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It isn’t clear where, exactly, “The Flea” takes place. Indeed, the speaker never makes any concrete references to a particular setting. That said, it’s reasonable to assume that the conversation between the speaker and his mistress takes place in a domestic interior. For one thing, the speaker makes several references to enclosed spaces. The speaker mentions a “marriage bed” and a “marriage temple” (line 13), and he also describes the blood inside the flea as being “cloistered in these living walls of jet” (line 15). These enclosed spaces may be suggestive of the setting where the speaker attempts to convince his mistress to sleep with him. Perhaps they are sitting together in a drawing room, and the speaker is trying to lure his mistress into the bedroom. Alternatively, they may be sitting in a bedroom on the verge of coitus, with the speaker endeavoring to assuage his mistress’s last-minute hesitation. Whatever the poem’s specific setting, it’s important to note its historical moment in Renaissance England. This was a time when, prior to marriage, a woman’s virtue was equated to her virginity. The social expectation to preserve her virginity helps explain the mistress’s resistance to the speaker’s sexual advances.

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