The Flea Essay Research Paper The Flea

The Flea Essay, Research Paper

The Flea by John Donne

John Donne & # 8217 ; s The Flea exhibits his metaphysical ability ; his aptitude for turning even the least likely images into luxuriant symbols of love and love affair. This verse form uses the image of a flea that has merely bitten the talker and his beloved to chalk out an amusive struggle over whether the two will prosecute in prenuptial sex.

The talker tells his darling to look at the flea before them, and to observe & # 8220 ; how small & # 8221 ; is that thing which she denies him. He says that the flea foremost sucked his blood and so hers, so now our two bloods mingled be. It used to be thought that sex mingled the blood of the two lovers, and since the flea has done that, there is no demand to forbear from intercourse any longer. The flea swells with one blood made of two, and this, alas, is more than we would make.

For the flea, he says, has sucked foremost his blood, so her blood, so that now, inside the flea, they are mingled ; and that mixing can non be called & # 8220 ; wickedness, or shame, or loss of maidenhead. & # 8221 ;

As his darling moves to kill the flea, he asks her to save the three lives in the flea: his life, her life, and the flea & # 8217 ; s ain life. In the flea, he says, where their blood is mingled, they are more than mom

rried. The flea is their matrimony bed and matrimony temple mixed into one. Though their parents grudge their love affair, and though she will non do love to him, they are however united in the life walls of the flea. If she were to kill the flea she would be perpetrating three wickednesss. She would perpetrate self-destruction, slaying her lover, and commit profanation by symbolically killing their matrimony.

& # 8220 ; Cruel and sudden, & # 8221 ; the talker calls his lover, who has now killed the flea, & # 8220 ; purpling & # 8221 ; her fingernail with the & # 8220 ; blood of innocence. & # 8221 ; The talker asks his lover what the flea & # 8217 ; s wickedness was, other than holding sucked from each of them a bead of blood. His lover so says to him that nil bad happened when she killed the flea, that his frights were false. It is true, he says, and it is this really fact that proves that her frights are besides faithlessly. If she were to kip with him ( & # 8221 ; output to me & # 8221 ; ) , she would lose no more award than she lost when she killed the flea.

Donne uses his endowment at utilizing something like a flea and turning that into a matrimony bed and matrimony temple where their blood mingles as one. He is able to bring forth a fantastic seduction verse form that tells a whole narrative of a adult male imploring to do love to his lover in such a manner that one usually would non believe of.