Religion In Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market

There are many authors who used religion as a way to either escape from what was happening in the world, or used that faith as a guiding factor to be able to survive a time that they thought they were all doomed. Starting in the Victorian Period there were many changes happening; science was being more predominant and new discoveries were made that scared a lot of people. Everything was moving so quickly that many felt they couldn’t keep up, so they used their faith as something that was constant to help them stay steady throughout this treacherous time. In the Twentieth Century more people were adjusted to the quicker way of life, but there were still issues such as war happening. The difference between the two time periods is that in the …show more content…
As with anything there is almost never a cut and dry start and stop for forms of writing and these two time periods are no exception. In a “Goblin Market” by Christina Rossetti we have a story whose religious connection is on an allegorical level. The story is about a two young sisters who live in a town where goblin men sing and try to entice them with their good looking fruit. The fruit and goblin men are actually evil and once you try it you get addicted and slowly start to die once you stop eating it. One of the sisters falls for the trap even though the other one warned her about it. Once this sister goes home from eating the fruit she slowly starts diminishing and the older sister looks for anyway to save her. She finally caves in and goes to buy some fruit from the men to bring back to her sister, once they see she isn’t eating it right away they beat her up. She gets free and runs home to her sister to let her lick the juices off of her scratched up face. The sisters then went to bed and once they woke up the one who was dying was all healed. This story at first doesn’t seem to have a biblical connection, but once it is dissected it is easy to see what they underlying story is. Towards the end of the poem Rossetti writes, “Come and kiss me. Never mind my bruises, Hug me, Kiss me, suck my juices Squeezed from goblin fruits for you, Goblin …show more content…
During this time war was breaking out and many felt the negative effects of that. Wilfred Owen writes a poem titled “Strange Meeting” in which a man dies and goes to Hell in which he reflects on life with a man he later finds out he was the murderer of. The main characters first words spoken are, “‘here is no cause to mourn.’ ‘None,’ said the other, ‘save the undone years, The hopelessness. Whatever hope is yours, Was my life also;”(2159). The main character is talking about how they are already dead and in Hell. There is no hope for them anymore, but they talk about what they are missing on earth. I think the author is using Hell and a bad situation to show the reader how important it is to believe in God and live a religious life. The main characters could have avoided their inevitable doom if they would have done so. Another author who talks about death and Hell is T.S. Eliot in “The Hollow Men”. He is connecting purgatory with the aftermath of war. In the first stanza he says, “Our dried voices, when Whisper together Are quiet and meaningless As wind in dry grass or rats’ feet over broken glass In our dry cellar.” (2318); this paints a picture of a dead place with nothing left, and being in a cellar with broken glass makes a connection to what a town would look like after an attack during war. He wants the