Lizzie – A Modern Hero

 

As I begin to read “Goblin Market,” I noticed right away that the heroine of the poem is named Lizzie. Because my life has been consumed with Barchas’ Jane Austen TC, I immediately thought of Elizabeth (Lizzie) Bennet in Pride and Prejudice. Up until this poem was written, as Chetna pointed out, there were female heroines, but they had “no outlet for heroic action” because “they are constrained by the gender-roles into which a male-dominated society has placed them” (Chetna). All to which I completely agree. However, I do not believe that “Elizabeth must spend a good deal of her energy waiting for Darcy to take action; she herself is hobbled by the cords of decorum” (Chetna). Elizabeth is not a heroine for her romantic ideas or the love story that exists between her and Darcy. She is a heroine for the liveliness of her mind and her strict adherence to her own beliefs, despite the condemnation of some of them by the society she lives in, and in many cases, her mother.

 

                    

Both Lizzie and Elizabeth display a liveliness of mind that is not found in many heroines of the day

 

Much like Elizabeth Bennet’s refusal to give in and marry a man that she does not love, Lizzie does not give into the temptations of the goblin sellers. Even as she hears their cry of “Come and buy, Come and buy” (Rossetti, in Bump, 294, line 31). When Laura succumbs to the temptation of the goblin fruit, she does not pay them with money, but rather with a lock of her own hair. “She clipp’d a precious golden lock / She dropped a tear more rare than a pearl / The sucked their fruit globes fair or red” (Rossetti, 297, lines 126-128). She actually sells a piece of herself, a piece of her identity, for the fruits and tastes of heaven the goblins offer. Lizzie, however, recognizes the evil that the goblins stand for, and not only rejects temptation once, but twice. The second time, she intentionally subjects herself to their powers in order to save her sister from the cold touch of death. By Rachel’s definition of a hero, Lizzie is just that. She stands fast in her own beliefs and even puts her own life at risk to save the life of a most beloved sister.  

 

Lizzie and Elizabeth are able to fight the goblins in their lives

 

But, beyond her incredible sense of self, Lizzie also has Elizabeth’s highly praised liveliness of mind. In my opinion, this is what makes Elizabeth and Lizzie heroines. They are not the stereotypical females, devoid of any opinion or thought. Both heroines have the ability to find humor is various situations and are clever enough to find ways to save those they love. Lizzie, unable to take the fruit with her home, harnesses the goblins anger and uses it to her benefit. While they believe themselves to be destroying Lizzie, they are in fact giving her a way to save Laura. While the goblins attempt to cram fruit into her mouth, Lizzie “laugh’d in heart to feel the drip / Of juice that syrupp’d all her face / And lodged in dimples of her chin / And streak’d her neck which quaked like curd” (Rossetti 305, lines 433-436). She knows that she, in the end, will triumph and “life [will come] out of death” (Rossetti, 307, line 524).