John Donne, a poet of the renaissance has produced many lusty and sexual poems. One of his many poems is called "The Flea" which introduces a character whose main goal is to bed his mistress. The poem implies that the woman is a proper lady, and does not condone premarital sex. The speaker is very aware of this, and uses his natural gifts such as language, cleverness and symbols to appeal to the desires and fears of both the speaker and the mistress.
Through the use of his language, the speaker focuses on the main fears and desires of women. As the speaker remarks on the flea, he explains that the flea, who has bitten them both "swells with one blood made of two" (7-9). The use of wording produces an image of pregnancy which is meant to arouse the woman's maternal instinct which might therefore lead to sex. The speaker uses choice words such as "suck(ing)" (3) not as a coincidence, but to add to the pregnancy image. The speaker also uses language to guilt the woman into feeling as if she is morally wrong for allowing a flea to "enjoy before it woo" (7). The speaker is trying to convince the mistress that if a flea is allowed to enjoy her, then there is no fear in allowing him to enjoy her too, because he wooed her longer than the flea. Teasing and cheating is also implied through the choice of wording because the flea is allowed to have what the speaker so desperately wants and feeds on the women's fear of being though of as a tramp. The usage of the term "wooed" implies that after wooing is complete, or carried out for a long period of time, sexual favors is the payment for all the time and money invested in the lady. Therefore, the term wooing has many implied and subtle meanings because of the context it appears in. Marriage is another word that appears throughout the poem, as if to convince the lady that after he has enjoyed her, marriage may be the next step. He appeals to her by saying that if they indeed had sex they "more than married are" (11).
