There are various references to Rossetti's poem 'Goblin Market', therefore the themes connected to the poem are introduces in this story; sexual temptation. "He spreads out a goblin feast of fruit" for the girl, which directly refers to the symbolic goblin fruit which tempts the girls in Rossetti's poem to, as considered, give the men their virginity. This suggests the 'goblin-ridden' girl has been sexually temped by the Erl King, relating to the Gothic themes of female sexuality.
The issue of female repression is also presented through the metaphorical use of the Erl King's eyes. The eyes are a "reducing chamber", where the girl states she becomes "as small as my own reflection". This suggests that the girl, when looking into the eyes of the Erl King, realises she is being pushed down to a low, or "small" status, she is smaller, weaker, and less important than he is. She then describes after that after the Erl King has captured her, he shall "mock her loss of liberty". Carter is perhaps here suggesting that men enjoy being the dominant sex, and enjoy repressing women and denying them freedom, which may fit into her previous criticisms of the male perceptive of women in her previous stories.
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