Victorian Women's Temptations and Hysteria
in "Woman in her Psychological Relations" and "Goblin Market"
Kathryn Palmer
Introduction
The article “Woman in her Psychological Relations” (1851) written by an anonymous author provides medical background which surfaces in Christina Rossetti’s poem “Goblin Market” (1862). “Woman” highlights two problems with women: their tendency to romantically pursue soldiers and their typical mental deficiencies. In short, the author discusses women’s sexual temptations and the common diagnosis of female hysteria. The multifaceted, rich poem “Goblin Market” also addresses Victorian women’s temptations and hysteria. Although the author of “Woman” remains anonymous, the demeaning commentary toward women in the article suggests the author is a man, and “Goblin Market” has female authorship. These two texts, written over a decade apart by different genders, still address women’s temptations and hysteria in similar ways.
Women’s Temptations
In the article “Woman,” soldiers are women’s tempters, and in “Goblin Market,” goblins entice the female characters. “Woman” describes male soldiers’ physical attractiveness and how “the young female just bursting into womanhood” cannot understand her infatuation toward these men, the pinnacle of male handsomeness (Anon. 172). Although it is not explicitly addressed in the article, the author likely discouraged women from falling in love with soldiers so adamantly because only a small portion of Victorian soldiers were permitted to marry (Holmes 294). Even if they could marry, soldier’s wives and children shared their barracks, with only blankets slung over a line for privacy (Holmes 294). If the soldier was commissioned to go overseas, most likely, his wife would not see him for many years if ever again (Holmes 294). The author warns women against falling in love with soldiers, as this would likely lead to a miserable life.
Although the poem’s tempters are hideous rather than attractive like the British soldiers referenced in the article, Laura still becomes captivated by them in the same manner described in the article. The poem characterizes the goblins as animal-like rather than physically attractive:
One had a cat’s face,
One whisked a tail,
One tramped at a rat’s pace,
One crawled like a snail,
One wombat prowled obtuse and furry,
One like a ratel tumbled hurry skurry. (Rossetti 71-76)
The repetition of “One” in these lines emphasizes Laura’s entrancement. She wonders at the creatures before her, comparing each unique goblin with one animal quality. This structure reveals how overwhelming the situation is for Laura—she repeatedly relates the creatures with animals to try to comprehend the situation at hand. Moreover, the goblins’ voices unite together in “a voice like voice of doves / Cooing all together” to charm her (Rossetti 77-78). Their appearances are not sexually attractive, but their voices, alternatively, are “full of loves” toward her (Rossetti 79). Although the goblins are not physically comparable to soldiers, they are still able to enchant Laura with the same power that the article’s author describes women’s attraction to soldiers.
Interestingly, Laura exemplifies the typical young woman according to the author and Lizzie does not. The sisters clearly foil each other due to their similar names and sibling relationship. Laura represents the author’s views because she becomes irrationally attracted to
the goblins, like women become enamored by soldiers. The article even goes so far as to point to women’s involvement with soldiers “against [their] better judgment, in spite of the earnest entreaties of [their] friends” (Anon. 172). The poem mirrors this sentiment, as Lizzie clearly warns her sister about the persuasive, evil goblins.
The author continues to describe a young woman’s strong attraction to a male soldier by identifying the man as a tempter, which directly relates to the poem, as the goblins tempt both Laura and Lizzie. The anonymous author writes, “This enchantment—which it literally is—this infatuation, is often due to the unrecognized reaction of the physical appearance of the tempter upon the mind of his victim” (Anon. 172). Rather than place any blame on this hypothetical, impeccable male soldier, the text places blame entirely on the young woman in this prototypical relationship. The young, unmarried woman is “his victim, untrained to self-control, predisposed to the allurement by an excess of reproductive energy” must answer these “deep-felt longings” and cannot help but feel drawn to the soldier (Anon. 172). These ideas put forth by the article manifest in the poem because the goblins, like the soldiers, try to tempt Laura and Lizzie, and the latter female character undergoes a sensual experience while eating the goblins’ fruit (discussed later in this essay), possibly caused by the “excess of reproductive energy” identified in the article.
The goblins zealously tempt Laura and Lizzie, even following them, and Laura’s reaction to these creatures is reminiscent of the young women in “Woman.” Right away, the opening lines of the poem emphasize the tempters’ persistence, “Morning and evening / Maids heard the goblins cry:” (Rossetti 1-2). More than hearing the goblins’ cries in the morning and at night, the goblins also physically follow them:
Backwards up the mossy glen
Turned and trooped the goblin men,
With their shrill repeated cry,
“Come buy, come buy.”
When they reached where Laura was
They stood stock still upon the moss,
Leering at each other, (Rossetti 87-93)
The goblins persistently pursue the sisters, walking “Backwards up the mossy glen” and exerting extra effort to climb this slippery, moss-covered hill (Rossetti 87). Additionally, the diction “Backwards” implies additional effort required by the goblins to chase the women. Throughout the poem, and in the above quotation, the goblins repeatedly cry, “Come buy, come buy” (Rossetti 90). This repetition once again emphasizes the goblins’ determination in tempting Laura and Lizzie. When they approach Laura, they “stood stock still” and leer at each other (Rossetti 92). Whereas they constantly move about before this, the creatures stop in front of Laura, and the alliteration in the description of this stop in the action highlights this moment. This eerie image of the goblins suddenly halting and sneering at each other stresses the goblins’ relentless nature as tempters.
“Woman” elaborates on the irrational nature of women’s attraction to male soldiers, highlighting the great sacrifices these relationships many times require, like Lizzie’s sacrifice for Laura in the poem. The article states, “many a scene of domestic anguish might have been averted, and many an irrevocable sacrifice prevented—the sacrifice of home, reputation, friends, conscience—to the gratification of an irresistible passion” if male influence had been counterbalanced (Anon. 172). Lizzie indeed put her life at risk, the ultimate sacrifice, to remedy Laura’s surrender to the goblin’s lures.
The entirely of “Goblin Market” can be interpreted as a story of redemption in which Lizzie makes the sacrifices specified in “Woman.” Certainly Lizzie suffers “domestic anguish” when she desperately tries to nurture her sister back to good health at their home (Anon. 172). In this case, no “irrevocable sacrifice” is made because Lizzie ultimately lives a normal life, along with Laura, after the events in the poem (Anon. 172). However, Lizzie’s sacrifice almost kills her, and the lines describing the abuse she endures are described similarly to the guards’ mistreatment of Jesus before his crucifixion. In the Bible, servants and even the Sanhedrin itself abuse Jesus following the trial that found him guilty of blasphemy. The cruelty is documented in the Biblical book Matthew, “Then did they spit in his face, and buffeted him;; and others smote him with the palms of their hands” (King James Bible, Matthew 26.67-68). Throughout this angry and excessive maltreatment, Jesus remained silent, just as Lizzie does during her own sadistic suffering.
The goblins’ mistreatment of Lizzie directly alludes to Christ’s sacrifice, along with many other references throughout the poem, and these extracts embody the avoidable sacrifices that “Woman” pleads its readers to evade. When she inquires about their fruit, the creatures tear her gown, and when they “[squeeze] their fruits / Against her mouth to make her eat,” the speaker describes her as “White” twice, highlighting her purity compared to the evil beasts (Rossetti 406-08, 416). At the peak of the goblins’ violent attack, Lizzie still does not speak:
Tho’ the goblins cuffed and caught her,
Coaxed and fought her,
.............................
Mauled and mocked her,
Lizzie uttered not a word; (Rossetti 424-25, 429-430).
Similar to Christ, Lizzie does not attempt to escape this situation. Instead, she silently submits to the horror inflicted upon her. The goblin men coax Lizzie, just as Christ was harassed, “Others smote him with the palms of their hands, saying, ‘Prophesy unto us, thou Christ, Who is he that smote thee?;;” (Matthew 26.68). In the end, Laura survives and all is well due to Laura’s selfless, yet dark and needless, sacrifice in enduring extreme pain.
Female Hysteria
In addition to young women’s temptations, female hysteria surfaces as another contemporary issue addressed in “Woman” and “Goblin Market.” Hysteria was a once-common medical diagnosis made exclusively in women, which is today no longer recognized by medical authorities as a medical disorder. Its diagnosis and treatment were routine for many hundreds of years in Western Europe (Morantz 568). Medical literature of the 19th century frequently discussed hysteria, including “Woman.” Women considered to be suffering from it exhibited a wide array of symptoms including faintness, nervousness, sexual desire, insomnia, fluid retention, heaviness in the abdomen, muscle spasm, shortness of breath, irritability, loss of appetite for food or sex, and “a tendency to cause trouble” (Maines 12). One physician cataloged seventy-five pages of possible symptoms of hysteria and called the list incomplete; almost any ailment could fit the diagnosis (Morantz 568). Physicians thought that the stresses associated with modern life caused civilized women to be both more susceptible to nervous disorders and to develop faulty reproductive tracts (Morantz 568). Hysteria was so widely diagnosed in women that a physician in 1859, between the publication of these two works (“Woman” in 1851 and “Goblin Market” in 1862), claimed that a quarter of all women suffered from it (Morantz 569).
In his article “Christina Rossetti: Illness and Ideology,” Antony Harrison analyzes Rossetti’s poetry in relation to her own illnesses. After her mid-teens, her health was rarely strong, and she began to endure a “severe nervous breakdown” (Marsh 61). She suffered many medical difficulties including heart problems and a serious chronic cough. Her health was so terrible that, in a letter to a friend in 1851, she stated that she was unable “to encounter [even] the fatigue of a walk” (qtd. in Harrison 417). This suffering seems to have lessened from the mid-1850s forward, and it is during these years when she worked as a volunteer Associated at the Mary Magdalen Penitentiary for Fallen Women on Highgate Hill (Harrison 418). It is also during this span of good health when she published Goblin Market and Other Poems (1862).
Rossetti was most likely diagnosed with hysteria, and this condition is addressed overtly in “Woman” and more subtly in “Goblin Market.” Although medical records cannot prove her diagnosis, scholars such as Harrison believe that given Rossetti’s symptoms and treatment along with the frequency of identification of female hysteria at this time, this diagnosis is probable. The author of “Woman” asserts the prevalence of hysteria when he or she writes, “It cannot be denied, however, that rarely, if ever, is the ideal perfection [in women]...attained;; here or there some imperfection mars the grand design; the mind of woman, or the body, or both, suffer deformity” (Anon. 171). The author specifically points to “some morbid reaction of the corporeal organs on the nervous system,” hysteria, as a possible reason for a woman’s mental deficiency (Anon. 171). The article draws heavily from Thomas Laycock’s articles on hysteria (1838-9) and A Treatise on the Nervous Diseases of Women (1840), ultimately putting forth women’s tendency to have “psychological imperfections” due to hysteria (Anon. 171).
Rossetti’s experiences with her own hysteria, and with the prevalence of the nervous disorder in the Victorian Era, manifests in “Goblin Market.” After Laura consumes a variety of fruits from the demonic goblins, she begins to waste away, “Her hair grew thin and gray;; / She
dwindled” (Rossetti 277-78). In a significant passage midway through the poem, when Laura, “dwindling / Seemed knocking at Death’s door,” Lizzie is reminded of (Rossetti 320-21):
Jeanie in her grave,
Who should have been a bride;
But who for joys brides hope to have
Fell sick and died
In her gay prime. (Rossetti 312-16)
The poem references Jeanie three times, evoking her memory when Lizzie thinks of the severity of her sister’s illness. Lizzie uses Jeanie’s morbid fate to motivate herself to seek the goblins’ fruit for her sister’s sake. Interestingly, Rossetti never married, yet she references Jeanie’s unfulfilled hopes of becoming a bride as the only part of Jeanie’s life she missed. Still, even though Jeanie did not become a bride, she still partook in bridal joys, “But who for joys brides hope to have / Fell sick and died” (Rossetti 314-15). This quotation highlights the sexual nature of consuming the goblins’ fruit. Jeanie’s premature experiences of such “joys” cause her to become a fallen woman, since she “fell sick” (Rossetti 314-15). Harrison explains the importance of this passage, “In this central passage from Rossetti’s title poem in her debut volume, an equation is thus set up between the indulgence of female sexual desire and sickness unto death” (Harrison 416). Additionally, the diction “gay” used to describe Jeanie here was commonly used during the Victorian Era to describe prostitutes, further suggesting this relationship between extramarital sex and extreme punishment: death (Harrison 416).
“Woman” explains young women’s irrational attractions to soldiers by blaming their sexual eagerness. These women possess “an excess of reproductive energy” that predisposes them to fall for the men (Anon. 172). Jeanine’s experience with the goblins’ fruit discussed
above characterizes the experience as a sexual one. Laura and Lizzie’s relationship also fits within this sensual realm. The women sleep together, “Cheek to cheek and breast to breast / Locked together in one nest” (Rossetti 197-98). This detail displays the intimate nature of the sisters’ bond. The most prominent lesbian imagery occurs when Lizzie invites Laura to drink the antidote off of her body, “Eat me, drink me, love me; / Laura, make much of me: (Rossetti 468, 471-72). The women possess sexual awareness, perhaps homosexual in this reference, and when Laura eats the men’s fruit passionately, “She sucked and sucked and sucked the more,” she displays heterosexual sensuality (Rossetti 134). Both Jeanine and Laura are punished for indulging in sexual acts before marriage.
Considering Rossetti’s fervent religious beliefs, perhaps “Goblin Market” agrees that the sexuality reprimanded in “Woman” should be punished, and illness functions in the poem as this penance. Religious devotion to the Church of England majorly affected her worldview, and this is evidenced in the poem’s Christian references. In the poem, Laura, and presumably Jeanine as well, act on their sexual urges. In the inhospitable climate of mid-Victorian England, adolescent desire must be suffocated, and this of desire would likely be diagnosed as hysteria. Jeanine does die for his misdeeds, and Laura “Seem’d knocking at Death’s door:” (Rossetti 321). These women give way to their sexual desires, those wishes “Woman” warns against, and, in “Goblin Market,” these characters enjoy these acts for a large price.
Conclusion
“Woman” details foundational beliefs about women in the Victorian Era which “Goblin Market” addresses in a similar way. In “Woman,” the author describes an inherent contradiction. The article begins by essentially complaining about women’s imperfections;; the author laments about how no woman is both physically and mentally perfect. He describes hysteria as a common
mental flaw, however, immediately following this discussion, the article shifts to reprimand women for following their sexual desires and pursuing soldiers. Soldiers represent male physical perfection according to the author, and the anonymous writer tells women to exercise self-control against their desires. Suppression of sexuality was one of the major symptoms of hysteria, as women struggled to ignore this innate drive. Thus, the author illogically wants women to avoid hysteria, but still encourages them to suppress their sexuality, which leads to the diagnosis.
“Goblin Market” recognizes a cause of female hysteria to be sinful sexual desire, but different from the contradiction in “Woman” that offers no guidance to solve the problem, the poem gives an answer: female help. Rossetti volunteered nearly a decade of her free time to work at Highgate Penitentiary for Fallen Women, and Marsh argues that her time here inspired the composition of this poem (Marsh 229). She sympathized with the Highgate women, many of whom were not professional prostitutes but rather other-wise respectable lower-class women who had lapsed and therefore perhaps welcomed the efforts of religious reclamation provided at Highgate (Marsh 224-25). Rossetti sought to help them avoid becoming lost in the world like Jeanine in the poem, and she perhaps hoped that she could guide them to their own salvation, like Lizzie helps Laura. Interestingly, the only “men” in the poem are the goblins;; the piece clearly focuses on women. Although “Woman” does not provide an answer to its problems, “Goblin Market” advocates female help as the solution to save women who have given into temptation and fallen into hysteria.
Works Cited
Anon. “Woman in Her Psychological Relations.” 1851. Embodied Selves: An Anthology of Psychological Texts 1830-1890. Ed. Jenny B. Taylor and Sally Shuttleworth. N.p.:
Clarendon, 1998. 170-76. Print.
Arseneau, Mary, Antony H. Harrison, and Lorraine J. Kooistra, eds. The Culture of Christina Rossetti: Female Poetics and Victorian Contexts. Athens: Ohio University, 1999. Print.
Harrison, Antony H. “Christina Rossetti: Illness and Ideology.” Victorian Poetry 45.4 (2007): 415-428. Academic Search Alumni Edition. Web. 19 Nov. 2013.
Holmes, Richard. Redcoat: The British Soldier in the Age of Horse and Musket. 1st American ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 2003. Print.
King James Bible. Bible Gateway, n.d. Web. 19 Nov. 2013.
Maines, Rachel P. The Technology of Orgasm: “Hysteria,” the Vibrator, and Women’s Sexual Satisfaction. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University, 1999. Print.
Marsh, Jan. Christina Rossetti: A Writer’s Life. 1st American ed. New York: Viking, 1995. Print.
Morantz, Regina M., and Sue Zschoche. “Professionalism, Feminism, and Gender Roles: A Comparative Study of Nineteenth-Century Medical Therapeutics.” The Journal of American
History 67.3 (1980): 568-88. JSTOR. Web. 19 Nov. 2013.
Rossetti, Christina. “Goblin Market.” 1862. The Longman Anthology: British Literature. 4th ed. Vol. 2B. Boston: Longman, 2010. 1650-663. Print.
The article “Woman in her Psychological Relations” (1851) written by an anonymous author provides medical background which surfaces in Christina Rossetti’s poem “Goblin Market” (1862). “Woman” highlights two problems with women: their tendency to romantically pursue soldiers and their typical mental deficiencies. In short, the author discusses women’s sexual temptations and the common diagnosis of female hysteria. The multifaceted, rich poem “Goblin Market” also addresses Victorian women’s temptations and hysteria. Although the author of “Woman” remains anonymous, the demeaning commentary toward women in the article suggests the author is a man, and “Goblin Market” has female authorship. These two texts, written over a decade apart by different genders, still address women’s temptations and hysteria in similar ways.
Women’s Temptations
In the article “Woman,” soldiers are women’s tempters, and in “Goblin Market,” goblins entice the female characters. “Woman” describes male soldiers’ physical attractiveness and how “the young female just bursting into womanhood” cannot understand her infatuation toward these men, the pinnacle of male handsomeness (Anon. 172). Although it is not explicitly addressed in the article, the author likely discouraged women from falling in love with soldiers so adamantly because only a small portion of Victorian soldiers were permitted to marry (Holmes 294). Even if they could marry, soldier’s wives and children shared their barracks, with only blankets slung over a line for privacy (Holmes 294). If the soldier was commissioned to go overseas, most likely, his wife would not see him for many years if ever again (Holmes 294). The author warns women against falling in love with soldiers, as this would likely lead to a miserable life.
Although the poem’s tempters are hideous rather than attractive like the British soldiers referenced in the article, Laura still becomes captivated by them in the same manner described in the article. The poem characterizes the goblins as animal-like rather than physically attractive:
One had a cat’s face,
One whisked a tail,
One tramped at a rat’s pace,
One crawled like a snail,
One wombat prowled obtuse and furry,
One like a ratel tumbled hurry skurry. (Rossetti 71-76)
The repetition of “One” in these lines emphasizes Laura’s entrancement. She wonders at the creatures before her, comparing each unique goblin with one animal quality. This structure reveals how overwhelming the situation is for Laura—she repeatedly relates the creatures with animals to try to comprehend the situation at hand. Moreover, the goblins’ voices unite together in “a voice like voice of doves / Cooing all together” to charm her (Rossetti 77-78). Their appearances are not sexually attractive, but their voices, alternatively, are “full of loves” toward her (Rossetti 79). Although the goblins are not physically comparable to soldiers, they are still able to enchant Laura with the same power that the article’s author describes women’s attraction to soldiers.
Interestingly, Laura exemplifies the typical young woman according to the author and Lizzie does not. The sisters clearly foil each other due to their similar names and sibling relationship. Laura represents the author’s views because she becomes irrationally attracted to
the goblins, like women become enamored by soldiers. The article even goes so far as to point to women’s involvement with soldiers “against [their] better judgment, in spite of the earnest entreaties of [their] friends” (Anon. 172). The poem mirrors this sentiment, as Lizzie clearly warns her sister about the persuasive, evil goblins.
The author continues to describe a young woman’s strong attraction to a male soldier by identifying the man as a tempter, which directly relates to the poem, as the goblins tempt both Laura and Lizzie. The anonymous author writes, “This enchantment—which it literally is—this infatuation, is often due to the unrecognized reaction of the physical appearance of the tempter upon the mind of his victim” (Anon. 172). Rather than place any blame on this hypothetical, impeccable male soldier, the text places blame entirely on the young woman in this prototypical relationship. The young, unmarried woman is “his victim, untrained to self-control, predisposed to the allurement by an excess of reproductive energy” must answer these “deep-felt longings” and cannot help but feel drawn to the soldier (Anon. 172). These ideas put forth by the article manifest in the poem because the goblins, like the soldiers, try to tempt Laura and Lizzie, and the latter female character undergoes a sensual experience while eating the goblins’ fruit (discussed later in this essay), possibly caused by the “excess of reproductive energy” identified in the article.
The goblins zealously tempt Laura and Lizzie, even following them, and Laura’s reaction to these creatures is reminiscent of the young women in “Woman.” Right away, the opening lines of the poem emphasize the tempters’ persistence, “Morning and evening / Maids heard the goblins cry:” (Rossetti 1-2). More than hearing the goblins’ cries in the morning and at night, the goblins also physically follow them:
Backwards up the mossy glen
Turned and trooped the goblin men,
With their shrill repeated cry,
“Come buy, come buy.”
When they reached where Laura was
They stood stock still upon the moss,
Leering at each other, (Rossetti 87-93)
The goblins persistently pursue the sisters, walking “Backwards up the mossy glen” and exerting extra effort to climb this slippery, moss-covered hill (Rossetti 87). Additionally, the diction “Backwards” implies additional effort required by the goblins to chase the women. Throughout the poem, and in the above quotation, the goblins repeatedly cry, “Come buy, come buy” (Rossetti 90). This repetition once again emphasizes the goblins’ determination in tempting Laura and Lizzie. When they approach Laura, they “stood stock still” and leer at each other (Rossetti 92). Whereas they constantly move about before this, the creatures stop in front of Laura, and the alliteration in the description of this stop in the action highlights this moment. This eerie image of the goblins suddenly halting and sneering at each other stresses the goblins’ relentless nature as tempters.
“Woman” elaborates on the irrational nature of women’s attraction to male soldiers, highlighting the great sacrifices these relationships many times require, like Lizzie’s sacrifice for Laura in the poem. The article states, “many a scene of domestic anguish might have been averted, and many an irrevocable sacrifice prevented—the sacrifice of home, reputation, friends, conscience—to the gratification of an irresistible passion” if male influence had been counterbalanced (Anon. 172). Lizzie indeed put her life at risk, the ultimate sacrifice, to remedy Laura’s surrender to the goblin’s lures.
The entirely of “Goblin Market” can be interpreted as a story of redemption in which Lizzie makes the sacrifices specified in “Woman.” Certainly Lizzie suffers “domestic anguish” when she desperately tries to nurture her sister back to good health at their home (Anon. 172). In this case, no “irrevocable sacrifice” is made because Lizzie ultimately lives a normal life, along with Laura, after the events in the poem (Anon. 172). However, Lizzie’s sacrifice almost kills her, and the lines describing the abuse she endures are described similarly to the guards’ mistreatment of Jesus before his crucifixion. In the Bible, servants and even the Sanhedrin itself abuse Jesus following the trial that found him guilty of blasphemy. The cruelty is documented in the Biblical book Matthew, “Then did they spit in his face, and buffeted him;; and others smote him with the palms of their hands” (King James Bible, Matthew 26.67-68). Throughout this angry and excessive maltreatment, Jesus remained silent, just as Lizzie does during her own sadistic suffering.
The goblins’ mistreatment of Lizzie directly alludes to Christ’s sacrifice, along with many other references throughout the poem, and these extracts embody the avoidable sacrifices that “Woman” pleads its readers to evade. When she inquires about their fruit, the creatures tear her gown, and when they “[squeeze] their fruits / Against her mouth to make her eat,” the speaker describes her as “White” twice, highlighting her purity compared to the evil beasts (Rossetti 406-08, 416). At the peak of the goblins’ violent attack, Lizzie still does not speak:
Tho’ the goblins cuffed and caught her,
Coaxed and fought her,
.............................
Mauled and mocked her,
Lizzie uttered not a word; (Rossetti 424-25, 429-430).
Similar to Christ, Lizzie does not attempt to escape this situation. Instead, she silently submits to the horror inflicted upon her. The goblin men coax Lizzie, just as Christ was harassed, “Others smote him with the palms of their hands, saying, ‘Prophesy unto us, thou Christ, Who is he that smote thee?;;” (Matthew 26.68). In the end, Laura survives and all is well due to Laura’s selfless, yet dark and needless, sacrifice in enduring extreme pain.
Female Hysteria
In addition to young women’s temptations, female hysteria surfaces as another contemporary issue addressed in “Woman” and “Goblin Market.” Hysteria was a once-common medical diagnosis made exclusively in women, which is today no longer recognized by medical authorities as a medical disorder. Its diagnosis and treatment were routine for many hundreds of years in Western Europe (Morantz 568). Medical literature of the 19th century frequently discussed hysteria, including “Woman.” Women considered to be suffering from it exhibited a wide array of symptoms including faintness, nervousness, sexual desire, insomnia, fluid retention, heaviness in the abdomen, muscle spasm, shortness of breath, irritability, loss of appetite for food or sex, and “a tendency to cause trouble” (Maines 12). One physician cataloged seventy-five pages of possible symptoms of hysteria and called the list incomplete; almost any ailment could fit the diagnosis (Morantz 568). Physicians thought that the stresses associated with modern life caused civilized women to be both more susceptible to nervous disorders and to develop faulty reproductive tracts (Morantz 568). Hysteria was so widely diagnosed in women that a physician in 1859, between the publication of these two works (“Woman” in 1851 and “Goblin Market” in 1862), claimed that a quarter of all women suffered from it (Morantz 569).
In his article “Christina Rossetti: Illness and Ideology,” Antony Harrison analyzes Rossetti’s poetry in relation to her own illnesses. After her mid-teens, her health was rarely strong, and she began to endure a “severe nervous breakdown” (Marsh 61). She suffered many medical difficulties including heart problems and a serious chronic cough. Her health was so terrible that, in a letter to a friend in 1851, she stated that she was unable “to encounter [even] the fatigue of a walk” (qtd. in Harrison 417). This suffering seems to have lessened from the mid-1850s forward, and it is during these years when she worked as a volunteer Associated at the Mary Magdalen Penitentiary for Fallen Women on Highgate Hill (Harrison 418). It is also during this span of good health when she published Goblin Market and Other Poems (1862).
Rossetti was most likely diagnosed with hysteria, and this condition is addressed overtly in “Woman” and more subtly in “Goblin Market.” Although medical records cannot prove her diagnosis, scholars such as Harrison believe that given Rossetti’s symptoms and treatment along with the frequency of identification of female hysteria at this time, this diagnosis is probable. The author of “Woman” asserts the prevalence of hysteria when he or she writes, “It cannot be denied, however, that rarely, if ever, is the ideal perfection [in women]...attained;; here or there some imperfection mars the grand design; the mind of woman, or the body, or both, suffer deformity” (Anon. 171). The author specifically points to “some morbid reaction of the corporeal organs on the nervous system,” hysteria, as a possible reason for a woman’s mental deficiency (Anon. 171). The article draws heavily from Thomas Laycock’s articles on hysteria (1838-9) and A Treatise on the Nervous Diseases of Women (1840), ultimately putting forth women’s tendency to have “psychological imperfections” due to hysteria (Anon. 171).
Rossetti’s experiences with her own hysteria, and with the prevalence of the nervous disorder in the Victorian Era, manifests in “Goblin Market.” After Laura consumes a variety of fruits from the demonic goblins, she begins to waste away, “Her hair grew thin and gray;; / She
dwindled” (Rossetti 277-78). In a significant passage midway through the poem, when Laura, “dwindling / Seemed knocking at Death’s door,” Lizzie is reminded of (Rossetti 320-21):
Jeanie in her grave,
Who should have been a bride;
But who for joys brides hope to have
Fell sick and died
In her gay prime. (Rossetti 312-16)
The poem references Jeanie three times, evoking her memory when Lizzie thinks of the severity of her sister’s illness. Lizzie uses Jeanie’s morbid fate to motivate herself to seek the goblins’ fruit for her sister’s sake. Interestingly, Rossetti never married, yet she references Jeanie’s unfulfilled hopes of becoming a bride as the only part of Jeanie’s life she missed. Still, even though Jeanie did not become a bride, she still partook in bridal joys, “But who for joys brides hope to have / Fell sick and died” (Rossetti 314-15). This quotation highlights the sexual nature of consuming the goblins’ fruit. Jeanie’s premature experiences of such “joys” cause her to become a fallen woman, since she “fell sick” (Rossetti 314-15). Harrison explains the importance of this passage, “In this central passage from Rossetti’s title poem in her debut volume, an equation is thus set up between the indulgence of female sexual desire and sickness unto death” (Harrison 416). Additionally, the diction “gay” used to describe Jeanie here was commonly used during the Victorian Era to describe prostitutes, further suggesting this relationship between extramarital sex and extreme punishment: death (Harrison 416).
“Woman” explains young women’s irrational attractions to soldiers by blaming their sexual eagerness. These women possess “an excess of reproductive energy” that predisposes them to fall for the men (Anon. 172). Jeanine’s experience with the goblins’ fruit discussed
above characterizes the experience as a sexual one. Laura and Lizzie’s relationship also fits within this sensual realm. The women sleep together, “Cheek to cheek and breast to breast / Locked together in one nest” (Rossetti 197-98). This detail displays the intimate nature of the sisters’ bond. The most prominent lesbian imagery occurs when Lizzie invites Laura to drink the antidote off of her body, “Eat me, drink me, love me; / Laura, make much of me: (Rossetti 468, 471-72). The women possess sexual awareness, perhaps homosexual in this reference, and when Laura eats the men’s fruit passionately, “She sucked and sucked and sucked the more,” she displays heterosexual sensuality (Rossetti 134). Both Jeanine and Laura are punished for indulging in sexual acts before marriage.
Considering Rossetti’s fervent religious beliefs, perhaps “Goblin Market” agrees that the sexuality reprimanded in “Woman” should be punished, and illness functions in the poem as this penance. Religious devotion to the Church of England majorly affected her worldview, and this is evidenced in the poem’s Christian references. In the poem, Laura, and presumably Jeanine as well, act on their sexual urges. In the inhospitable climate of mid-Victorian England, adolescent desire must be suffocated, and this of desire would likely be diagnosed as hysteria. Jeanine does die for his misdeeds, and Laura “Seem’d knocking at Death’s door:” (Rossetti 321). These women give way to their sexual desires, those wishes “Woman” warns against, and, in “Goblin Market,” these characters enjoy these acts for a large price.
Conclusion
“Woman” details foundational beliefs about women in the Victorian Era which “Goblin Market” addresses in a similar way. In “Woman,” the author describes an inherent contradiction. The article begins by essentially complaining about women’s imperfections;; the author laments about how no woman is both physically and mentally perfect. He describes hysteria as a common
mental flaw, however, immediately following this discussion, the article shifts to reprimand women for following their sexual desires and pursuing soldiers. Soldiers represent male physical perfection according to the author, and the anonymous writer tells women to exercise self-control against their desires. Suppression of sexuality was one of the major symptoms of hysteria, as women struggled to ignore this innate drive. Thus, the author illogically wants women to avoid hysteria, but still encourages them to suppress their sexuality, which leads to the diagnosis.
“Goblin Market” recognizes a cause of female hysteria to be sinful sexual desire, but different from the contradiction in “Woman” that offers no guidance to solve the problem, the poem gives an answer: female help. Rossetti volunteered nearly a decade of her free time to work at Highgate Penitentiary for Fallen Women, and Marsh argues that her time here inspired the composition of this poem (Marsh 229). She sympathized with the Highgate women, many of whom were not professional prostitutes but rather other-wise respectable lower-class women who had lapsed and therefore perhaps welcomed the efforts of religious reclamation provided at Highgate (Marsh 224-25). Rossetti sought to help them avoid becoming lost in the world like Jeanine in the poem, and she perhaps hoped that she could guide them to their own salvation, like Lizzie helps Laura. Interestingly, the only “men” in the poem are the goblins;; the piece clearly focuses on women. Although “Woman” does not provide an answer to its problems, “Goblin Market” advocates female help as the solution to save women who have given into temptation and fallen into hysteria.
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