John Donne was a well-known English poet and clergyman. His works was famous for its sonnets and sensual style. Furthermore, John Donne was one of the greatest metaphysical poets. He also was a well-known figure in the English literature field because of his legacy in literature. However, his poetry was known of the desire for the things that society refused to accept, therefore he always complained about society in his poems. “The flea” is one of his famous poems, this essay will analysis it. “The Flea” presents the youthful restless feeling of lust with a true respect for women through the metaphysical conceit of the flea as a church in the rhythm of the sexual act. The narrator in this poem is a man convincing his lover to give up …show more content…
(spark notes) mention that “As his beloved moves to kill the flea, the speaker stays her hand, asking her to spare the three lives in the flea: his life, her life, and the flea’s own life.” Moreover, he is trying to explain to his lover that the flea, where their blood is mingled inside is their married bed and temple. The conclusion is that they are not married yet the speaker think that the flea is the symbol of their marriage. However, by saying “Though parents grudge, and you, we're met, and cloister'd in these living walls of jet.” The speaker argument here is that although the women parent’s bad feelings toward their reunion, their marriage is almost done by the flea body. The speaker also state that it is not only her parent, it is “you” referring to the lover, as it could be because of her rejection for sexual intercourse. However the speaker thinks that the flea body is like a church or a judge to their marriage. In the lines 16 to 18, “Though use make you apt to kill …show more content…
Which suppose to mean that the woman succeed in killing the flea without hurting one of them. However, in this act she attempts to untangle the speaker argument that the flea is something precious to their relationship, as it represent their marriage bed. In fact the flea is like any tiny animal as has nothing to deal with their love or marriage; the flea’s death is a proof that they don’t need to have a sexual intercourse. The last three lines of the poem, “Tis true; then learn how false fears be; Just so much honour, when thou yield'st to
situation is not to surrender to fear and the author shows this idea throughout the poem that we
...saying that marriage is a gamble, and that women risk failure by becoming married. Laux speaks to the women with the idyllic views of matrimony and she may be trying to issue a warning to them, or to teach them a lesson about how she feels. This is important to the narrator especially as she repeats the word “again” in the question she asks at the end of the poem. The juxtaposition of the free bird to the housewife constricted to a cluttered room is an important image and helps the reader see the differences between the two. Laux’s metaphor for the female condition is made clear by the end of the poem and is an attempt to make the reader question what the narrator has that women all over the world are so eager to partake in.
Another reason why felt as if she was competing with dogs was because after Flea had his stroke, his favorite dog, Nashville, did shortly after. The widow was thrown off by this. She felt like the dogs loved her husband more than he she claimed “I felt upstaged by the dog, will you just listen to me!” (30). She was not able to grasp that her husband loved her just as much as the dogs. So she went on trying to find her reason to live.
When readers reflect on the poetry of the seventeenth century, poets such as John Donne and the
In the novel Ragtime, many aspects of the American society are explored. The reader gets an understanding of the history and hardships of different social classes, races, and cultures during the last century. A persistent theme established is the existence of the American dream. Doctorow expresses his fascination of the social mobility since it includes the impoverished and underprivileged. However, he highlights that when attempting to reach success, one is required to make sacrifices, negotiating his morality and identity. Tateh and Coalhouse are crucial examples of how the demands, prejudices, and opportunities of the American society can change a man’s mentality.
At first, this poem seems to be simply about a young, sexually hungry man who is trying to convince a girl to give into his sexual wishes. She denies the ?wanna be? lover because she believes that the act of intercourse before marriage is a dishonorable sin in the eyes of the church. The lady ends up killing the flea and symbolically killing the false world the man had constructed in the flea. She then says that neither of them are any worse by killing the flea, which the male agrees with. The man concludes his point by granting that the death of the flea does not really have any consequences, just like her fears to loose her respectability and honor. His main point in all his talk about the flea is to show her that her honor will not be ruined if she yields to him.
...is wife and hides her body he does not own up to his actions but instead blames the cat as the one “which had been the cause of so much wretchedness”. (254)
All he can think about is his wife sleeping with other men and does not even consider that she was just merely mentioning people she considered acquaintances. The cage is described as a “large black wrought-iron cage”, creating the picture that the cage is like a jail. The one time the parrot cage door was left open, the husband tries to fly out but he runs into something and a pain flares in his head. The location of the cage also drives the husband/parrot crazy. The cage is placed so that the husband/parrot can only slightly see into the bedroom but he can’t completely see what his wife is doing. This is a representation of how when the husband was alive, he could not see what his wife was up to even though he had a good idea of what she was probably doing. The husband states that he learned a lesson the one time he tried to fly out. The lesson he learned was his wife’s pain and tears. She wept and her tears touched her husband. Throughout the story the husband learns more about his wife as a parrot than when he was actually alive as her husband. By having a different perspective, people learn to see and learn more. The wife does not realize that her husband is trapped in a parrot’s body, allowing herself to open up in front of him. Through this perspective, the husband learns more than he ever did by trying to spy on his
He is suggesting that they are united in this flea and ,thus, would equally be united in intimacy. In addition, he states, "This flea is you and I, and this our marriage bed, and marriage temple is." The speaker is suggesting that through the flea the two are married. Again, the flea represents marriage, union, and consummation through intimacy. However, the woman crushes the flea, thus, refusing his request, and states that neither she nor he is weakened by its death.
John Donne uses poetry to explore his own identity, express his feelings, and most of all, he uses it to deal with the personal experiences occurring in his life. Donne's poetry is a confrontation or struggle to find a place in this world, or rather, a role to play in a society from which he often finds himself detached or withdrawn. This essay will discuss Donne's states of mind, his views on love, women, religion, his relationship with God; and finally how the use of poetic form plays a part in his exploration for an identity and salvation.
The ordinary, but shepherd-like and curious enough to look realistically at the nature, Speaker of this poem shall be married; this much realizing the subtle fears and emotions of a "married ear" and sympathizing with it.
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...
iv[iv] Helen Gandner, ed., John Donne: A Collection of Critical Essays. (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1962) 47.
Jack London is among the many prolific writers from the United States of America who possess great artistic works ranging from great time novels ,short stories to plays just but to mention a few. He is fondly remembered for his great novel, ‘Martin Eden’ published in 1909. In the novel he tries to express the challenges faced by young writers who try to exploit their talent and passion in an area where little opportunities present themselves. This novel has stood the test of time with its relevance evident to date. It is a favorite to many young upcoming writers thus the main aim for writing this paper is to focus on the autobiography of Jack London as ‘Martin Eden’.
As discussed on a previous short essay question, John Donne is considered to be one of the greatest metaphysical poets of our time, even though he published only a small number of poems in his lifetime. The poems he did write were metaphorical and often humorus poems telling the tale of religious love and sex. Being a metaphysical poet he exhibited many characteristics of the metaphysical poets. He wrote with metaphysical wit, metaphysical conceit, metaphors, symbols and paradoxes. If these were some of the things that defined a metaphysical poet, then John Donne is a good example of one. I will use three of his poems, "Holy Sonnet 14", "The Flea", and "Song" to show how Donne uses these aspects in his writing.