“Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, it's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope, and that enables you to laugh at life's realities.” In this quote, Theodore Seuss Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, explains that reality and fantasy often share certain characteristics with each other. Both Christina Rossetti and Angela Carter’s fairy tales, “Goblin Market” and “The Tiger’s Bride”, respectively, contain this synthesis of reality and fantasy emphasized by Dr. Seuss. However, these two stories possess very distinct qualities, purposes, and morals. Firstly, Rosetti utilizes a more defined villain, thus generating a greater conflict between the antagonist and protagonist, as well as promoting the fantastic genre
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In “Goblin Market”, Rossetti illustrates the love between the two sisters when she writes, “Afterwards, when both were wives / With children of their own; / Their mother-hearts beset with fears…” warned, “there is no friend like a sister / In calm or stormy weather” (Rossetti 19, 20). Here, Rossetti stresses the importance of sisterhood and omits the role of a paternal or fraternal figure. Feminism advocates for women’s equality to men in all aspects of society, and thus this omission does not symbolize feminism because it hints that coexistence cannot occur. Ultimately, the poem does not emphasize feminism, but rather sisterhood and the relationship between two siblings. In contrast to “Goblin Market”, “The Tiger’s Bride” portrays feminism more effectively because the Beast and the girl ultimately become equal. In “The Tiger’s Bride”, Carter explains the newfound equality between the two main characters, “and each stroke of his tongue ripped off skin after successive skin, all the skins of a life in the world...My earrings turned back to water and trickled down my shoulders; I shrugged the drops off my beautiful fur” (Carter 14). This quote exhibits how the girl voluntarily submits to the Beast and allows him to transform her. As a result, feminism emerges because the girl has the ability to choose what she desires, and thus becomes equal with the Beast, both on a physical and emotional level. Moreover, through this figurative language, the girl enters a new stage in her life and leaves behind a world of patriarchy. In all, “Tiger’s Bride” depicts a feminist text, whereas “Goblin Market” simply promotes the concept of
In “Goblin Market”, Rossetti illustrates the love between the two sisters when she writes, “Afterwards, when both were wives / With children of their own; / Their mother-hearts beset with fears…” warned, “there is no friend like a sister / In calm or stormy weather” (Rossetti 19, 20). Here, Rossetti stresses the importance of sisterhood and omits the role of a paternal or fraternal figure. Feminism advocates for women’s equality to men in all aspects of society, and thus this omission does not symbolize feminism because it hints that coexistence cannot occur. Ultimately, the poem does not emphasize feminism, but rather sisterhood and the relationship between two siblings. In contrast to “Goblin Market”, “The Tiger’s Bride” portrays feminism more effectively because the Beast and the girl ultimately become equal. In “The Tiger’s Bride”, Carter explains the newfound equality between the two main characters, “and each stroke of his tongue ripped off skin after successive skin, all the skins of a life in the world...My earrings turned back to water and trickled down my shoulders; I shrugged the drops off my beautiful fur” (Carter 14). This quote exhibits how the girl voluntarily submits to the Beast and allows him to transform her. As a result, feminism emerges because the girl has the ability to choose what she desires, and thus becomes equal with the Beast, both on a physical and emotional level. Moreover, through this figurative language, the girl enters a new stage in her life and leaves behind a world of patriarchy. In all, “Tiger’s Bride” depicts a feminist text, whereas “Goblin Market” simply promotes the concept of