besought her,
Scratch'd her, pinch'd her black as ink,
Kick'd and knock'd her,
Maul'd and mock'd her

Lizzie thinks only of her sister and endures it all. She:

utter'd not a word;
Would not open lip from lip
Lest they should cram a mouthful in:
But laugh'd in heart to feel the drip
Of juice that syrupp'd all her face

She obtains the antidote her sister needs and does not waver in her resolve to obtain it.

While some see the goblins as men who inflict unwanted sexual advances on women, it can also be argued that the goblins are symbolic of all of the evil of the world and that the real theme lies in the power of women to bravely overcome it together. It speaks of the unity of women and of the sacrificial love that women hold for each other.

And, in this interpretation, the power struggle between men and women is a bit more abstract. Rossetti thus paints a picture of women no longer standing on the outside of men's circles—as she has done with her brothers' artistic brotherhood. Instead, they empower each other to thrive and overcome: no men needed. In this view, women hold their own power and do not rely on men to provide it or give men the power to deny it.

The poem does indeed present a power struggle between men and women, but crucially it turns the tables, which is why "Goblin Market" has been the subject of so much feminist scholarship over the years. Traditionally, women were presented as the tempters of men—cruel, brazen seductresses leading otherwise fine, honest men to their ruin. The figure of the femme fatale in Keats's "La Belle Dame sans Merci" is a prime example of this.

Yet in "Goblin Market," it is men in the shape of wicked goblins who are leading the young women astray, tempting them with their delicious but poisonous fruit.

The academic debate about whether the fruit represents illicit sexual relations has raged for decades, but there can be little doubt that the goblins are throughly corrupt and corrupting figures. They see the young sisters as objects to be exploited rather than as subjects to be respected in their own right. In that sense, Rossetti is laying bare Victorian gender relations, characterized as they were by male domination and the exploitation of women.

It certainly can.  In this poem, the goblin men try to tempt the women to taste their fruit.  They woo the women with grand descriptions of that fruit, making it sound as appetizing as possible.  However, when women take the fruit, they are left abandoned and ill.  It is the women's only salvation to resist the temptation.

Therefore, the struggle is between the ability of the goblin men to seduce the women, and the will power of the women to resist.  When they resist, as Lizzie does, they gain power.  So much power, in fact, that the hero Lizzie is able to reclaim her sister from the effects of the contaminated fruit.  Her integrity and resistance has made her more powerful than the goblin men.

Christina Rossetti’s narrative poem “Goblin Market” is often praised as a protofeminist work of literature, and for good reason: the text absolutely contests restrictive Victorian gender norms by exploring the strong, sensual relationship between two sisters as they resist a noticeably masculine group of goblins. Many feminist critics point to the powerful connection between the sisters as an indication that Rossetti is working against the narrow gender norms of the time. Indeed, the fact that the poem is written from a distinctly sensual feminine point of view is already radical, but Rossetti goes further by having the women resist the temptations of the goblins:

“One called her proud,
Cross-grained, uncivil;
Their tones waxed loud,
Their looks were evil.
Lashing their tails
They trod and hustled her,
Elbowed and jostled her,
Clawed with their nails,
Barking, mewing, hissing, mocking,
Tore her gown and soiled her stocking,
Twitched her hair out by the roots,
Stamped upon her tender feet,
Held her hands and squeezed their fruits
Against her mouth to make her eat” (1504-5).

Rossetti’s imagery can be read as intensely sexual and aggressive, which is especially interesting considering she was held to different standards than male writers at the time. Her vibrant imagery teems with subversive sexuality that would obviously challenge the patriarchal norms of the time. This raw sensuality is especially present when Lizzie comes back from facing the goblin horde to nurse her sister back to health:

“She cried 'Laura,' up the garden,
'Did you miss me?
Come and kiss me.
Never mind my bruises,
Hug me, kiss me, suck my juices
Squeezed from goblin fruits for you,
Goblin pulp and goblin dew.
Eat me, drink me, love me;
Laura, make much of me:
For your sake I have braved the glen
And had to do with goblin merchant men” (1506).

Not only does Rossetti’s imagery teem with veiled sexuality, but she also presents two female characters who do not rely on a dashing man to save them from their predicament. They are presented as independent, as two sisters against a violent crowd of male goblins. Thus, the poem subverts gender paradigms of the time by pitting the sensual sisters against abrasive, masculine figures.

I pulled my textual evidence from the 9th Edition Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume E

Like many of her contemporaries, Rossetti's writing reflects her isolation from a typical social lifestyle, her introspection as a result of that isolation, and her desire to be taken seriously as both a woman and a poet.

Two unifying themes of the works of Goblin Market and Other Poems by Christina Rossetti is first, the idea of self-renunciation, and second, a fascination with death.  "Goblin Market" is a long narrative poem which presents two sisters who are tempted by goblins into eating fruit.  One sister has a taste which later begins to kill her.  In the end, it is her sister who heroically risks her own life, faces the goblins again, resists them, and ends up saving her sister's life.

Women authors during the Victorian times were fighting for a voice in a mostly male-dominated art.  Through this publication, arguably the one which made the author most famous, it has been speculated that Rossetti had adopted a popular mindset of female authors of the 19th century.  It seemed that in order to be successful in writing, these women had to personally sacrifice the more socially acceptable and certainly expected institution of marriage.  Instead of acting as traditional housewives and mothers, Victorian female authors often ended up growing old as single women with a lot of time to themselves.

The resisting of the goblin fruit in "Goblin Market" has been related to the author's resisting of things of the flesh.  Additionally, with the time she must have spent alone, it seems she became very introspective.  Because she was a religious woman, it is not a wonder that life after death would have been of interest to her.  Finally, the two sisters in the poem value their relationship with one another above everything else.  The one sister even risks her life for the other.  The desire to portray strength in females and the sister-relationship is the final message that likely came directly from Rossetti's life as a Victorian author.