The Goblin Market: Forbidden FruitThe short epic poem The Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti resembles a fairy tale because of the goblins and the happy ending of the united sisters, however the metaphors and the allegory of the fruit is ambiguous due to the different interpretations of drugs, sexual pleasures, temptation to sin, etc. The poem is divided into four main sections: temptation, fall, redemption, and restoration. Many people had mixed feelings about the poem; some were even shocked by the Goblin market due to how dark it is since Rossetti is usually linked to children's novels and nursery schools. The intended audience is not children but teenagers, as this poem is simply a stage to warn young women against temptations and desires. In the Goblin Market there is a strange list of twenty-nine different types of fruit. Many overwhelmed readers may wonder why there are so many different types of fruit: why not one or two? Just like the overwhelmed reader, it could symbolize that Laura is overwhelmed by the temptation and desire to eat the different types of yummy fruits. The fruit is ripe and a source of decay. The fruit represents opposites: "night versus day, light versus dark, summer versus winter, and life versus death." (Krocker) The girls hear the elf's cry only in the morning and in the evening, never at night. Morning and evening are periods of transition, "Twilight is not good for maidens." (Rossetti 144) Even after Laura can no longer hear the goblins, Lizzie can still hear them, but only when "the slow evening has come" and "before the night grows dark." The transition symbolizes the transition from a young girl to a woman. Another example of youth to maturity is where the goblins sell fruit, the bank of the stream, a crack between the earth... middle of paper... urns in bitter poison for Laura. In a way the Goblin Market is a message to society about drug abuse and the dangers of addiction. Furthermore the fruit can also act as a disease; normally fruits are healthy, however in the poem it does the opposite by slowly killing the person who digests them. “Tender Lizzie could not bear to witness her sister's cancerous cures,” A canker sore is one of the main symptoms of syphilis, a sexually transmitted disease. In the poem the roots of men are in the soil, which is impure, and symbolizes men who have sexual relations with prostitutes. Women's reproductive organs are called "garden", so prostitutes have soil that is not very nutritious because it is already "ruined". Parliament passed a series of contagious disease laws requiring examinations for prostitutes, as the diseases were widespread in 1864. (Orchisse 4.)