us, rather than identifiable adult motives with a realistic degree of psychological complexity, Rossetti assigns to Lizzie a stern resolve to avoid temptation and to Laura a greedy longing for pleasure. The pleasure that is offered is provided by a world within their larger world--the alien, invisible domain of the goblins who offer the fatal fruit. The tempting fruit is offered, however, in a "market" and is, the goblins claim, for sale. But, as Armstrong notes, this market--based presumably on the principle of the exchange of value--is part of a strange economic picture that is, like the animal traits of the goblins, a disguise for the way the separate 'world' of men offers pleasure to women. In this market--as in the relations between men and women--"the exchange is unequal" (Armstrong 349). The terms of the real-world relations between the sexes consist of the trade in which the woman gains pleasure (of many kinds) and safety (for herself and her children) by providing the man with pleasure and children. But men are always willing to make
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