Posted by jack millington on May 06, 19104 at 16:20:26:

In Reply to: "The FLea" posted by Shanna Brown on January 27, 19104 at 17:05:51:

i'm 16 years old and am studying the poem for gcse english. here is part of my essay on it

The argument that the man puts forward in ‘The Flea’ is that the woman should have s*x with him because firstly there bloods are already mixed inside the flea, which has bitten them both. Therefore, as at the time they thought bloods were mingled during s*x, there will be no sin in doing it again.

Secondly, in the first stanza, the flea is described as insignificant and so, like the flea, having s*x is also an insignificant act and so the woman should have no worries in doing it. As the woman also shows signs of their having s*x as being sinful and wrong, the man describes their blood as being ‘cloistered in these living walls of jet’. The word ‘cloistered’ is asociated with the church and so the act is made to seem pure not a sin. The word ‘jet’ makes the flea sound precious and so further emphasizing his point of purity.

When the woman then kills the flea the man describes it as complete sacrilege as not only has she killed the flea with his blood in it but her own blood and so committing the ultimate profanity and killing herself. When she then claims to not have been affected morally by killing the flea, he turns it around to his advantage and says that if she is not affected by this killing then she will definitely not be affected by having s*x with him.

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