It was time for this to come down from the mantle. It was always out of place. It was several years ago. Months after what happened. I knew there was no way to forget the way the goblin men had belittled me. Lord know I tried to ignore the nightmares. I went to the market, searching for foods for something to help prepare supper for the evening. Then there in the corner, back behind the tables for the silverware, was this painting. But this painting. I felt drawn to it. I should’ve walked away and left it alone and walked away. But I picked up, I paid the nice lady, and I carried it home. On the walk home, it felt impossible to carry. It had been large and cumbersome and difficult to carry along with what I needed. It was then I first had the belief that buying it was a mistake. The looks of the women watching me struggle on the way home to Lizzie was enough to make me want to drop it where I was and keep going. But I couldn’t. It had cost me, and I felt this obligation to hold on to it. Lizzie couldn’t bear look at it. The second I placed it on the mantle she walked away. It didn’t take long for me to realize how out of place it was. Yet, I kept it up. I thought that maybe with time that it would start to fit more amongst the décor of the home. It seems as if Lizzie kept it up even after you left.
It seems as if Laura’s connection to the painting is a reflection of the events the conspired in her life. This is a direct relationship to the things that she has witnessed and experienced. This basket of fruit clearly represents the fruit that the goblin men had been persuading her and her sister, and quite possibly other women to buy. The temptation that she felt towards the painting mirrors the temptation she felt towards the fruit sold by the Goblin Men. More so you can see the aftermath and its effect on her. As we read in her scrapbook, Laura felt as if this painting was a cumbersome weight to carry with her. In the Victorian Era, women were seen to have a social obligation that relied on their relationship with men. Following a failed relationship, or even a disconnection with the male in their life, women would look down upon other women. It seems as if there was some form of internalized misogyny due to a societal pressure that made women believe their place was by the side of a man. Women were often shunned and disrespected in society had they lost their virginity out of wedlock or became divorced. The goblin men took her hair, which is symbolic of her appearance, as a “price” for the fruit, which is representative of her giving up a part of herself to indulge. This caused consequences for her perception of those in her society.
Monet, Claude. “Apples and Grapes.” Met Museum, 1879, France, www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/437130.