Theme 1: Gender Roles & Patriarchy — Goblin Market

Question 2

What quote from Goblin Market reflects the fall from domestic womanhood?

Answer 2

“She no more swept the house, / Tended the fowls or cows.”

Question 3

What does “She no more swept the house…” suggest about gender roles?

Answer 3

Laura’s sexual fall (symbolised by the fruit) makes her unfit for domesticity – a reversal of Victorian female ideals.

Question 4

What biblical or Victorian context links domesticity to female virtue in Goblin Market?

Answer 4

St. Paul’s Letters (1 Timothy 2:15): “She shall be saved through childbearing…” – links virtue to domestic obedience.

Question 5

What do Gilbert & Gubar say about Laura’s downfall in Goblin Market?

Answer 5

“The woman poet must kill herself into art or kill herself with it.” (The Madwoman in the Attic, 1979)

Question 6

What staging comparison links Laura’s fall in Goblin Market to A Doll’s House?

Answer 6

Just as Nora exits the home in Act III, Rossetti suggests a woman cannot be both spiritually alive and domestically confined.