Mark This Flea Essay

Donne begins the poem by asking the young woman to “Mark this flea” (line 1) which has bitten and sucked blood from both himself and her. He points out that she has “denied” him something which the flea has not refrained from enjoying: the intimate union of their bodily fluids (in this case, blood). Donne made a spiritual Point by using sexual themes language and imagery, he made it seem as though the erotic life had an almost mystical power to unite people. The flea is more of a love poem but the speaker none the less treat sex as it fulfill a religious purpose within the search sacrament of marriage. Whereas the Modern sex age and religion have often seemed opposed, In Donne’s poetry they have naturally familiar relations with each other. Donne beats around the Bush but it's obvious What he means when he talks about the marriage bed and mixing of “blood”.This commonplace occurrence, he argues, “cannot be said/A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead” (lines 5-6); if this tiny commingling of the two people is not wrong, then how can a greater commingling be considered evil or undesirable? He even points out

The flea has already “cloister’d” them within its body’s “walls of jet” (line 15, possibly also suggesting that they are alone together in a dark room). The woman’s disdain for him and his suit becomes more apparent as he claims she is “apt” to kill him (line 16), following her habit of killing fleas, but he offers that she should refrain from harming the flea because in so doing she would add suicide (“Let not to that self-murder added be” line 17) by destroying the vessel holding her blood. In fact, he says, she would be guilty of “sacrilege, three sins in killing three” (line 18) since his own blood is there