“The Flea” John Donne observes a typical bar, every Saturday night sweat drenched bodies emitting alcohol and pheromones from every pore, exchange conversation, pleasantries, and yes even sex (perhaps not directly in view but certainly eluded to). Is this animalistic, barbaric behavior acceptable? Should sex be taken so lightheartedly? Or do we take it too seriously, guarding sex like it was the Holy Grail, or the secret to life itself? These questions may be to deep and pointed for most to approach, yet John Donne in his poem “The Flea” wades through them like the kiddy pool. In this clever poem Donne uses a flea, blood, and the murder of the flea as an analogy for the oldest most primal exchange, sex. Donne, through symbolic images, not only questions the validity of coveting virginity but also the importance of sex as it pertains to life. The metaphors in “The Flea” are plentiful, but the symbols repeated throughout the poem are clear, beginning with the most prevalent, and the flea. This small parasitic creature is chalk full of symbolic meaning. During the time this poem was written (the Renaissance) the flea was use in many poems about sex. I derive that in this particular poem the flea is symbolic of the act of sex from the speaker’s remark in the beginning, “Mark but this flea, and mark in this, how little that which deniest me is” the flea is small and inconsequential, his lady denies him sex, which the speaker believes is also petty. The flea is described as a marriage temple and a carrier of life, but in the next stanza as something insignificant and small. The speaker applies a certain duality to the flea and therefore to sex. The metaphor develops more as it relates to the other symbols. Blood is used more than once a...
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...e feminine population. In this poem the speaker does not seem to be very respectful of the female he is pursuing. Of course that is conducive to the time but it also says something about the validity of the message of the poem. In synopsis the flea, blood and death of the flea are all used as metaphors for sex, the exchange of life force (a very important thing) within the act of sex (represented as something as insignificant as a flea) and then orgasm, which can feel important and significant for a period of time but is really only as important as the death of a flea. The speaker in this poem hopes to convince his lady to sleep with him by trivializing sex and comparing it to something as insignificant as a flea. Meanwhile I say lady, screw the speaker and the flea you would get more of a commitment from a machine than a guy as afraid of human contact as this one.
Sex is more than just a physical act. It's a beautiful way to express love. When people have sex just to fulfill a physical need, as the poet believes sex outside of love-based relationship only harms and cheapens sex. In the beginning of the poem, Olds brilliantly describe the beauty of sex, and then in the second half of the poem, she continues reference to the cold and aloneness which clearly shows her opinions about causal sex. Through this poem, Sharon Olds, has expressed her complete disrespect for those who would participate in casual sex.
Stated in the first metaphor of the poem, “How do they do it, the ones who make love without love? Beautiful as dancers, gliding over each other like ice skaters” (lines 1-3) captures an image of two lovers gliding over one another like an abstract artistic painting in a simile. The cold atmosphere indicates the disdain detachment between the lovers during the experience. In modern society, many believe in the “no strings attached” method as part of a liberation for one’s self. Yet, Olds creates a paradox in the imagery by describing the people “red as steak, wine, wet as the children at birth whose mothers are going to five them away” (lines 6-8). In literal concept, the images display a child birth after an eventful sexual experience. When a child enters the world, it comes responsibility many young adults don’t care to handle, thus creating a narcissistic for the younger generation. Nevertheless, the syntax, form, and tone are broken down as Olds further answers her frustrations to society. A tonal shift reverted any ambiguities about these faceless sexual beings by describing them as “the ones who will not accept a false Messiah, love the priest instead of the God” (lines 15-16). Without the great
Using this choice of words like “then worms shall try” and “…turn to dust”, the speaker essentially tells his mistress that there will be consequences if she does not engage with him. He believes his wit will gain control over his mistress, and her “coyness” will inevitably disappear. In his mind, the repercussions are if she dies without having sex with him, the worms will take her virginity, which can be considered as phallic imagery. In the lines, the worms symbolically mirror the narrator’s male sexual organ. Marvell creates an interesting approach with this daring and disturbing language because the appealing strategy grasps the reader’s attention and explores the question of the extent a person will go to fulfill their sexual desires. While discussing this proposed tight-lipped subject, the tone of the narrator in “To His Coy Mistress” greatly differs from the narrator’s tone in “A Rose for Emily.” The readers can perceive that Marvell’s speaker is intelligent and informed in the sexual category because of his style and word choice. He creates a relaxed tone with his audience, which makes the readers feel comfortable, and he is very clear about what he writes. The direction of the arguments he makes is very undeviating because he goes straight into what he wants
John Donne?s poem connects flesh and spirit, worldly and religious ideas in a fascinating way between seemingly unrelated topics. He compares sexual intercourse to a bite of a flea and says that now their blood has mixed inside the flea. He also compares the inside of the tiny flea to the entire world, including the couple.
During the 17th century, certain poets wrote poems with the specific purpose of persuading a woman to have sexual intercourse with them. Three of these seduction poems utilize several strategies to do this: Andrew Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress,” and Donne’s “A Valediction: Forbidden Mourning” and “The Flea.” Some of the reasoning used by both poets is similar to the reasoning used today by men to convince women to have sexual intercourse with them. These gimmicks vary from poem to poem but coincide with modern day rationalization. The tactics used in 17th century seduction poems are relevant and similar to the seduction tactics used in the 21st century.
of the poem, the girl is going to need quite a lot of persuading. This
Not only does this personification alter the pace of the poem, but the fact that the woman’s breasts – important sexual organs and symbols of female sexuality – are portrayed as sleeping conveys a lack of arousal and general desire, particularly on the behalf of the woman. This sense of a lack of desire between the gypsy and the woman is communicated later in the poem through the description of the characters’ undressing before they begin to have sex:
At the threat of demise, the speaker states “This flea is you and I, and this/Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is” (12-13). A union is created and through the three of them, it is seen as a correlation to the holy trinity with God being replaced by the flea. Even though the woman does not seem inclined to spare the flea, Donne furthers his argument with the mixing of their blood allowing for an unmistakable union without societal norms or scandal. Since the flea can hop from one host to the other without commitment, so can we have a little romp in the hay without the pressures of marriage and life ever after. Through the third stanza, we find that the woman has killed the flea and therefore quelled any chance of a sexual union between the speaker and his quarry. He has failed once again to gain her favor and seal the deal. While the flea may have been able to take her blood without seduction, the speaker finds excitement in the challenge to live and woo another day.
John Donne's, "The Flea," is a persuasive poem in which the speaker is attempting to establish a sexual union with his significant other. However, based on the woman's rejection, the speaker twists his argument, making that which he requests seem insignificant. John Donne brings out and shapes this meaning through his collaborative use of conceit, rhythm, and rhyme scheme. In the beginning, Donne uses the flea as a conceit, to represent a sexual union with his significant other. For instance, in the first stanza a flea bites the speaker and woman. He responds to this incident by saying, "And in this flea our bloods mingled be."
In the first stanza, Donne uses extended metaphors to get his point across about the flea. The first stanza speaks of how the writer and the woman become one after being bitten by the flea. This stanza begins with “Mark but this flea, and mark in this,” punish the flea, and punish only the flea. “How little that which thou deniest me is,” she denies his sexual advances which means little to her. “It sucked me first, and now sucks thee, And in this flea, our two bloods mingled be,” the flea bites them both causing their blood to mix together inside the flea. The mixing of the blood cannot be a sin, or shame, or lose of virginity therefore; neither should it be for their other bodily to mix together, “A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead.”
The two poems The Flea and The Sunne Rising capture John Donne’s primary motive to get in bed with women. Donne wrote these poems at an early age, and at that time he was seeking nothing more than a sexual relationship. His poetry depicted clearly how sexist he was at the time and how he used to perceive women as a medium of pleasure. The content of his early poems express an immature and desperate image of Donne, who is dominated by his fixation on the sensuality of women. In The Flea, Donne shows his desperation to have sex by addressing a flea that has sucked the blood of both him and the woman he is persuading. It is quite awkward how the poet uses this obscure image of the flea as a symbol of love and sex to convince the woman that...
There is a similar theme running through both of the poems, in which both mistresses are refusing to partake in sexual intercourse with both of the poets. The way in which both poets present their argument is quite different as Marvell is writing from a perspective from which he is depicting his mistress as being 'coy', and essentially, mean, in refusing him sex, and Donne is comparing the blood lost by a flea bite to the blood that would be united during sex. Marvell immediately makes clear his thoughts in the poem when he says, "Had we but world enough, and time/ This coyness, Lady were no crime", he is conveying the 'carpe diem' idea that there is not enough time for her to be 'coy' and refuse him sexual intercourse and he justifies this thought when he suggests when she is dead, in ?thy marble vault?, and ?worms shall try that long preserved virginity?. He is using the idea of worms crawling all over and in her corpse as a way of saying that the worms are going to take her virginity if she waits until death. Donne justifies his bid for her virginity in a much longer and more methodical way, he uses the idea of the flea taking her blood and mixing it with his, ?It suck?d me first, and now sucks thee?, and then...
How can it be remotely possible to spend thirty thousand years on observing a woman’s body? It seems to me as if he is just telling her what she wants to hear as long as he gets what he wants- which is to get into bed with her. The fallacy is even more apparent once line 20 ends because the mood switches immediately from “loving” to a grotesque, dark tone. The speaker goes on about how if she doesn’t lose her “long preserv’d virginity” to him, then the only way she will lose it is in her grave to the worms crawling inside her. How can that be a portrayal of love? The mere thought of that is absolutely grim. What it really does is negate all of the sweet, exaggerated things he mentioned in the first third of the poem.
Lurie is a professor who fulfils his sexual appetite by exploiting his university students against their will. He considers women and animals as objects existing merely in the structure of the society to gratify his selfish sexual needs. As the plot advances in the novel there comes an instance when Lurie looks at a pair of tethered sheep and says to himself, 'They exist to be used, every last ounce of them, their flesh to be eaten, their bones to be crushed and fed to poultry.' (J.M. Coetzee, Disgrace, p. 123). However, in due course of time he is charged with a case of a sexual assault from his student and thereafter expelled from the university, that is where his character goes through a transformation and he experiences a breakthrough in his relationship with the way he treats both animals and women. In the first part of the novel there exist no real animals, but animals are often used in metaphors. For instance, Lurie describes his love making with Soraya as similar to that of snakes: ‘Intercourse between Soraya and himself must be, he imagines, rather like the copulation of snakes: lengthy, absorbed, but rather abstract, rather dry, even at its
Here, the distinction is made between the physiological aspect of sex and the meanings inscribed in it. In this discussion, Merleau-Ponty is referenced in explaining that the body continually realizes a set of possibilities. In framing the body in such a manner, one does not merely have or one is not merely a body – one “does” one’s body. However, there is a constraint to these possibilities made by historical conventions. What this means is that when Merleau-Ponty and Beauvoir claim that the body is a historical situation, the body does three things with that historical situation: it does it, dramatizes it, and reproduces it. These can be seen as the elementary structures of embodiment. This embodiment can then be viewed specifically from the perspective of the act of gender. Gender can then be understood differently from the biological sex as gender has a cultural interpretation that is used as a strategy for cultural survival. In its deep entrenchment, gender seems almost natural in the punishments that arise from deviating from acting in a way that creates the very idea of