Analysis of John Donne’s “The Apparition”

(19)

 Loading ...

THE APPARITION by John Donne (1572-1631)

When by thy scorn, O murd’ress, I am dead,
And that thou thinkst thee free
From all solicitation from me,
Then shall my ghost come to thy bed,
And thee, feign’d vestal, in worse arms shall see:
Then thy sick taper will begin to wink,
And he, whose thou art then, being tired before,
Will, if thou stir, or pinch to wake him, think
Thou call’st for more,
And, in false sleep, will from thee shrink :
And then, poor aspen wretch, neglected thou
Bathed in a cold quicksilver sweat wilt lie,
A verier ghost than I.
What I will say, I will not tell thee now,
Lest that preserve thee; and since my love is spent,
I’d rather thou shouldst painfully repent,
Than by my threatenings rest still innocent.

So apparently, some bitch screwed this Donne dude over and capped his ass because she was pissed off. Obviously he sucked at sexing. She thought she got away with it (because she chopped the body up into little bits and flushed it down the toilet), but Donne actually struck a deal with God and/or the Devil and became a ghost. By reading between the lines, it’s obvious that Donne wanted to be a ghost so he could be a creeper and touch his ghost-parts while watching his ex-lover whore herself out to more potent men.

In line 5, Donne sees another dude in her bed and proclaims loudly “What the fuck, bitch?” This vivid use of personification and alliteration adds greatly to the morbid tone. After slapping her repeatedly with his ghost dick, Donne’s ex-lover wakes up. Suddenly, out of the fucking blue, the candle, or “taper,” winks at Donne. Obviously, the candle is another ghost. Donne realizes this but is distracted by his ex-bitch.

She thinks there might be a ghost in the room, so she tries to wake up her new one-night boyfriend. The boyfriend thinks she’s begging for round 2. In line 8, he distinctively tells her she sucks in bed and proceeds by taking an unhealthy number of sleeping pills and passes out.

Donne’s ex-bitch is distressed, but this just turns Donne on because he’s a sick perverted ghost. He thinks about threatening her, but decides he doesn’t want to because he’s too damn busy with himself. In the last line, Donne blows his ghost-load all over the place. The boyfriend dies in his sleep.

This is the conclusion.