A Friend in Need

“If you've got troubles, I've got 'em too

There isn't anything I wouldn't do for you” -Randy Newman

“You’ve Got a Friend in Me” from Toy Story is an iconic song for any children who grew up in the late ’90s or early 2000s. The song frames the meaning of friendship with a catchy little tune that is unforgettable. The term friendship is one that today sometimes gets misused. People mistake having friends for followers and when they get in a bind they discover they did not have as many friends as they believed they had. However, that is not the case for all people because some people do form true relationships with people who would do anything to help get them out of a rut. In the Goblin Market, Rossetti argues through Lizzie’s actions to save her sister that people need others who love them to help them be redeemed from their temptations. 

Relationships are a key part of life. Lizzie and Laura are two sisters who love each other dearly. However, they are very different from each other. When the Goblin men showed up in the woods Lizzie says, “‘Laura, Laura, / You should not peep at goblin men,’... but ‘Laura reared her glossy head” (Rossetti 2). Lizzie is portrayed to be wary of the goblins, but Laura’s curiosity moves her to seek out the goblin men. Friendships today have the same kind of characters. Usually, one friend is conscientious about potential outcomes in a scenario, while the other is merely eager to see what will happen without contemplating the consequences of their actions. Lizzie later says to Laura, “‘Dear, you should not stay so late’ / … ‘Do you not remember Jeanie’” (Rossetti 5). Lizzie is still exhibiting concern for her sister’s actions because she cares deeply about her safety. She inquires about Jeanie because she once stayed out too late and was enticed by the goblin men’s offer of lush fruits (Rossetti 5). As a result of the goblin’s temptation, Jeanie fell to their trickery and died after eating the fruit. Lizzie is attempting to illustrate to naive little Laura what will happen if she gives in to her curious desires. Unfortunately, Laura has already partaken in feasting on the goblins’ fruit.

Nevertheless, the following evening as the sisters were out, Lizzie states again that they are not to linger, “But Laura loitered still among the rushes” in hopes of hearing the goblin men’s call to “‘Come buy, come buy’” (Rossetti 7). She did not hear their beckoning as Lizzie did. Thus as the days and weeks passed, she became despondent and ill. Lizzie out of desperation to get her sister back decided to venture out to find the goblin men and retrieve fruit to suffice Laura’s desires. But in her heroic efforts, the goblins “Trod and hustled her, / Elbowed and jostled her / … [and] Tore her gown and soiled her stocking” (Rossetti 11). She persevered through the torcher to obtain juice from the fruit to take back to her sister to suck up from her beaten body. Lizzie was determined to save her sister no matter the consequences, while not falling into the same trap her sister did. Rossetti utilizes this illustration to show the measures a true friend will take to save their comrade. 

Consequently, when Lizzie returned home, she beckons to Laura, “‘Hug me, kiss me, suck my juices / Squeezed from goblin fruits for you’” (Rossetti 13). The key to the phrase spoken here is “for you.” Lizzie did what she did for Laura not for herself, but out of selflessness. Laura urgently responds to her call by throwing herself upon her sister and fearing she had eaten their fruit questions her if she had eaten of their dreadful fruit. Laura laments, “‘Must your life like mine be wasted, / Undone in my doing’” (Rossetti 14). Lizzie responds with the reassurance that she did not. Laura began to kiss her sister and “Her lips began to scorch, / That juice was wormwood to her tongue, / She loathed the feast” (Rossetti 14). Laura realizes that she traded her life for the rotten fruit of the goblins, but it took her sister’s sacrifice and love to bring her back to reality and life. She had been seduced by the goblin men to only desire more of what she could not possess at the expense of her innocence. She was brought back to reality through Lizzie’s love and faithfulness to her.

Real friends will warn you of dangers, help you when things get tough, and never fail to stay by your side. Lizzie did just that for Laura. Lizzie went out on a whim to redeem her sister from her state of despair. She helped Laura to realize she had fallen into a trap that was sucking the life out of her veins. She was the heroine that Laura was in desperate need of even though she was stuck in a delusion that she was unaware of at the time. When the poem concludes, Laura is actively taking the time to be the person Lizzie was for her, for her kids because she does not want them to fall into similar temptations either. Lizzie encapsulates the ideal characteristics and traits that a truly virtuous friend should possess. She loves, is selfless, caring, warn of danger, and sticks with her sister even after she makes an almost fatal mistake.

“We stick together and can see it through

‘Cause you’ve got a friend in me” -Randy Newman