The Flea

The Flea, is a poem written by John Donne. The poem is based on a speaker who is trying to convince his beloved to have sex with him. In the poem, a flea had taken blood from both the speaker whose is betrayed as the boy and his beloved who is the girl. Since the blood of the boy and girl is in the flea, the speaker thought it would be clever to mislead the girl, by suggesting to his beloved, that the blood in the flea has mingled and mixed and now has made them as one. The boy goes on to explain, that with the flea bite that there is no sin or shame if they was to have sex, because they are now both parts of a whole.  The girl goes on to say she will kill the flea. The boy pleads with her to spare the three lives: his, hers, and the flea.  The boy tries to suggest the ideal to his beloved that they are now married or mated by the exchanging of blood, and that the flea signifies there home and there bed. The boy tells the girl that in killing the flea, she would commit three sins by killing each the flea, the boy and girl herself.   The girl goes ahead and kills the flea, even at the boy’s great protest.  In the end the boys try’s to make it as if having sex with him would be no bigger than killing the tiny, little flea, and that no honor would be lost. His lover appears to be unshaken from her stand on having no sex, and leaves me to believe that they never engaged in the sexual act.