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The Flea: Analysis - Online Term Paper

The Flea: Analysis

In the poem The Flea by John Donne he is talking to his the woman he loves. He would like to make love to her and she will not respond to his needs.
The relationship between the flea and sexual intercourse in this poem is an unflattering comparison described with unique detail. In the first stanza of the poem Donne says:
Mark but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deny'st me is;
It suck'd me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea, our two bloods mingled be;(1-4)

The stanza says to the lady that she should pay attention to the flea and that inside the tiny insect both of their blood has been mixed.
The second stanza proposes that sex before marriage is all ...

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strong faith and is ethically bound to abide by the principals of her religion. His argument is to put down the religion by saying even the flea is mixing our blood, so why shouldn't we? That suggests that the flea is one of God's creatures and so it should follow the principals of God as well because it was created by God, so the mixing of their blood isn't wrong.
In the third stanza Donne's girlfriend is on the virge of killing the flea and he says let it live. To him it represents their union as man and woman. He is scared that she will sin when she kills the flea because it would be killing part of each of them and the flea which would be three murders in one not to mention breaking their marriage inside the flea.
In the last stanza the woman does not listen to Donne and kills the flea. He says the flea isn't guilty except that it sucked a drop of her blood. She then remarks that neither of them is any weaker and the fear that he had was groundless. He tells her that ...

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The Flea: Analysis. (2004, September 7). Retrieved January 11, 2026, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/The-Flea-Analysis/13989

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PAPER DETAILS

Added: 9/7/2004 06:30:34 PM
Category: Poetry & Poets
Type: Premium Paper
Words: 815
Pages: 3

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