The revision of Donne's The Flea

                           

 

                           THE REVISION OF JOHN DONNE’S THE FLEA

   The flea of John Donne is 17th century metaphysical English poem which handles some

certain topics like love, sex and seduction with the figure of the period’s common nuisance,

the flea, which appears as a sexual metaphor later on in the poems. The writer aims an

eroticism between him and the young woman. He tries to seduce that woman to have

intercourse with him. He claims a logical argument using the flea, a parasite that has sucked

blood from both. He wants to show how this little creature unites them by mingling their

blood in one, putting emphasis on that this mixing their blood should not be considered any

sense of shame or sin or guilt. He attempts to get her mentally so they can have sex, but in the

end, woman triumphs over the writer by getting rid of the flea that he acknowledges his

failure. And I will be touching on the major points to analyse the humor and wit used in the

poem and demonstrate how it is connected with the argument in the poem.

   Here, the first thing that we can focus on is the writer’s way of harmonization the concept of

love with the disgusting tiny creature, the flea. The relationship between the love and the flea,

portrayed by the author, is quite funny. It can be said that it is completely humorous that such

a supreme concept like love is described associated with the flea. As we all know, normally

the theme of love is expressed in a more beautiful and gentle way, especially if it is a literary

work. However, here the love is expressed associated with a flea. The argument of the writer

associating it with love is that the flea is a metaphor for marriage bed and thus, love. The

reason why he thinks the flea as a thing related to love is that it’s sucking blood from both and

mixing them in itself. So there is a combination of two thing; two human blood. Apparently,

that is quite meaningful for the writer who desires another kind of union; a sexual congress.

So, taking advantage of an opportunity from this, he justifies the flea’s action arguing that it

does only what is in its nature. Therefore, it is innocent. At the same direction, there is

nothing wrong or bad for them to have a sexual relationship because it is quite normal

thinking humankind’s nature too. So, that is why, Donne uses the image of flea as a metaphor

for marriage bed and marriage temple in which they can meet as one. For these reasons, he

informs her that she should not harm the flea. However, the young woman prefers to kill it.

Hereupon, the writer considers her killing the flea not only as killing the writer as well but

also her commiting suicide, which means two birds in one shot. Still, he protects his self-

seeking approach at the end of the poem in the hope of persuading her at the last moment. In

this comic poem, when she rejects the premartial intercouse, it is so witty that he claims that

how harmless such mingling can be when their blood is mixed up within the flea. If mingling

in the flea is such a harmless thing, then sexual mingling would be equally harmless, since

they are the same thing technically. And also,the same goes for when the flea is killed. This is

another witty point that when she murders the flea, he directly says that the sex you have with

me would be less sin, bad and dishonorable than killing the flea for he considers it as a sacred

element. This kind of clever, witty association, reasoning by grasping at straws is quite comic

but at the same time skillful.

   To conclude, The Flea is an example of metaphysical poetry that issues love with the less

love-related image, an insect. The supporter of the whole idea, derives from the flea, which

represents in the writer’s mind the concept of love, since the writer aims to reach his goal by

using this subsidiary image. So, it is a good idea to speculate over his word choice and diction

and ponder upon the literary devices like wit and humor to get the Donne’s actual message,

while reading this unusual famous poem.