laura, that is because the ideal of heterosexual bliss is being burned from her blood, and being replaced with a more pleasant alternative. With the caveats of the previous lesbian explanation in mind, Goblin Market could be interpreted as a narrative about the redemptive powers of queerness. And how queer love can liberate people.

Secular or Spiritual Hunger​?

Though many writers have focused on Laura’s descent into devouring, others have explored Lizzie’s refusal to eat. In particular, the parallels between her denial of sustenance and Anorexia Nervosa. After all, she is never seen eating within the poem and is framed as virtious, even spiritually enlightened, because of her defiance against the fruit. However, to explore if anorexia pertains to Lizzie, we first need to understand the condition and unravel the history behind it.

Anorexia Nervosa is a mental health condition characterised by a refusal to ingest food resulting in a person becoming severely underweight.^[7] This is typically accompanied by a warped perception of their body. Such as viewing themselves as fatter than they are otherwise perceived or hyper-aware of minor “flaws” in their appearance. Moreover, it results in a myriad of physical health conditions due to the starvation and a counter-intuitive obsession with food.

Anorexia was first considered a medical condition in the 1870’s, originally termed Hysterical Anorexia as well as the currently used Anorexia Nervosa. ^[8] Although in the lead up to this, it was debated in Victorian medical circles for decades.

Joan Brumberg connects this debate with the Fasting Girls, a movement of women and girls starving themselves (or faking starvation) to prove religious piety.^[8] Such devotional deeds were not unique to the Victorian period and have a history in 13th century female saints, who refused to ingest anything but the Eucharist. According to Brumberg, this continued into the 16th and 17th century with ordinary women performing these acts as forms of miracles.

These Fasting Girls represent just a limited part in a grander movement by medical institutions in the Victorian period to secularise and pathologise religious behaviours. However, it therefore needs to be noted that devotional denial was considered by the majority of Victorians to be a sane and reasonable act. Although not the norm, it was regarded by spiritual leaders and their congregations as proof of divine providence. Even Rossetti was known to starve herself for religious purposes. ^[9]

Because of this, it is challenging to call Lizzie’s act of defiant starvation close to that of anorexia or even a similar comparison. Though both involve the act of deprivation, Lizzie’s (and the Fasting Girls) have religious connotations whereas anorexics seek control or to drastically reshaping their body.

As well, the fact such fasting was not viewed as harmful by the individual or community stops such behaviours from being a disorder. Since most mental health issues depend upon an understanding of harm towards the person with it or those around them, which requires treatment. People are allowed to do risky things to their body, without constituting a disorder.

Though Lizzie’s actions do not merit a direct comparison to anorexia, it would be erroneous to state Rossetti recognized no virtue in the act of tempered eating:

“The balances suggest scarcity short of literal nullity: hunger, but not necessarily starvation. Scarcity imposes frugality, exactness . . . No waste, latitude, margin; self-pampering can be tolerated, but only a sustained self-denial: self must be stinted, selfishness starved, to give to him that needeth.”^[10]

As stated by Anna Silver, Rossetti truly believed in the ascetic refusal of nourishment as cleansing for the soul. She expressed a certain contempt for the body, specifically for its desire for food. ^[9] Or rather, when such hunger was indulged with ordinary earthly foods. Because satiating your appetite was tantamount to succumbing to bodily sin.

Like inviting a vampire into your abode, by allowing for culinary decadence they were giving into the body’s greed. And as discussed previous, such bodily hunger should be used to lead a person to the Lord.^[11] Only though achieving physical inanition like the virtuous Lizzie could one ever hope to attain spiritual health. Which is not like anorexia, but is strikingly similar to another eating disorder.

Hunger for Health

Orthorexia is a proposed eating disorder, first coined in 2000 by Steven Bratman and David Knight in their book Health Food Junkies. ^[12] The term is used to describe an unhealthy obsession with eating healthily. This is not purely a desire to be more nutritionally aware, but a ritualised restriction of nourishment to the point of malnutrition. This can be cutting out certain food groups necessary for bodily function such as sugar, carbs or meat, with no mitigating health reason. In addition, it mirrors anorexia with an obsessive consideration of food.

I want to emphasise that I am not diagnosing Rossetti or anyone else as being orthorexic. Moreover, it is imperative to state that to the best of my knowledge, nobody links spiritual health to orthorexic behaviour.

Instead, I wish to implement the framework that people can develop maladaptive obsessions with health, to explore Rossetti’s preoccupation with divine vigour. Simply put, what if we view the contrast of Lizzie and Laura as the argument for the prioritisation of the metaphysical over the physical? An argument Silver believes to be a cornerstone of the tale:

“Goblin Market” juxtaposes sinful consumption with a virtuous renunciation of appetite to teach its readers a moral lesson about the world”^[10]

By itself this would not necessitate an issue, as people are allowed to have other priorities for their own health and well being. Some prioritise the physical, others the mental, so why not the spiritual? The issue is that Rossetti goes further by solely focusing on metaphysical health in Goblin Market and rebukes bodily satiation completely. It does not matter if Laura’s body burns like wormwood, for her spiritual health is being tended to.

Furthermore, Laura is rebuked by Lizzie for being tempted by the sounds and sights of food at the Goblin Market. The temptation of food itself, of the material form’s desire to be satiated is to be controlled and ordered. One should not partake in fruits for the priority must always be in the spiritual.

Adding to this, Silver argues that Rossetti views the hunger for Christ and spiritual satiation as taking effort.^[10] Laura is allowed to easily feast by giving her lock of hair, whereas Lizzie must undergo a barrage of violation to achieve sanctified satiation. In essence, the argument becomes that those who are obsessed merely with bodily health are lazy. Not dissimilar to orthorexics who can monitor the nutritional intakes of others. Though it should be noted that most tend towards self-monitoring critique.

Instead Rossetti’s external criticism is more akin to that of modern-day diet culture, the impetus behind many orthorexic issues. The fallacy that health and well-being can wholly be yours, if you stick to a strict, overly particular and unnecessary ritual of ingesting nourishment. A fad diet.

Devoid of any scientific justification, except for how restriction leads to a placebo effect that causes you feel better in the short term. And to gain more health problems in the long term. Just try the Atkins diet the Carnivore diet the Stone Age diet the starvation diet. It’ll work this time.

Although I do not believe it rises to the level of Orthorexia, I do think Lizzie’s exaltation is Rossetti’s authorial approval for the refusal of carnal pleasures. That such temperance will lead to experience spiritual satisfaction. A message tainted by social narratives at the time that caused young girls to starve themselves to death for spiritual closeness to God.^[9]

If not a symptom of medical malaise, Goblin Market could be seen as a propagator of social illness. It is spreading a narrative that people to this day are barraged with. A message that we should fixate on food to the point of mania to achieve a form of existential enlightenment, whether that enlightenment is social captial or religious salvation.

Remembering The Market

In writing these essays I have grown to both love and loathe the Goblin Market. There is so much beauty and connection to Anglican history that I never learned about, as well as deeply fascinating theological structuring. Even the interpretations that fall outside of Rossetti’s intentions have such wonderful explorations of human experience. Every paper I read I acquire another connection to the Bible or to queerness or mental health.

But, with every paper I also discover another way that the grimmest fruits of British society are sold within the tale. I have said that I will not advise you how to feel about the Goblin Market. And I do not wish to take away from the sapphic and religious beauty of the poem. However, I need to state this.

No matter how much you love the poem, remember what Christina Rossetti was really like. I, like many of the authors I have read for these essays, struggle with the whitewashing of Rossetti as a feminist and pseudo-queer poet. A narrative I held coming into the research and informing why I enjoyed the poem.

I think that while she is progressive for her station and time, such a statement is damning with faint praise. Whilst you can enjoy Goblin Market as a testament to lesbian love, it is impossible to say that Rossetti ever would have approved of such ideas. And that somewhat dampens my enjoyment, especially when she is uplifted instead of actual sapphic writers.

Therefore, I will leave you with a brief work by Jewish Victorian poet Amy Levy. A gift to her friend and unrequited lover, Violet Paget. An example of the writers left in the shadows of Christina Rossetti.

New Love, New Life

She, who so long has lain

Stone-stiff with folded wings,

Within my heart again

The brown bird wakes and sings.

---

Brown nightingale, whose strain

Is heard by day, by night,

She sings of joy and pain,

Of sorrow and delight.

---

‘Tis true,—in other days

Have I unbarred the door;

He knows the walks and ways—

Love has been here before.

---

Love blest and love accurst

Was here in days long past;

This time is not the first,

But this time is the last^[13]

References

1. Reed, M. (2020).The Queer and Feminist Myth-Revision of Christina Rossetti’s “Goblin Market”. The Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Journal, 113-117
2. Rich, A. (1980). Compulsory heterosexuality and lesbian existence. Signs: Journal of women in culture and society, 5(4), 631-660.
3. Duguid, L. (2004). Rossetti, Christina Georgina (1830–1894), poet. Retrieved from: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
4. Morrill, D. F. (1990). “Twilight is Not Good for Maidens”: Uncle Polidori and the Psychodynamics of Vampirism in” Goblin Market. Victorian Poetry, 28(1), 1-16.
5. Little, R. (2020). Homoerotic Vampirism in” Goblin Market” and Carmilla. Furman Humanities Review, 31(1), 69-80.
6. Rossetti, C.G (1862). Goblin Market and other poems. Cambridge London. Macmillan.
7. Silver, A. K. (2002). Victorian literature and the anorexic body (Vol. 36). Cambridge University Press.
8. NHS. (2024). Overview – Anorexia. Retrieved From: NHS UK
9. Brumberg, J. J. (1985). ” Fasting Girls”: Reflections on Writing the History of Anorexia Nervosa. Monographs of the Society for research in Child Development, 93-104.
10. A. K. Silver. (2002). Victorian literature and the anorexic body (Vol. 36). Cambridge University Press.
11. Rossetti, C. G. (1892). The Face of the Deep: A Devotional Commentary on the Apocalypse. Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.
12. Bratman, S., & Knight, D. (2000). Health food junkies : overcoming the obsession with healthful eating. New York: Broadway Books.
13. Levy., A (1889). New Love, New Life. Retrieved From: Victorian Queer Archive