The Central Conceit it John Donne's "The Flea"

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. Andrew Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress” is another attempting at seducing an unwilling woman. “Had we but world enough and time, This coyness, lady, were no crime” (Marvell 1-2).

Although the love has killed the flea he is still persistent in his pursuit of the lover. Donne creatively has the flea even in its demised form become an additional symbol. Now that the lover has killed the flea he explains that nothing major has come to change. He goes back to original point that sex is not a major concern or sinful. “Tis true; then learn how false, fears be:/Just so much honor, when thou yield’st to me/Will waste, as this flea’s death took life from thee” (Donne 25-27).

He tries to persuade his girlfriend that the flea has taken both of their blood which, in the sixteenth century views is equal to having sex and their "two bloods mingled be". When the narrator compares a flea sucking his girlfriend's blo... ... middle of paper ... ...en it comes to having sex. At this point of the poem, the mistress is probably is turmoil as to what she wants to do; she could have sex with her boyfriend to keep him happy and stop him complaining, or she could keep saying no and hold on to her virginity and dignity. The poet recovers the argument by trying to convince the girl that having sex is as painless as squashing a flea. The "honour" of sex, which she has not allowed the narrator, has been wasted upon the death of the flea.

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.

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.

Suggesting that if she continues to waste time she will die a virgin. "then Worms shall try/ that long preserv'd Virginity:"(lines 27-28). Whereas Donne's argument revolves around a metaphorical flea. Which as claimed by the speaker, represents his union with the maiden in matrimony, since the flea has taken blood from them both. "It suck'd me first and now sucks thee/And in this flea our two bloods mingled be"(lines 3-4).

Explication of John Donne's The Flea 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.

“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.” “Yet this enjoys before it woo,” the flea enjoys life before it cries or grieves on an exclamation of grief or a distressful incident of affliction. “Woo” is a condition of misery and misfortune, the “woo” of the flea may reference the pains of getting bit by the flea. “And pampered swells with one blood made of two,” the flea is lucky to be filled with their blood.

His wording in this poem tries to convince this lady that their blood has already mingle in this flea, so they should just make love. However, the woman he is trying to seduce thought he is out of his mind and kills the flea. The reader can see that he is trying to make excuses to make love to her. Donne keeps saying that their love making will not be looked down upon, which it will. Donne says in the poem, “A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead, / Yet this enjoys before it woo, / And pampered swells with one blood made of two, / And this, alas, is more than we would do”

The first stanza of the poem establishes the one-sided conversation between the speaker and his love interest. He immediately introduces the flea and the action that precedes this conversation by referencing the flea having bitten both himself and her. The word ch... ... middle of paper ... ... a clear statement regarding the loss of her virginity to him. It doesn’t, however, take into account her own personal feelings, and is a bold conclusion to the argumentative approach he has taken. Despite the speaker’s best attempt at convincing the woman to have sexual relations with him through his metaphor of the flea, he would appear to be unsuccessful at the end of the poem.