Johne Donnes the Flea Essay -- John Donne

The Flea John Donne observes a typical bar, every Saturday night beat sweat drenched bodies emitting alcohol and pheromones from every pore, exchange conversation, pleasantries, and yes even put forward (perhaps not directly in view but certainly eluded to). Is this animalistic, unwarranted 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, provided John Donne in his poem The Flea wades through them like the kiddy pool. In this wily poem Donne uses a flea, blood, and the murder of the flea as an analogy for the oldest most patriarchal exchange, sex. Donne, through symbolic images, not only questions the validity of coveting virginity but alike the importance of sex as it pertains to life. The metaphors in The Flea are plentiful, but the symbols tell throughout the poem are clear, beginning with the mos t prevalent, and the flea. This small bloodsucking creature is chalk full of symbolic meaning. During the time this poem was pen (the Renaissance) the flea was use in many poems about sex. I derive that in this particular poem the flea is symbolic of the passage of sex from the speakers remark in the beginning, Mark but this flea, and mark in this, how undersize 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 side by side(p) stanza as something insignificant and small. The speaker applies a certain duality to the flea and consequently to sex. The metaphor develops more than than as it relates to the other symbols. Blood is used more than once a... ...e feminine population. In this poem the speaker does not reckon to be very respectful of the female he is pursuing. Of course that is contributive to the time but it als o says something about the validity of the message of the poem. In synopsis the flea, blood and stopping point 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 and so 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 quiet 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.