The Convent Threshold

Today in English we started talking about another Christina Rossetti poem, The Convent Threshold. It is the story of a woman trying to persuade her lover to repent his sins and join her in heaven, while fighting her temptations to sin. We were thinking about how voices, character, point of view, setting and destination impacted the story. We split up into groups and spoke about the poem. We found it a bit difficult because the poem is very vague, so we did a few points on setting and places, then switched to characters.
Setting and Places
We said that the poem was like Heaven vs Earth for the speaker, as she has to decide which is better, as her lover wants to stay on Earth (and I believe the sinful/rebellious part of her wants to stay on Earth too) and she wants to repent and go to Heaven, 'your eyes look downward, mine look up.' She also has a dream, which I believe worries her about her lover going to Heaven and becoming drunk on knowledge and her not loving him anymore. Rossetti also makes it at times like Earth is the better place, as the speakers lover is there and she believes that if she goes to Heaven without him, it will be hell for her as she can't live without him.
Character
The speaker is in constant conflict with herself for the entire poem, over which to choose - religion or love. She wants to repent back to her Christian, pure life, but she loves her lover so much - 'I prayed against my will.' She may want him to repent too, so everything in the afterlife will be perfect for her. This may parallel Rossetti's real life, as she had to choose between religion and love herself. However, she chose religion and refused to marry two men she loved, because they were a different religion to her. The speaker also has worries about decending to hell in her dream for the sins they commited - 'Crushed downwards through the sodden earth.' She also doesn't want to go to Heaven without him, which is why she is pleading to him throughout the poem to repent with her - 'How should I rest in Paradise or sit on the steps of Heaven alone?'

Cousin Kate...

We spent the lesson planning what we could write in the exam question 'To what extent do you agree that the women in Cousin Kate are heroic?' We made lists of why Cousin Kate and the speaker are heroic and not heroic.
Heroic
We said the speaker is heroic because she acknowledges her mistakes with 'my shame, my pride' and 'shameless shameful life.' Also, you could say that Cousin Kate is heroic because she stayed pure and virtuous, it is just the speaker that portrayed Kate as horrible. The speaker is heroic, as she challenges the stereotypical 'fallen woman,' as she builds herself back up rather than just falling to pieces. The speaker also stays strong in the face of injustice, as it wasn't her fault, it was the Lords.
Not Heroic
The speaker cannot move on from her 'bad experience' and constantly ridicules Kate about the fact that she cannot have children. Kate also marries the Lord even though she doesn't love him and just does it for materialistic purposes - 'your love was writ in sand.' The whole poem is patriarchal, as men control everything (the Lord is the reason the speaker is not pure and partially the reason what splits up the relationship between Kate and the speaker.) Lastly, Kate doesn't speak up for her cousin in any way and just lets the speaker become an outcast from the village and doesn't do anything about it.

Cousin Kate

In lesson, we were talking about the narrative methods in 'Cousin Kate.' We spoke about character, setting, point of view, language, sequence and destination.
Character
I thought that you may side with the speaker because she acknowledges her mistakes, even though she is not ashamed of them, through the use of 'shameless shameful life' and 'my shame, my pride.' You also feel empathy for the character by how she is treated by the Lord, who tosses her aside for someone more beautiful than her and also by how the neighbours call her a 'thing' for not being a virgin and not being married. However, the reader may lose symapthy for the speaker because of how bitter she is towards Kate.
Setting
The poem is set in a village, which may be done by Rossetti to make the speaker and Kate 'cottage maidens,' which makes them sound innocent and pure. I also believe it is a village setting to make the speaker more isolated in her experience, as in a town, there might be more 'fallen women,' so the poem wouldn't have been as effective.
Point of View
You see all the characters through the speaker, and it is a very feminist view, which is a running theme in Rossetti's poems. It says that the Lord is evil and is to blame for corrupting the speaker, who is the victim. Like traditional feminsist writing , the heroine overcomes her problems to be stronger in the end. She also makes Kate out to be very weak, but not refusing the Lords offer of marriage, even though she doesn't love him - 'your love was writ in sand.'
Language
The poem mentions 'sun and air' in the first verse, which as well as symbolising purity, could be a hint to the eventual end and the speaker having a son and inheriting land. The whole poem contrasts the speaker and Kate, for example, calling Kate 'good and pure' and the speaker an 'outcast thing.' There is also a lot of imagery such as the mention of doves, which symbolise the purity the speaker could have had. The bitterness of the speaker is also shown by how the speaker calls her 'Cousin Kate' and puts emphasis on the fact they are related, which may seem like a betrayal (the poem also seems to be written to Kate.)
Sequence
The poem is in chronological order and looks at the speakers past, present and future. It is done this way to show the highs and lows the speaker goes through and so the big twist can occur at the end. If it wasn't this way, I do not believe the poem would flow properly.
Destination
At the beginning of the poem it seems like a traditional fallen woman story (a woman becoming an outcast never to return) but then the ending of her having a child with future land to inherit proves the destination changes throughout.
  

The Fallen Woman

In lesson we were talking about the fallen woman, who is a woman who has had sex before marriage and is socially cast aside in shame. We first read 'The Decieved Girl,' which is about a traditional fallen woman, who is shamed and called a whore and no longer a part of society because of this. We then read Cousin Kate by Christina Rossetti.
Cousin Kate is the story of a woman who falls in love with a Lord and sleeps with him, even though they are not married. She is then forgotten when the lord sees the speakers cousin, Kate, who is more beautiful than the speaker. He then marries Kate and even though they have both done the same thing (slept with the Lord,) the speaker is called a whore and Cousin Kate is called pure, because she is married.
Cousin Kate is different from a traditional fallen woman story, because the speaker is in power at the end, as she has a son who will inherit their families land and it is made out  by Rossetti that Cousin Kate is unable to have children. The speaker shows pride and strength at the end and she doesn't seem to be as bothered as other fallen women would be by what has happened to her. This is another feminist poem by Rossetti, which seems to be a running theme in her poems.

Goblin Market - Other Interpretations

In lesson today we were listening to each other ideas about the different interpretations of Goblin Market. These are the other interpretations spoke about (Erotic, Feminist, Marxist and Moral.)
Erotic
The group mentioned how 'unpicked cherries' could symbolise Lizzie and Lauras virginity and how the fruit could symbolise temptation. I think the strongest arguement, is the symbolism of prostitution and rape. When Laura sells her hair, it could be symbolising her selling herself (prostitution) for the fruit. Towards the end, when Lizzie sacrifices herself for Laura and they try and force her to eat the fruits could be the idea of the goblins attempting to rape Lizzie. In this interpretation, Lizzie is portrayed as strong, as she refuses to let the goblins rape her 'would not open lip from lip.'
Feminist
In the feminist view, Lizzie is the hero as she saves her sister. There is the sisterly love between Lizzie and Laura and the idea is that their relationship is pure and intimate, which in the poem is a complete contrast with the relationship between a man and woman, which is very violent. The feminist view that Christina Rossetti wrote portrays the goblins as very animalistic and evil, and just wanting to feed the women the fruit. The view says that the goblin men break the bond between Lizzie and Laura, by tempting Laura to eat the fruit. Rossetti also says the line 'stamped on her tender feet' contrasting the men (violent) and women (soft and vunerable.)
Marxist
This interpretation is the idea of consumerism and trade. The strongest arguement in this interpretation is the trickery of the goblins, as she sells herself for the fruit, but it is never enough and never satifies, as the person eating becomes addicted. It also mentions about the bad side of trade, they beat Lizzie and try to force her to eat the fruit.
Moral
The main point in this interpretation I believe is that Lauras choices (eating the fruit) affects Lizzie (she sacrifices herself and is beaten up.) The moral message of the poem is that if you get married it will cleanse your soul and also there is a connection between one of the stanzas and the vow you make when you marry someone. The moral interpretation has large links to Christianity, such as Adam and Eve with the forbidden fruit (Lizzie and Laura and the goblin juice) and Lizzie being beaten up is parallel to Jesus' cruxifiction.
I believe the strongest interpretations are feminist and redemptive, because they have the strongest arguements.

Interpretations

Last lesson, we were talking about the various interpretations of Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti there is. There was erotic, feminist, marxist, redemptive and moral interpretations and I was put in the redemptive group.
We spoke about how Laura has to redeem herself to Lizzie, as Lizzie is the one who sacrifices herself (she gets beaten up by the goblins) for her sisters temptation and addiction. This means Lizzie saved Lauras life and Laura has to redeem herself to Lizzie.
In the last few lines, Laura is indirectly thanking Lizzie for what she did by saying 'there is no friend like a sister' which could be a way Laura feels she is redeeming herself to Lizzie without telling her.
The last verse shows Laura has redeemed herself to God, by leading a traditional Christian life (getting married and having children.) She also avoids sinning, even though the temptation is still there, for her sister, children and God.
Redemption could also be in the form of a kind of rebirth, by the line 'is it death or is it life?' said by Laura after waking up after drinking the Goblins juices Lizzie collected. It is like the evil and temptation in Laura has been killed and the goodness and innocence has been reborn/redeemed. We also said that Rossetti mentions how Laura 'laughed in the innocent old way' which is like redemption has been redeemed and given back.

Christina Rossetti

Christina Rossetti was born in 1830 and lived with her parents and three siblings in London (her father was also a poet). She was a very religious woman and was an Anglican, as were her mother and sister. She was so religious that she refused to marry two men on religious grounds (James Collison was Roman Catholic and Charles Bigot was Agnostic.) Her religion and refusal to marry is believed to have had a lot of influence on her poetry. She wrote her first and longest poem, Goblin Market in 1859 and it was published in 1862, she is also most known for this poem because of its ten page length. Soon after she fell ill and was left bedridden, but continued to write poems and sonnets from her bed. She wrote many other poems including Remember (a love poem), In Bleak Midwinter (a Christmas Carol poem) and many others before she got cancer in 1891, which was fatal, and she died in 1894.
An interesting fact was that at a 9/11 memorial service, Dame Judi Dench read Remember by Christina Rossetti.