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The Flea By John Donne

Decent Essays

“The Flea”, by John Donne is a raunchy romantic poem that explains the speakers unyielding love that is represented by an insect. Using the insect to seduce his beloved after they both get bitten by the insect. As the speaker seduces his beloved, he involves her beliefs and values, intending to get his way with her no matter what it takes. But she doesn’t give in to his manipulation.
As you read more deeply into the poem, we can also see the larger and symbolic meanings of this poem. For example the flea, sex, marriage, and religion. The flea is the main focus on of this poem, It’s size is considered small but it is large on the inside because it symbolizes their “marriage”. Since both of their bloods have been mingled, making the speaker seem desperate for her and continues to find a way to convince her. The audience will also get a sense the speaker’s character throughout the poem, he is confident, clever, charming, considerate, frustrated, and whiny.
Sex is the main focus for the speaker. In line seven, Donne writes, “ Yet this enjoys before it woo”, the flea is actually enjoying sucking her blood because that’s what flea’s do. All the speaker wants is to enjoy himself with her as much as the flea does when he sucks her blood. The speaker is very unreliable when it comes to love because that’s not what he’s looking for. If he was then he wouldn’t try to involve his beloved in premarital sex. He tries to convince her that she wouldn’t be committing a sinful act, and

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