I think that during the end of the first stanza the poet starts to become quite theatrical.
“Yet this enjoys it before it woo,
And pamper’d swells in one blood made of two;
And this, alas! Is more than we would do.”
This could be referring to sex. The flea enjoys the blood and so does the man enjoy foreplay. The pamper’d swells could be that of sexual organs before sex and yet, because that is not happening, the flea is having a better time at the moment than he is, by sucking their blood.
I think that by using this comparison, John Donne is being very intellectual and at this point I feel he may win his argument.
The second stanza, John Donne becomes weaker as the girl starts to defend herself and he tries to convey his love for her.
John Donne, in this stanza I feel becomes more intimate and uses alliteration and much more poetic techniques. At the beginning of the second stanza, I would assume that the girl has got up and left him.
“O stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, yea, more than married are”
He brings back the flea into the subject. She may have gotten up to kill the flea, so he brings back the unity of the two people inside the flea as holy. This technique may have worked as the girl doesn’t kill the flea and using holiness in a religious period would make her think twice about her actions. He claims that they are more than married in the flea and he goes on to use religiousness to his effect.
“Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is.”
The marriage bed is where their bodies would mingle (having sex) and the marriage temple is a holy place where bodies become one. John Donne likes to use holiness to his affect to try and persuade the girl. Religion was very important in the 17th century; so using this could be to his advantage, as she wouldn’t wish to be blasphemous by committing a sin as she would have committed a sin by killing the flea.
“And sacrilege, three sins in killing three”
If she killed the flea, then she would be killing a holy thing as it unites the people together.
In the third stanza it seems that the girl has killed the flea and she has ignored all his threats of her blasphemy and sin.
“Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
Purple thy nail in blood of innocence”
He has realised that the flea does have a life after the girl kills it and tries his hardest to make her feel guilty about the ordeal.
John Donne uses colloquial language to create an intense and passionate atmosphere and emphasize his persistence in winning his argument. When he realises that the girl does not seem to care, he cunningly adopts to a different style of argument.
“Tis true; then learn how false fears be;”
He claims that her fear of losing virginity is false and that there is no sin in losing it, just as there is no sin in killing the flea. To begin with Donne claimed that the killing of the flea was sinful because both their bloods were inside it and their unity together, and that there is no shame in having sexual intercourse, but when she kills the flea there is nothing bad that has happened to him or her.
“Yet thou thriumph’st, and say’st that thou
Find’st not thyself nor me the weaker now”
He agrees with her and uses what she said to twist her words and say that it was only a flea and nothing bad happened, as it would only be sex, and nothing bad would happen there either.
John Donne eventually wins the argument.
“Just so much honour, when thou yield’st to me,
Will waste, as this flea’s death took life from thee.”
John and the girl did not lose any life when the flea was killed and won’t lost any life if she has sex with him, so it could not be too bad a thing to do.
During the poem, when Donne was losing his argument, he kept coming back to the flea and the use of religious imagery to persuade the girl. This could be similar to the poem “Valentine” as Carol Ann Duffy uses the onion in a magnificent way to convey her love.
In “Valentine” the stanza form is completely different to “The flea”. It has no rhythm, a lot of enjambment and is unconventional like the love that is being portrayed. It also has no theme. The use of one word lines, then six word lines creates uncertainty coming from Duffy which is unlike Donne's regular stanza form which creates continuity and confidence.
“Here.
It will blind you with tears
Like a lover.”
She could be afraid, shy or unconfident. I feel that she is sincere in what she says unlike Donne who is cunning and arrogant and probably does not really have intimate feelings towards the girl, just wants to have sex with her. He was the total opposite: insincere, confident and fearless.
When you see the title you would immediately think of Valentines Day and romance, sentimentality and true love. This is all due to the world and society that we live in, company advertisements and ploys to make money. You may think that this poem will be somewhat optimistic. Carol Ann Duffy’s poem is on about love and intimate things you do when you love someone such as “kiss” and “undressing of love”, whereas Donne is mainly on about the closeness in sex “”suck’d” and “swells”. This represents the sexual organs whereas Duffy is on about more meaningful situations.
The onion symbolises the binding of their relationship, just like the flea represents the binding of their bloods in John Donne’s poem.
“It is a moon wrapped in brown paper”
The moon is also associated with love e.g. Honeymoon and the shape and colour of the inside of the onion, under the skin is the same as the moon.
“It will blind you with tears”
Onions make your eyes water in the same way that love can make you cry. This represents the positive and negative features of love. Duffy may have been hurt by this person and may be trying to show that this gift has a real meaning to it:
“Not a cute card or a kissogram.”
The sibilance in the uses of the alliteration may portray her inability to express her love in words that she would wish to. She is trying to say that she has thought about this present a lot and given it to this person to show how much he/she means to her. It is not a regular gift like a cute card or a kissogram, but an onion…a gift with a real meaning to it.
Both “the flea” and “valentine” are poems based on lust and wanting to have what they haven’t got and they are deeply heated arguments about how they feel about the person they are trying to seduce. I feel that Carol Ann Duffy’s poem has more meaning than John Donne’s due to the use of it’s emotive language such as “fierce kiss” and “possessive and faithful”.
Carol Ann Duffy is using the onion just as John Donne used the flea. Both objects are symbols of love and have been rejected due to their oddness.
“Here”
Take it”
“I give you an onion”
“I give you an onion”.
There is repetition in the commands used throughout “valentine”. With the onion being rejected or not accepted, Carol commands the lover to “take it” and carries on speaking about the meaning of it.
The flea is insignificant in Donne’s point of view because he is confident on winning his argument, as he is a very intelligent man, whereas to Carol Ann Duffy the onion portrays all the sentiment she holds inside her heart and she tries to tell her lover how rare love is.
“Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding ring,”
The platinum loops would be that of the onion, but she states that her love is sacred and should be treasured, just like life and how much she means to her.
During the end of the poem, I became confused.
Carol Ann Duffy started to become aggressive in my opinion.
“Lethal.
Its scent will cling to your fingers,
Cling to your knife.”
I began to think that with this use of aggression, Carol Ann Duffy could be insane with the use of the world ‘lethal’ which means deadly and dangerous. Maybe, the use of the clinging to the knife and fingers means that you cannot get rid of love and it will always be there.
Light is a symbol of love, but the onion is different. It is not a universally recognised symbol. Carol Ann Duffy makes it into a comparison that we understand. The wedding ring of the onion could also be a marital commitment. The life represents pain that is felt throughout the relationship. Even if they do split up the pain of their love will cling together, like the scent of an onion.
I enjoyed reading both the poems, but the one I enjoyed most was “The flea”. I found it a clever way to persuade people to do things and it interested me and may have made the girl change her mind, whereas to me, the onion as a present seemed absurd and had been rejected many times. I don’t feel it was a very good way to go about telling someone of the love that you hold for them.
The part of “The Flea” which I enjoyed the most is where he used religious imagery to seduce the girl. If he hadn’t had used that then I don’t think that his plan would’ve worked. Also, the quick way in which he changed his view on the argument after the girl killed the flea was very sharp in my opinion and sly and cunning.
I think that Carol Ann Duffy’s poem was all about showing your love in very definitive ways and not just with cards and chocolate, but with something that actually means something. I think that it would appeal more to the female of the species, and the flea would appeal more to the male of the species.
Metaphysical poetry appeals to me, and so does John Donne and I would expect that many of his poems were similar to this.
