The Victorian Spirit of Uncertainty (1)

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THE VICTORIAN SPIRIT OF UNCERTAINTY

Introduction to the age
The name Victorian is derived from Queen Victoria who ascended the English throne in 1837.
She ruled for the next 67 years till her death in 1901. Broadly speaking, there are two ways to
approach this age. Firstly, one can consider it as an age of transition from the old, outworn
doctrines and traditions of the past. Secondly, a comparison can be made between the age and the
future so that our modern ideas are traced back to the Victorian period. Former sees the Victorian
age as dynamic and unrestrictive, changes acquiring impetus from 1850. The latter, contrasts it
with the hectic pace of our own times, sees it as a stable world of peace and prosperity in which
ideas have their roots in certain unshakable foundations.
Arnold, Carlyle, Mill Ruskin, Tennyson many others welcomed their times as bringing in a new
order that could replace the old systems of thought. They were especially proud of the fact that
they were breaking away from a feudal, agrarian order as it was replaced by a democratic,
industrial society.
Major two events which occurred during this age: Reform bills (1832,1867,1884) that gave
democratic rights to the people and the Industrial Revolution.
Latter was responsible for increasing mechanization and the improvement of communication.
The introduction of railways, steamboats, roads and canal which led to expansion of commerce
were the most productive developments of the time but what was truly celebrated was the
increase of education and the rise of novels and the publication of books, periodicals and
newspapers so that newer ideas could easily be spread to a wider section of people.
The age was conscious of the growing power of a new segment of the society: the traders,
bankers etc. namely ' the middle class' which occupied a strategic place between the aristocrats
and the working class.
The contradictory desire for both change as well as stability on the part of the Victorian middle
class, resulted in a number of fascinating intellectual debates at the time. These debates as a
result created a cross current of ideas, thoughts and a way of life that influenced the major poets.
One way of studying the poetry of Tennyson, Browning and Rossetti could be to analyse how
they represent this very uncertainty and contradiction in their open-ended poems which say a lot
of things and make them difficult to study with one theoretical framework.

Challenges of the age
We all know that the Industrial Revolution was a very important phenomenon of the Victorian
era which brought about a lot of positive changes to the society. As a social movement it was
essentially economic. But it had its own ill-effects as well. It lead to class conflicts which
ultimately brought about cultural tensions as well. In relation to this we can look at what some of
the major critics like Arnold, Carlyle, Ruskin and Morris had to say. They were of the opinion
that the change was superficial and that it was accompanied by an equally strong urge to
maintain the status quo. Changes were permitted only when it proved to be advantageous to the
working conditions of the ruling class. The minute changes became radical or disturbing then
they posed a threat to the society. Mathew Arnold talks about deep-rooted class prejudices in his
essay "Culture and Anarchy" and he describes society in terms of class divisions. In the second
half of the century agricultural employment rapidly decreased and was taken over by the whitecollar workers and clerks. Providing goods and services became their sole purpose rather than
actually making things. Specialization also reached its peak which resulted in the multiplication
of people who stood between the producer and the consumer. The middle class, especially the
lower middle class rapidly grew. Seventy percent of the population was definitely working class.
The massive labouring class initially faced with the problem of adapting to towns and factories.
There was no sense of security, unemployment insurance and medical or health plans. The
institutions that sustained them were the savings banks, co-operative or in some instances, the
trade unions. By 1851, townsmen were outnumbered by the countrymen. The aristocracy and
gentry were the classes which were least affected and were deemed advantageous due to the
expansion of cities, mines, and railways. Their social predominance and political influence
remained untouched. Equally untouched were the Church and the universities. The poor
labouring class were the ones who were subjected to the evils of the Industrial Revolution and
were left without any alternative and it was this disruption that went unquestioned at the heart of
Industrialisation .

Science and Victorian Poetry
The relationship between science and poetry has been a very distinct one. People like
Wordsworth and John Stuart Mill have considered them as poles apart. They can never be
remotely connected with each other.
In their essay, Introduction: Science and Victorian poetry, Dawson and Shuttleworth say that “the
underlying of this particular cultural interface was for a very long time, dominated and distortedby a rigid a-historical contrast between abstract poetic idealism and empirical scientific
positivism”. This definitely implies the sharp division between the objective and the subjective.
Poetry dealt with metaphysical as well as imaginative subjects where as science was more about
facts and analysis using a radical approach. They were different in the way they treated the
concepts of natural world and the value of human life.
But, in the 19th century, science had become an important part of the Victorian culture. And a
variety of literary forms were being experimented with the usage of science. Recurrent scholarly
attention was given to the “interplay of science and the novel”.
In the last decade scholars like Gillian Beer, Isobel Armstrong, Patricia O’Neill, Helen Groth and
Daniel Brown who think that Victorian poetry and science frequently employed the same
metaphors, themes, images and ideological orientation and from being different, they were
actually very closely related and created new philosophies of nature altogether.
This new collaboration had given way to new forms of writing such as the verses of arctic
explorers like that of Captain John Ross . Such poems have also been written as a protest against
the the rigors of scientific enquiry. Tennyson’s and Browning’s poetry have also been studied by
many critics in the light of a scientific approach.
Usage of poetry was also used in scientific works for ex: Psychological and evolutionary works
made use of the authority of Victorian poetry to re-enforce as well as add respectability to their
often controversial scientific arguments. Many periodicals like Macmillan’s Magazine published
both poetry and scientific papers that were interrelated.
The status of science and Victorian poetry as two opposites or their interconnectedness has been
very uncertain just like the age itself.

Reception of female poetry in the Victorian Era
Poetry was considered to be something more Elite and beyond the parameters of money-making.
It was considered to be a spiritual activity that uplifted the soul and therefore poets were
considered as seer as well as priests.
All poets were enriched with the knowledge of classical works like that of Homer and Virgil and
more recently that of Milton. Their poetry generally talked about subjects that were metaphysical
and beyond the daily conventions of the world.
Since women were denied such education, their participation in the world of poetry was quite
neglected. Verse –writing was considered to be something more Holy and therefore not for
women. What was considered suitable for them was novel writing because it was commercial
rather than aesthetic and more practical rather than priestly. They were functional and utilitarian.
So the area considering female poetry was seriously overlooked. The poetry supposed to written
by them had to undergo certain pre-conceptions that the male-oriented literary world created.
Their poetry was supposed to be very emotional, faithful and ostensibly charming. Women, who
deviated from the conventions, faced major publication problems. Their poems were often
scrutinized and edited. As Gilbert and Gubar bring out the reason for the dearth of female poets
in the nineteenth century, they say that it was because it was considered very immodest and
inappropriate. Women were required to be selfless while lyric poetry with its assertive “I” was
selfish and self absorbed.
It was only later on that feminist critics entered into the scene and started bringing forth the
works of the major women poets like Elizabeth Barret Browning, Emily Bronte and Christina
Rossetti.

RELIGIOUS UNCERTAINTY IN ALFRED LORD, TENNYSON'S ' THE LADY OF
SHALOTT'
This is one of Tennyson's most popular poems. The Pre-Raphaelites liked to illustrate it.
Waterhouse made three separate paintings of "The Lady of Shalott". Agatha Christie wrote a
Miss Marple mystery entitled "The Mirror Crack'd From Side to Side", which was made into a
movie starring Angela Lansbury. Tirra Lirra by the river, by Australian novelist Jessica
Anderson, is the story of a modern woman's decision to break out of confinement.
In 1828 Tennyson went to Cambridge and joined a group called the apostles. The apostles took
part in various intellectual activities. They were looking for an opportunity to take part in a larger
program for the ' regeneration' of society, not through political change or revolution but through
a transformation of the mind of the people.
Poetry they felt had a big role to play in this regeneration. To them literature and politics became
inseparable. As poets, they were to borrow a phrase from John Stuart Mill, the' greater questioner
of things established'.
Due to his early-on experiences living in a middle-class society he developed a kind of
identification with the middle-class notions of progressivism, though he did retain sympathy for
conservative class values rooted in a traditional social order. However, his understanding of class
structures was born out of a complex personal feeling. Throughout his life he tries to come to
terms with growing powers of the ideology of industrialisation.
The subject of Tennyson's poem "The Lady of Shalott," a woman housed forever in a tower, can
represent many facets of life in the Industrial Age. It was written in 1832 and extensively revised
in 1842.
Upon first reading, I thought she embodied the traditional roles of women. She is housed in
"four gray walls, and four gray towers," where she labours day after day "imbowered" in a silent
place. Traditionally, women were expected to mind home and hearth, and had no legal voice.
She weaves her web of history, mindful of the warnings of prophets and traditionalists who say
that to embrace any other type of life would mean death. "She knows not what the curse may be/
And so she weaveth steadily," maintaining her role as she has throughout the ages.
Here we see a reflection of how religion was used as by various practitioners such as clergy men
to influence the public before the coming of age of industrialisation. But with the coming of
printing press and the rise of a new class, it had also led to the rise of Protestantism.

People were in favour of individualism yet at the same time were afraid of all the changes taking
place in the society.
The Victorians tried to rework at their religious faith by positing a religion that was more
personal than doctrine. The Evangelical faith was nonconformist and it tried to tell the story of
the fall of man through a historical-theological recounting his need for redemption and Christ's
sacrifice. It created a human-divine Christ who was constructed as a historical rather than
theological figure from a critical study of the bible. The one way that religion could be
assimilated in the Victorian social theory was by projecting Christ as a teacher of mortality rather
than a figure of divinity.
No doubt quarrel between science and religion was incessant and difficult to reconcile.
The lady has no clear view of Camelot, or the new Industrial Age. She knows only what she is
shown second hand through other sources – in this case represented by the mirror she watches as
she weaves. She delights in what she sees, knowing all the while that she cannot take part in it
because it is simply a reflection. Soon, however, restlessness creeps in: "I am half sick of
shadows," she says. The key line, "I am half-sick of shadows", says the Lady's mind, and
probably the poet's mind, is divided about the right choice.
A reference to Arnold's essay where he says that only people with high class and money could
concern themselves and their decisions did not work in favour of the general public who at this
point of time were growing day by day. There was restlessness among the general public. There
was a need to find an established set of views that could govern power relations.
The Victorians were conscious of living in an age of unrest and paradox. Almost all writers spoke
about the prevailing atmosphere of doubt, especially in matters of religion. In doing so, they
were giving expression to a 'fear' they experienced collectively. Paradoxically enough, what they
feared was that very change and progress they otherwise celebrated.
With the widening of economic opportunities, more and more people could climb the social
scale. At the same time, such a breakdown of class structures created a peculiar sense of
insecurity amongst those very people who had advantage of social mobility. They now felt the
need to protect their status and privileges against encroachment of the class they had left behind.
This fear translated itself into a powerful desire for social stability and security.
Sir Lancelot, an embodiment of the brightness and light of the new age, strikes her like a "bowshot." When she sees his reflection in the mirror, she is moved to break tradition. Lancelot is all
glitter, daring, and boldness, with his silver bugle and shining armour. In an instant, he brings
the Lady of Shalott a flash of enlightenment. He is "some bearded meteor, trailing light." She
moves from her loom to see the view from the window with her own eyes.

The web of her weaving is broken, as is history. The mirror is cracked—she no longer needs
information from a secondary source. The lady is doomed; the woman she has been cannot exist
with the new knowledge she has received.
( This reflects the growing conflicts inside the mind of people. They felt as if their world was
going to implode with all the new information coming in.)
As she leaves her tower, the Lady of Shalott passes the effects of the industrial age in the natural
surroundings, a wind that is "straining," woods that are "waning," and a river that is
"complaining." Enlightenment was seductive, but fatal. She cannot return, but must realize how
she has been kept.
She loses the chain from her boat and moves toward the city, as many women of the time were
forced to do. Her last song is a farewell to life and the traditional roles of women. She dies as
she reaches the city.
The aristocracy in the castle is afraid of the corpse in the boat. Only Sir Lancelot is unworried.
He comments, "She has a lovely face; God in his mercy lend her grace." He is at once realizing
her commercial potential and dissolving his own responsibility for her, just as he would the
working class. As the personification of the industrial age, he is unafraid of letting go of the past
in order to realize the future. (the depiction of an aristocrat's mindset- a type)
We also here notice the lack of social cohesion that was a direct result of the effects of
industrialism and the vacuum created by the loss of religious faith.
The Lady looking at the world in a mirror and depicting it in a work of art is some kind of
allegory for the life of the artist-writer. "The Lady of Shalott" is partly about how being an artist
(writer, poet, scholar, etc.) can make you feel isolated from ordinary life. The old questionwhether an artist or writer must be isolated from the ordinary world. Many philosophers of that
age like Mathhew Arnold being an aesthetic was important and it was something that could only
be instilled by a work of art or literature as it was lost due to the extreme radical vision that
science gave.
Many philosophers like Arnold believed that an artist should rule the city as they were best
elements of any society. By claiming that a state should be ruled by the best elements in a class,
(a sort of intellectual minority) they wished to replace real state with its power politics and class
interest with an ideal state that largely operated with an abstract idea. Society which wished for
democracy and during the rising power of middle class he was allowing "intellectual aristocracy"
to make a back door entry.

Yet at the same time he was against the total power control by any singular class. We obviously
notice a clash in his views between the other-worldly and temporal as well as between traditional
virtues and democratic questioning.
Though the Victorians acknowledged the term "intellectual anarchy" (John Stuart Mill), they
always looked forward to a period of firm convictions and established beliefs. To them all
changes were a necessary stage in the process of our growth.
What differentiates the Victorians from our Modern time is this faith in existence of ultimate
truths in both religion and ethics and they also held onto faith in man's capacity to discover these
truths.

RELIGIOUS UNCERTAINTY IN ROBERT BROWNING'S 'CALIBAN UPON
SETEBOS'
We all are aware of the fact that the society of the Victorian era was rapidly changing from an
agrarian one to more of a democratic, industrial society. More than anything the Victorians
celebrated the spread of education and the great advances of human knowledge.
One of the prominent poets of the Victorian era was Robert Browning. He was born on May 7th,
1812 into a typical middle-class bourgeois family. He spent most of his childhood in a village
called Camberwell witnessing the changes that were happening in the society associated with
industrialisation and urbanisation. He found it important and relevant to write in a style which
was more close to the era in which he was writing and completely different from the Romantic
poets. Considering that poetry was an elite form of writing and that it was not read by everyone,
he thought of experimenting with his form of writing and chose the dramatic monologue.
Browning was following the footsteps of his godfather William Fox who believed that poetry
should not be confined to the elite. The subject matter and also the form should undergo a change
in a time of major societal and intellectual upheaval and that the poetry of such a time should
reflect the same and reach out to the middle class who were celebrating the increasing social,
economic, and political powers of their own class. He said that poetry should be modern and at
the same time popular. Browning's poetry reflects the fact that the people then were oscillating
between two opposite views and were in a state of dilemma as to which one to embrace.
Now that we know that Browning experimented with the dramatic monologue, it is important to
know what dramatic monologue is. This will be done with reference to the poem "Caliban Upon
Setebos", a dramatic monologue by Robert Browning.
What is a dramatic monologue ? It is a type of lyric poem which is explicitly defined by the
Victorian era, especially Browning and his contemporaries. It is also known as a persona poem.

In a dramatic monologue a character in fiction or in history delivers a speech explaining his or
her feelings, actions or motives and is directed towards a silent audience. The speaker's words
are influenced by a critical situation and he is separate from the poet. Here we will have to talk
about the form of the dramatic monologue, "Caliban Upon Setebos". It has unrhymed pentameter
lines and has metrical irregularities which portrays the speech of a person who is uneducated and
coarse in nature. In this poem Caliban is the speaker and he speaks in third person so that he can
escapes the attention of Setebos, his deity about whom he is seen contemplating in the poem.
Caliban speaking in third person also shows the poet's intentions to give Caliban's speech a
Biblical, objectified quality which reflects his contemplations on religion and also his God
Setebos. He does not make a statement about an already declared subject but develops his own
character through his words. The speaker makes comments which knowingly or unknowingly
reveals his psyche and personality. The main focus of a dramatic monologue is the personal
information and not the topic. The dramatic monologue has direct influences from the Romantic
poets . Romanticism played an important role in Victorianism. Another direct influence is the
novel where the emphasis is closely observed on the detail to reveal the character. The dramatic
monologue draws characteristics and at the same time also differs from the three broad
categories of poetry, i.e., lyric, drama and epic. We can understand the three by the definitions
given by M.H. Abrams and incur the similarities and differences for ourselves.
Lyric : A lyric is any fairly short poem, uttered by a single speaker, who expresses a state of mind
or a process of perception, thought and feeling. Many lyric speakers are represented as musing in
solitude.
Drama : A drama is the form of composition designed for performance in the theater, in ehich
actors take the roles of characters, perform the indicated actions, and utter written dialogue.
Epic : In its strict sense the term epic or heroic poem is applied to a work that meets at least the
following criteria - it is a long verse narrative on a serious subject, told in a formal and elevated
style, and centered on a heroic or quasi-divine figure on whose actions depends the fate of a
tribe, a nation, or the human race.
Now that we have compared the dramatic monologue to the epic, lyric, and drama we can look at
the three constituents of the dramatic monologue which are :




The occasion
The speaker
The hearer

Occasion : The occasion of the poem can be understood considering the purpose of the poem. It
was the most suitable occasion to present the popular fickleness which had produced such a
sudden and distressing change. The occasion of this poem would be the portrayal of the doubts
prevalent in that era concerning the nature of God and humanity's relationship with this all
powerful, omnipresent power/deity. We'll talk more about the details of this in a bit.

Speaker : The main and only speaker of the poem is Caliban who is a character of Shakespeare's
play "The Tempest". He is the slave of Prospero. Browning chooses to use Caliban in his poem
for certain reasons. One, he is defined by his misery. Not only this, Caliban considers himself as
a lesser creature in comparison to humans and is quite unhappy to be under Prospero's direct
control. The usage of Caliban is an advantage as the poet can easily explore our own relationship
to a divine power and this creates a higher drama and as a result permeates all the considerations
with a characteristic of cynicism. Caliban is seen talking about his concepts of religion.
Hearer : There is no apparent hearer in this poem as Caliban is talking to himself and we can as a
result bracket this poem under the category of a soliloquy to some extent.
Let us get back to the occasion which is portrayed through the speaker of the poem. It was a
time when people were coming to terms with the fact that the reason for human suffering was not
merely about character building. Browning put forth his view of the concept of the same and also
talked about what role would God have in it. The arbitrary nature of suffering and reward in the
world were notions that were just manifesting in the society and were something that were only
being considered to be even thought of. An immediate historical influence on the poem was the
then-recent publication of Darwin's "Origins of the Species". Browning was responding to
several naturalist theories that came up with the advance of scientific realisation that man might
not be a direct and divine creation. This is seen in two ways in the poem. One, God could be
understood by natural, empirical evidence. Two, God must not exist in the image of man if we
evolved from animals and hence are not directly His image. The evidences to this can be seen as
well. First, one seen in the epigraph of the poem : "Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such a
one as thyself" - a phrase taken from Psalm 50 in the Bible, spoken by God to sinners who
thought the deity to be wicked as themselves. Second, the poem's subtitle : "Natural Theology in
the Island". This is related to the then relevant theological debates related to the studies of
Darwin. The poem demonstrates a problem that the Victorian era was having with Christianity.
Theology had to be twisted more and more in a violent manner in order to explain both the facts
of the modern world and the modern science. The speaker, Caliban's consideration of evolution is
different. His mother (Sycorax in the actual play) had told him that nature had been created by
the "Quiet" and that God/Setebos is doing whatever He can with what is already there. There
exists a force other than the omnipresent power (defined as God) which operates neutrally and
disinterestingly - The Theory of Evolution would fit within this system of thought. Caliban had a
different point of view from that of his mother and he believed that Setebos made creatures in
order to use their weaknesses against themselves. Caliban finds no answer to his misery in either
of the perspectives just like the Victorians then - does a God exist, whose qualities are up to
debate ? Or is science right and questions of the like. Like the Victorian naturalists, Caliban also
gained the idea of Setebos not from an inner feeling but from empirical evidence.
Overall through his poem, Browning attempts to make order of his world. He studies behaviour
(including his own) in order to create a stable system which would then dictate his behaviour. He

does not out rightly deem any world view to be superior, or even how he perceives God is not
made clear. Browning does not answer any of the questions put forth with certainty.

RELIGIOUS UNCERTAINTY IN CHRISTINA ROSSETTI’S ‘GOBLIN MARKET’
SUMMARY:
It was composed in 1859 and published in “Goblin Markets and the other poems”. It is
considered to be one of her masterpieces, according to her, it was just a fairy tale written for
children .It is basically a story of two sisters, Laura and Lizzie and their encounter with an evil
group of goblin merchants who are skilled in luring people in order to come and buy their
mysterious fruits. While Lizzie being the more sensible one, warns Laura not to succumb to the
temptation of the goblins and their evil fruits by reminding her of an old friend, Jennie, who after
having tasted the fruit, got wasted away and died. But, Laura ignores her warning and buys the
magical fruit in exchange for a lock of her Golden hair. After tasting the fruit, she is not satisfied
and yearns for it all the more. But, she is never able to find the goblin men again. Due to this, she
turns restless and becomes all depressed and melancholy. When Lizzie realizes that her sister is
near to experience the same fate as her friend Jennie did, she goes to the market with a penny in
order to buy the fruit for her sister. But, rather than giving her the fruit, the Goblins ask her to eat
it and when she refuses to do so, they use violence and force it into her mouth and fling the
penny back to her afterwards. She runs home all dripping with juice and pulp. Then Laura kisses
her sister and in doing so, she tastes the fruits once more. The Fruits that had once poisoned her
cures her. So, she survives to become a story teller and tells her children the account of how her
sister saved her life. The poem ends by highlighting the value of a sister.
RELIGIOUS UNCERTAINTIES:
Just like Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland”, Rossetti’s “Goblin market” is a poem for
children that can have multiple ways of interpretation when connected to the time when it was
produced, i.e., the 19th century Victorian England. Critiques have found in it, the undertones of
feminism, female sexuality and education, gender relations, economic relations and several other

themes that give a new meaning altogether, every time we read it with some or the other
perspective in mind. The focus of our presentation is to see the poem as a Christian allegory and
spot the religious uncertainties embedded inside it.
It seems very obvious that this poem straightforwardly alludes to the discourse of the Forbidden
fruit and the Biblical account of the fall. But, just like when Milton tried to justify the ways of
God to men and in doing so unknowingly included certain aspects that justified ways of Satan to
men, Rossetti’s poem too, brings an underlying meaning in the poem that is uncertain and
challenges the Christian Theology.
Simon Humphries says that “Rossetti’s work pivots upon contradiction and obscurity and its
intellectual rigor is nowhere more evident than in this determination to probe the uncertainties of
Christian Theology.”To understand this uncertainty, let’s begin with the most significant imagery
that is used in the poem, the image of the “Fruit”.
THE DOUBLE IMPLICATIONS OF THE “FRUIT” IN GOBLIN MARKET AND ITS
UNCERTAIN DEPICTION:
It is very interesting to note that the fruits that had once poisoned Laura, cures her in the end.
“The fiery antidote” that she refers to was more of the same fruit, i.e., it was the antidote to itself.
The source of origin for both, the poison as well as the cure becomes the same which is “the fruit
sold by the Goblin men”. So, if the fruit in “Goblin Market” depicts the forbidden fruit from the
tree of knowledge of good and evil, then in making such depiction, Rossetti blurs the distinction
between the “tree of knowledge” and the “ tree of life”. In the Genesis account of the fall, after
Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit, as part of their punishment, they are not allowed access to
the “tree of life”. But in the poem, Laura’s Salvation is found in tasting the same fruit again.
This image is very different from the Biblical view for Christ said that, “A good tree cannot bring
forth evil fruit and neither can a corrupt tree bring forth a good fruit”.
Simon Humphries says that “ it is therefore important to know that the consumption of
substances which could either become poisons or cures was by no means inconceivable in 19th
century England:, important too, to know that Christina Rossetti herself consumed such
substances”. By saying this she refers to the Common Book of Prayer that provides liturgy for
the Church of England that say that the Bread and Wine can have the power to sometimes bring
life, sometimes bring death. The Exhortations in the liturgy for Holy Communion warns that
those who wish to receive the Sacrament should be correctly prepared, for it is “so divine and
comfortable a thing to them who receive it worthily and so dangerous to them that will pursue it
unworthily”.
That is the danger- one may think that they are spiritually being mingled with Christ but they
might end up with the devil inside them. Therefore, the Bread and Wine of the Communion

service- brings life, brings death. And brings the problem of knowing whether it is death or life
that is coming ones way. This is the same question that is asked in the poem when Laura has
tasted the fruits again: “Pleasure past and Anguish past, is it death or is it life?” and in the next
line we see- “ Life out of Death”, which can be called as a “ Christian Paradox”.
If we further extend this argument, we might say that Christina Rossetti thought of the world as
having the double power of being destructive and beneficial which would imply that everything
in the world had double power. For example, we can talk about the doubleness of the Goblins.
The poem never gives us the origin of the fruit, when demon-like goblins sell it, it becomes
poisonous and when Christ like redeemer, Lizzie serves it, it becomes a cure. So, if seen in this
light, one can say that the fruits are not inherently evil but are used by the Goblins for wrong
purposes because it is never explained why Goblins are so insistent that young women should eat
the fruit. As merchants they should just sell the fruit in exchange for money. They fling back the
coin that Lizzie gives them. In this way, the tile itself becomes an irony. Is the Goblin market
really a market? Are these Goblin really merchants? They don’t mean “Come buy”, then mean
“Come Eat”. It is not only the produce of the market that becomes the suspect, but the very
procedures of the market.
If this argument is connected with the level of the World, this could lead us to consider the world
as two forces, one that is God’s pristine world and the other is the one created by the society. One
may say that Rossetti questions this very doubleness. The question is whether Laura’s
Temptation and Salvation mean the same thing in both the worlds? Are the demands made by
both of the both worlds same? This might get concerned with the perception of women in the
Victorian Age.
This brings us to another point that can be found in Rossetti’s poem which is how she,
CHALLENGES THE PATRIARCHAL PERCEPTION OF WOMEN WITHIN CULTURE
IN TERMS OF SEXUALITY, EDUCATION AND MARKETPLACE:
Rossetti includes the issues of female sexuality and education that were paradoxically linked
Rossetti’s time. The forbidden fruit could refer to female sexuality and could also relate to
female education and knowledge. It could also mean all forms of female desire.
Diane D’ Amico pointed out that Eve ate the forbidden fruit in order to become like God, that is,
prideful and not lustful. The same goes for Laura. She is not an evil and seductive figure. One
whole, Rossetti steers away from equating female sexuality with sinfulness, which in itself is a
radical move. Sexual pleasure was denied to Victorian women for as the passionless angels in the
house, they were seen as too pure and sacred to share in the disgusting lust that afflicted men. At
the same time, they were not given the same education as men because it was believed that too
much intellectual activity would cause their reproductive organs to malfunction, securing the
double bondage of sexuality and intellect on the women.Women were allowed a portion of
knowledge, whether it relates to their sexuality or intelligence, but with that revelation they must

realize that regardless of their innate abilities and gifts, society will not allow them to reach their
true potential.
Brad Sullivan says that Rossetti’s “hope” for meaning and completeness must be “deffered” until
she can escape from the self-destructive cycles of worldly existence. May be this is why the idea
of female solidarity is brought out in the end of the poem.
Laura’s need for Salvation is not a result of her sinfulness, but of dissatisfaction with her society.
This establishes the link between Spiritual Redemption and Social Reformation. Rossetti must be
thinking that redemption was not about dying and going to heaven but actually about living with
dignity and freedom. An example for this could be the “St. Mary Magdalene house of charity in
Highgate”. It was a refuge for “fallen women” and Rossetti was a volunteer there. Its purpose
was twofold: one to reform penitent women into “reliable domestic servants” and second, to
make them active member in the Church of England. These could be the several young women
like Laura who wanted redemption to re-integrate in the society. They were not social outcasts.
Through this, Rossetti reconstructs the idea of Christian Redemption. (Lack of acceptability is
defined by culture, not by a divine being).
MULTIPLE MEANINGS IN THE POEM AND THEIR INTERCONNECTEDNESS:
The poem can be read using various approaches and all of them are interconnected with each
other and with religion of course. This very interconnectedness represents the sense of insecurity,
uncertainty and divided self that the Victorian age went through. Critics can never really study
this poem usng one theoretical framework. Even Simon Humphries says that “it seems that there
does come a point at which not every explanation of what happens in Goblin Market can be
defensible”. But it is not fully possible to believe that it was just a fairy tale written for kids
because whatever was happening in the 19 th century was a constant war between change and
stability and every living individual was a part of it. One can agree with Caroline Norton’s
statement about the ambiguity of the poem that “It is a fable- or a mere fairy story- or an allegory
against the pleasure of sinful love- or what is it? Let us not too rigorously inquire, but accept in
all its quaint and pleasant mystery, and quick and musical rhythm- a ballad which children will
con with delight. And which richer minds may ponder over, as we do with poems written in a
foreign language which we only half understand”.

REFERENCES
Mathew Arnold : Culture and Anarchy
Andy Hamilton : J S Mill and Democracy
Charles Darwin : The Descent of Man
Simon Humphries: The Uncertainty of Goblin Market
Gowan Dawson and Sally Shuttleworth- Introduction: Science and Victorian Poetry
Jamie Vigue: Victorian Beliefs
Sabine Earnest: Analysis Caliban Upon Setebos
Dr.Foss- Caliban Upon Setebos: Robert Browning Pondering Religion and Science
Victorian Poets: Edited by Suroopa Mukherjee

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