John Donnes The flea is a persuasive poem in which the speaker is trying to convince his mistress into having sexual intercourse.

International Baccalaureate World Literature

“The Flea” by John Donne

John Donne’s The flea is a persuasive poem in which the speaker is trying to convince his mistress into having sexual intercourses. Although there is only one speaker in the poem addressing to his mistress, and a flea which is used as an argument of persuasion, the audience is also involved. The poem is written in tree stanzas each using a rhyme scheme of 3 rhyming couplets and one rhyming triplet, alternating its metric lines between lines in iambic tetrameter and lines in iambic pentameter, these elements help to define a stage of persuasion used in order to convince a lady into the act of having sexual relations, which is also the plot of the poem.

At the beginning of the poem, the speaker addresses to his mistress; to whom he tries to seduce by contrasting the cost of their intercourse with those of an insignificant fleabite. He uses the flea as an argument to state that the physical contact that he longs for is not a significant event, because a similar union has already taken place within the flea (lines 1-2). In line 3 “Me is sucked first, and now sucks thee, And in this flea our two bloods mingled be.” The speaker uses this argument to show the woman that the same physical exchange, took place with the flea’s bite and that now their blood is mingled. Therefore, this mingling of bloods as insignificant as it is cannot be called “a sin, nor shame or loss of maidenhead” (line6), the flea has already joined them together. At this stage of the poem the audience learns that the woman he is addressing to is a virgin, the tone the speaker uses is strong, and helps to convey the act of persuasion.

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In line 10, she is ought to kill the flea, the speaker asks her to spare the three lives in the flea, whereas the three lives refer to: his life, her life, and the flea's life. Ever since, their bloods are mingled in the flea, and he says, that they “more than married are”(lines 11) and that the flea is “their marriage bed, and marriage temple” all in one (lines12-13). By referring to the flea as not only the one that unites them, but themselves, Donne is using a hyperbole to exaggerate the fact that he wants to persuade her by any means. In here the tone has changed, it is no longer a strong tone, but weak, he is begging for the life of the three. In this second stanza he is trying to persuade her on not killing the flea which has already unite them, the flea represents their union and the consummation of their intimacy which has mingled their bloods. Although, their “parents grudge” upon their romance and even when she refuses to have an intercourse with him, they are already united and “in this living walls of jet” they live, he tells her that: she can kill him, as long as she does not kill herself by killing the flea that contains her blood; the speaker says that to kill the flea would be like committing “sacrilege, three sins in killing three."

By the third stanza, she has become “cruel and sudden” by killing the flea and "purpling" her fingernail with the "blood of innocence." He asks his mistress about the crime the flea has committed in order to deserve death. The poem ends with a quarrel about the murder of the flea, stating that neither of them is less dignified for having killed the flea. “’This true; then learn how false fears be; and it is this fact that proves that her fears are false, and that by sleeping with him she “will waste so much honour as this flea’s death” (lines 19-27).

The tone at the end of the poem goes back to being strong used to complaint and to make her feel guilty for what she has done, but never loosing the touch of persuasion. The speaker tries to persuade her by making her feel guilty of killing the flea. Although, she turns him down, he agrees and uses her own arguments of “honour”, stating that by giving in, she will loose no more of importance than the flea’s life, whereas the flea is insignificant.

Taking into account that Donne was one of the finest metaphysical poets, he uses the metaphysical conceit and the elements of the Carpe Diem; to state that by having sexual intercourses she will loose nothing. The loss of her virginity will mean no more than the act of killing a flea. Donne used his conceit abilities to point out the parallel between the flea and the act of having sexual intercourses, which are very different things, and the fact that she should not deny him the opportunity to have sexual relations with her. In the poem, the speaker tries to persuade his mistress by using a flea as an argument to have sexual relations. He uses the flea to state that the physical contact he is looking for is not something significant and that it is as insignificant as the life of a flea. Donne uses hyperbole to exaggerate the act of the mingled blood saying that “this flea is you and I” (line 12). He also employs the metonymy and the metaphor to illustrate the sexual union by comparing it to the flea which is their “marriage bed”(metonymy), “and marriage temple is”(metaphor). The marriage bed gives a representation of sexual intercourses and the temple considered religious, is related to their possible marriage and the way in which the flea has already connected them by mingling their blood.

Consulted bibliography:

Dictionary oif literature, Geddes and Grosset, London, 1999.

DRABBLE, Margaret, The Concise Companion to English Literature, Oxford University Press, Great Britain, 1993.