Goblin Market features a limited cast of characters: the goblin men, and two late-adolescent sisters, Laura and Lizzie. The poem also briefly mentions Jeanie, who perished after consuming goblin fruit, as well as Laura's and Lizzie's husbands and children later in life.

Laura and Lizzie encounter the goblin men "hobbling down the glen" every morning and evening, chanting, "Come buy, come buy." Although the goblins are thoroughly repulsive, their words are "sugar-baited." They entice young maidens to sample their wicked fruit with voices "as smooth as honey." The goblin men describe their offerings in vivid detail: "Plump unpecked cherries,/ . . . Bloom-down-cheeked peaches,/ . . . Wild free-born cranberries . . . " All are "sweet to tongue and sound to eye."

The maidens hear the goblins call: "Come buy our orchard fruits, Come buy, come buy...
The girls are aware of the fruits' malevolence. Upon hearing the goblins for the first time, Laura warns Lizzie, "We must not look at goblin men,/ We must not buy their fruits." Later, Lizzie cautions, "Their offers should not charm us,/ Their evil gifts would harm us." They also recall the tragic fate of their friend Jeanie, who "met them in the moonlight,/ Took their gifts both choice and many,/ Ate their fruits and wore their flowers." After consuming the fruit, Jeanie never encountered the goblin men again. She "dwindled and grew grey" longing for more goblin fruit, and now lies in a grave where no flowers or grass will grow.

Despite these warnings, Laura finds the goblins' cries "kind and full of loves." Overcome by temptation, she buys the fruit with a "golden curl" from her head. Although the goblin fruit is "sweeter than honey . . . / Stronger than man-rejoicing wine," Laura realizes the next night that while Lizzie can still hear and fear the goblin sellers, she herself can no longer see or hear them. Devastated by her inability to obtain more of the addictive fruit, Laura "sat up in a passionate yearning,/ And gnashed her teeth for balked desire, and wept." Like Jeanie before her, she quickly falls ill.

In contrast, Lizzie resists the goblin men's tempting fruit. Witnessing Laura's decline, Lizzie "longed to buy fruit to comfort her,/ But feared to pay too dear." However, when Laura seems near death, "Lizzie weighed no more/ Better and worse," and decides to buy the fruit from the goblin men—not for herself, but for her sister. When the goblins realize that Lizzie will not consume the fruit herself, they attempt to force it into her mouth, smearing the fruit onto her face. Ultimately, they give up, return the penny she had paid, and leave. Lizzie returns to Laura, who kisses the fruit from her sister's face. Given in this manner, the goblin fruit no longer enslaves Laura but instead frees her from her addiction.

Rossetti once confided to her brother William that she meant Goblin Market to be a straightforward story without any profound or hidden meanings. However, any discerning reader will find numerous themes and implications within the poem. Lizzie's sacrifice for Laura, for instance, exemplifies one of Rossetti's beloved themes: the redemption of a guilty person by an innocent one. Laura can only regain her lost innocence and overcome her craving for the forbidden pleasures symbolized by the goblins' fruit through the loving, self-sacrificing efforts of her sister. Many critics draw parallels between Lizzie's actions and Jesus' sacrifice to redeem humanity from sinful indulgences or original sin. Although Rossetti was a practicing Christian, the theme of redemption in the poem transcends any specific Christian context. Rossetti aims...