To His Coy Mistress And The Flea

All the poems are written for a purpose, and each one of them has a very deep meaning. To his Coy Mistress(THCM) by Andrew Marvell and The Flea by John Donne share very similar purpose. In both the poems, an anonymous male addresses his desire to sleep with the women, however, both males uses different techniques to try to get women to sleep with them. In the poem by Marvell, the male lover uses the concept of carpe diem to get the woman, whereas in the poem by Donne, speaker exploits flea in an effort to get sexually intimidate with the woman. The definition of carpe diem is to urge someone to make the most of the present time.

Carpe Diem is a very strong word and it has had a great influence on the writing of To his Coy Mistress. In the

The speaker expresses his love for the woman and makes conflicting arguments with his beloved to have premarital sex with him just based on one insect, which is the flea. On the other side, the speaker of THCM seems much desperate about idea of sleeping together as he starts predicting the life of his beloved and repeatedly uses term “Now” as his final idea. The Flea starts out with a flea sucking blood first from the speaker and then from the woman. The speaker of The Flea starts by saying that since the flea sucked blood from both of their bodies, they both have mingled in the body of the flea. The speaker of The Flea uses indirect objects to convince his lover, whereas the speaker of THCM depicts straightforward reference to sleep with his beloved. The speaker in The Flea says that it is not “A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead” (6). In The Flea, the speaker refers to the term “sin” directly three times, on the other hand the speaker of THCM knows it is a sin to have premarital sex, however during the whole poem he never directly refers to the word “sin”. The speaker of the Flea directly makes reference of killing trinity if the woman kills a flea, which shows more direct references to religious beliefs are involved in the poem The Flea compared to To His Coy Mistress. The speaker of The Flea feels that it is the right time to enjoy the present

The three lives includes the speaker’s life, her own life, and the flea’s life, and also tells his beloved that they are even more than married. The main difference between the poem THCM and The Flea is that there is no response of the woman in the poem by Marvell, which shows only one side of thoughts and expression. However, in The Flea the way woman kills the flea shows the response to the speaker's request and her disagreement to his desires. The speaker in The Flea argues that even his beloved wants to accept it or not, they are mingled in “And cloistered in these living walls of jet” (15). He tries to scare her as he points out that she is doing three sins by killing three lives. He tells her that the flea was innocent as his only fault was “ Except in that drop which it sucked from the thee?”(22), and there was no point in killing that small creature which was symbol of their love. In the last few lines of the poem the speaker tries to make her feel guilty, because she disagrees to sleep with him by her actions and tells her that all her fears for premarital sex are false. He compares the murder of the flea with the honour of the woman by saying that she would have lost same honor by killing the flea, as she would have lost if she would agreed to sleep with him. In the poem To His Coy Mistress, the speaker tells the woman that her