Your essay should present a clear, defensible thesis and substantiate it with a close reading of the poem's language, structure, and imagery.

• Identify and analyze the extended metaphor of the flea and how it develops throughout all three stanzas.
• Examine how the speaker's rhetorical strategies (such as syllogistic reasoning, hyperbole, and paradox) are used to convince the poem's addressee.
• Discuss how the poem's tone and volta change in response to the woman's action in the third stanza, and what this indicates about the speaker's character.
• Evaluate the effectiveness of Donne's argument: does the conceit ultimately succeed or undermine itself? Support your claim with textual evidence.

Your essay should delve into specific poetic techniques — such as metaphor, tone, syllogistic reasoning, and irony — and trace how the speaker's argument develops (and unravels) throughout the poem’s three stanzas. Instead of simply summarizing, create a clear, defensible claim about what Donne’s use of this metaphor reveals concerning desire, logic, and power dynamics.

Suggested Outline

• Introduction: Introduce the poem's dramatic context and present your thesis.
• Body Paragraph 1: Analyze the speaker's initial metaphor and the logic he constructs in the first stanza.
• Body Paragraph 2: Investigate how the argument shifts in the second stanza when the beloved threatens to kill the flea.
• Body Paragraph 3: Discuss the ironic twist in the third stanza — how the speaker attempts to salvage his argument even after the metaphor is destroyed.
• Conclusion: Reflect on what the poem indicates about the interplay between rhetoric, reason, and desire.

Scoring Focus

Strength of thesis, quality of textual evidence, analysis of poetic techniques, and sophistication of argument.