my question is why would john donne write a poem about a flea bringing his lover and him together by sucking both of their blood, when his lover wants to kill the flea? The speaker says so much about how the flea makes the two people connected and then how his lover wants to kill the flea. I also questioned how the flea is the marriage bed.
i guess his lover doesnt feel the same about him if she wants to kill this symbolic flea.
-andrea salva
2 comments:
Andrea,
He’s trying to convince the girl to whom he’s reading to have sex with him. He says that the flea has connected them so if they are connected in the flea why can’t they be together. She’s not having any of it and wants to kill the flee, (she’s looking at it strictly from a pesky-bug-bit-me view.) and he’s like you can’t kill the flea cause that would be killing 3 things. (me you and the flea). and the three is suppose to be a parallel to the holy trinity, so he’s trying to guilt trip her into having sex by saying that if she kills the flea she would be killing Jesus and breaking the "thou shal not kill commandment."
All I know is that this poem is the worst pick up line I’ve ever heard. haha.
-m toniatti
I like the poem alot, but the only thing I can see John Donne is trying to show is how clever he is at figuring out things. No one in the right mind would ever think of a flea somehow being related to love and romance. The argument between the two of them can be thought in more literal terms as them just arguing about the idea of sex. He wants to have sex with her thus he wants the flee (their blood together to live), she wants the flea dead saying she wants the idea dead because she doesn't want premarital sex.
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