Read our detailed study guide on the short story The Fly by Katherine Mansfield. Our study guide covers The Fly summary, themes, characters, and literary analysis.
The Fly Summary
Every Tuesday, Mr. Woodifield visits his former boss’s office in “the City”. On the present Tuesday, he is sitting before the boss in a huge armchair. It makes him appear like a child sneaking out of his stroller with the boss sitting on his desk as a domineering figure. He got retired after having health issues. This situation presents him as a vulnerable and weak man.
Back at home, he has an overpowering wife and daughters. For instance, they keep him “boxed up in the house” for all weekdays except Tuesday. Therefore, Mr. Woodifield visits his boss and stays in the office for a longer period. At the moment he lights a cigar and admires the décor of the office. He is also inspired by the youthful strength of the boss and his authoritative nature though the boss is senior to Woodifield.
The boss flips through the pages of the Financial Times and nods at the praises of Woodifield about the well-ordered office because he “liked to have it admired” by Woodifield. He especially reminds him of the new furniture that he buys for the office. Although Woodifield has seen them in his several visits, he has short term memory and the boss likes to remind him about his superiority and luxury.
For instance, the boss once more stresses the new red carpet, the “massive bookcase”, and the table with twisted legs among others. These things highlight the “glowing” furnishing of the office. Despite Boss’s attempt to count the luxuries of the office to Woodifield, he ignores reminding him of a photo of a serious-looking young boy. Although this picture adorns the office table for six years, the Boss refrains from concentrating Woodifield’s attention to it.
Woodifield also struggles to remember something that he intensely desires to share with the boss. He grows irritated and shivering because he cannot recall it. The boss offers him some whiskey so that he can have ease in remembering the matter. Woodifield becomes surprised at this deed of generosity. However, he depressively admits that his wife forbids him to drink whiskey at home. The boss tells him that women are less wise than these men and he fills his glass with concentrated whiskey asking him to take it without water. However, he drops his glass back.
This turns out unlucky for the boss. Instantly, he remembers the detail that Woodifield wants to discuss with the boss. He tells him that his daughters came across the boss’ son’s grave while visiting their brother Reggie’s grave in Belgium. He asks the boss whether he has visited his son’s tomb. To this, the boss replies negatively because of “various reasons”.
Then Woodifield goes on to tell extravagant details about his daughters’ stay at a hotel in Belgium. He tells him that they stole a jam bottle because of its high price to teach the hotel management a good lesson. As he ends up, the boss accompanies him outside.
After Woodifield’s departure, the boss stands there silently for some time. His gaze is random and he is thinking motionlessly. In the meantime, the old clerk, Macey wanders around his cabin and looks at the boss’s condition with inquiring eyes. He locks himself in the office saying that he must not be disturbed for some time. There, he sinks into the chair and covers his eyes with his palms in a weeping mode.
The imagination of Woodifield’s girls peeping into the grave of his son makes him quite uncomfortable. It is because he still perceives him as “lying unchanged, unblemished in his uniform” in a deep slumber rather than his reality in the grave. Although he is in agony, he does not weep. In a way, the time has healed his fresh pains for his son. In the past years, the boss used to burst into violent tears and would say that this wound will never heal.
Now the boss rewinds his son’s birth that changed his life. He has developed a successful business for his son to inherit it one day. He took huge pride in his “only son”. For him, there was no meaning of the vast business or life “if it was not for the boy”. Also, his son worked as an apprentice for a year in the office. He was a capable boy and was well-liked by the staff.
However, things turned upside down when the war began. One day, six years ago, the boss received a telegram that his son had passed away during the war. Since then, he turned into “a broken man” and he left working hard for more success.
The six years of his son’s demise have passed so promptly that the boss does not feel that intense pain now. For instance, he is in more anguish since he cannot grieve for him like he used to do. There is surely something “wrong with him” that he is unable to feel the old way for his son. Also, in the photograph, the boss can see the emotionless, cold face of his son.
The thoughts of the boss are interrupted by the interference of a fly. He pays attention to its struggle for survival. It tries to drag itself out of the inkpot on the table. However, it slips back from the sides of the bottle. The narrator thinks it needs help to be rescued. Therefore, using a pen, the boss removes it from the bottle edge and shakes the pen onto a paper. The fly falls on the paper and begins cleaning its wings and legs. He carefully watches it and thinks that the fly feels as if the “horrible danger was over” and the fly got a new life.
However, there is another trial for the fly. The boss wants to examine its reaction to further danger. He dips the fly in a blot of ink. The boss notes that the fly is helpless and “absolutely cowed, stunned, and afraid to move ”. However, after a moment of fear, it begins to pull itself out of the danger steadily. This quite impresses the boss for its courage with its struggling attitude. He feels “a real admiration” for the mini creature’s hope.
The fly becomes successful in its second attempt to rescue itself. However, the boss puts another blot of ink from his pen over it and the fly immerses in it completely. After a long pause, the fly begins to clean itself again flaunting its legs. The boss feels relieved and breathes on the fly to help clean itself. However, after cleaning itself, the boss feels that it grew exhausted and weak.
He decides to test it once more. To his surprise, this time the fly does not move. The boss even helps stir it with his pen and give the fly some sharp remarks. Even then, the fly remains static with its front legs disappeared in the ink and its back legs spread over the body.
The boss throws the dead fly in a waste box. This piercing feeling of distress frightens him. Therefore, he quickly rings the bell calling the clerk, Macey. He orders him to bring a new blotting paper for him. When the “old dog” is gone, the boss struggles to recall what he was thinking about before ringing the bell. This situation makes him equal to the old Woodifield. However, he depressingly cleans his collar with a handkerchief and thinks that “for the life of him” he cannot recall past agony and anxieties.
Background of the Story
Katherine Mansfield, in 1922, wrote the short story “The Fly”, just one year before her demise. On the surface level, it seems a simple story of the killing of an irritating fly by a man. However, there are certain deep social, moral, and political meanings to it. It serves as an allegorical tale for the life of Mansfield’s time.
Mansfield’s story was a topic of heated discussion and criticism for a long time. The story occurs in a boss’s life who grieves his son’s death when a friend reminds him of his son in a meetup. Consequently, in this agony, he kills a fly. Being interested in the psychological aspects of writing, Mansfield describes the psychological crisis of a person who is devoid of self-knowledge.
In the story, there is an inner conflict of a man with himself, others, nature, and society. Moreover, Mansfield uses epiphany as a fly in the story to depict the psychological confusion of the character. Also, the internal conflict is greater than external in “The Fly”. Mansfield uses repeated symbolism and imagery to symbolize the complexity of the narrative.
Through the stark presentation of the story, many critics believe that it signifies the mental trauma of Mansfield. For instance, she believed to be under the effect of dark forces during the final years of her life. Similarly, the work also aims at exploring one’s place in the societal setup. The story imparts a deep color of existentialism in the aftermath of the war. In Mansfield’s literary portrayals, the story is one of the starkest depictions of human corruption and extremism.
Historical Context
The short story “The Fly” occurs in London in 1922 soon after the destruction of World War-I (1914-1918). At the time, England was suffering from the trauma of war and existential and economic crises caused by it. At the same time, Mansfield was experiencing the grief of her brother lost in World War-I. Her brother, Leslie Heron Beauchamp was sent to France in 1917 at the beginning of war training. However, he died soon in a training accident there.
On a personal level, Mansfield was diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1917. This affected her psyche further. She ultimately died from the disease six years later in 1922. However, these traumas left a deep impact on her writing. Mansfield, in “The Fly” represents this wretchedness of war on society in an allegorical fabrication of the story.
Themes in The Fly
Effects of War
In “The Fly”, Mansfield presents distressing and heartfelt consequences of World War-I in numerous ways. When Mansfield wrote the story in 1922, England was not yet recovered from the memories of the destructive war. The story occurs in London six years after the war. The unnamed protagonist, the boss, has a conversation with his former employee, Woodifield. Both of them have the same pain as they have lost their young sons in the war.
When Woodifield rewinds the account of his daughters’ visit to their sons’ graves, the boss sinks into deep traumatic thoughts of his deceased son. This discussion about the death of the young generation enforces the devastation of war. It also criticizes the decision of the state to send young men to fight in the war.
Likewise, Mansfield uses war-like language to present the post-war psyche of the people even six years after the war. Similarly, the boss’s office seems more like a lamenting place than a workplace. For instance, Woodifield talks about their sons, and the boss keeps his deceased son’s photo on the work table. Likewise, the presence of the photo represents the actual absence of his son by using the supernatural adjectives like “grave-looking” and “spectral” that grieves him more.
When Woodifield talks about the boss’s son, the boss enters a long succession of agony. This reminds him of the present discomforting reality of his situation in contrast with his deep sleep in a peaceful form. Likewise, the boss kills a fly in his anguished thoughts, which also depicts the war situations of danger and survival in a microcosmic way. For example, the boss flipped the magazine with a “paper knife”. He “plunged his pen” into the ink and “lifted the corpse” of the fly with it and threw it in the basket. This war-like cruel vocabulary depicts the mental level of the society afflicted with miseries of war.
The war also affects the boss on a personal level. For instance, in the war, he loses his heir to a widespread business. He also feels “wretchedness” because his only gain in life is lost. In a way, he encounters mortality in life that leaves him devastated and grief-stricken.
Memory
The story recounts the main truth of life i.e. death through the painful recollection of a forgotten memory. As Woodifield visits his former employer, the boss, he struggles from a memory loss in which he is unable to revive something forgotten. He is a weak, forgetful, and frail person who is contrasted with the youthful energy of the boss. However, when Woodifield finally remembers that their sons’ graves lie close to each other, the boss suddenly becomes a feeble and distressed figure who has a short term memory also.
In a sense, both of the characters use the cover of forgetfulness to escape the memories of their deceased sons. They want to unseen the burden of their deaths. For example, the boss does not draw the attention of Woodifield to the picture of his son. He has come to terms with the memory of his son and only considers him sleeping in a comfortable death.
Furthermore, when the boss kills the fly, he is reminded of the horrible war situation and his son’s demise, which frightens him instantly. He kills the fly to get his frustration out on the creature. Then he calls the clerk, Macey, and disposes of the “corpse” of the fly. After this happens, he forgets the memory of his son and mops the sweat out of his collar. He wonders about his thinking and then simply drops it. In this way, it seems that he is consciously forgetful of his memories to get away with the pain of his son’s death.
The story shows that life without memories is worthless. For instance, “The Fly” begins with the forgetful struggles of Mr. Woodifield to remember some important information. Also, it ends with the boss’s memory loss about a crucial part of life.
Likewise, Woodifield imparts the importance of memories through the fact that due to his stroke condition and his memory loss he is locked up at home. Therefore, his memory loss pays him in the form of his loss of freedom. Similarly, the boss replaces the emptiness caused by conscious avoidance of the memories with his materialistic approach. He is involved in superficial materialism and superiority complex due to his lack of a deeper meaning of life.
Masculinity
The boss identifies a traditional masculine figure in “The Fly” as he veils his son’s grief under his masculinity. He asserts his superiority over other characters and in turn, demands reverence and obedience. Although he loses his only son in World War-I, he runs a successful business and a respected life.
As he is reminded of his son, the mood of the boss dramatically shifts. He becomes so agonized and senseless that he intentionally kills a fly by dipping it in the ink and watches it die. He shapes him as a strong man to escape the painful pangs of his son’s memories.
The boss is commanding and superior in his office. He considers himself like a ship captain “still going strong”. He is also respected by his clerk, Macey, and an old employee, Mr. Woodifield who praises him for his strong personality and his commanding nature. He also asserts his power over them in his behavior and conversation. For example, he calls his former worker “old Woodifield” although he is senior to him. Likewise, the boss also reminds Macey of his inferior position by calling him a “dog”. Furthermore, he reminds his new furnishing to Woodifield, thus making him feel below his boss’s position because of his huge wealth.
Also, his inability to cry on the memory of his son reflects the boss’s traditional masculinity. He even retires to his lone office room but he is unable to shed tears and express violent grief for him. Likewise, in his playing with the fly and risking its life, the boss shows off his unemotional and dominant masculinity.
Death
“The Fly” is one of the most existential works of Mansfield that recounts the effects of death and the meaninglessness of life. In the story, the boss has lost his son in World War-I. Although he sets his photo on his office table, he does not remind himself of the painful side of his son’s death. It is because the grave is in Belgium and he has never visited it, so he cannot realize his miserable way of death. However, when Woodifield tells him about his daughters’ visit that they have encountered his grave, the boss realizes the grief.
He sits on his chair in a lonely office and suffers from severe agony for his son. His attention is suddenly drawn by a fly that is dipped in the ink. It tries to clean itself out of the ink. However, the boss decides to test its vulnerability and kills it, at last, thus he becomes an agent of demise for the fly.
Likewise, the story also predicts the death of vigor, power, and liberty. For instance, Woodifield suffers from stroke; therefore, he is locked up at home for six days in a week. Also, the death of the boss’ son causes him to lose his strength and eagerness towards life.
Time
The story is set in a short period and comprises three different scenes. The one occurrence is that of the boss’ meeting with Woodifield and the other is his grieving session for his son. The third scene shows his threatening nature towards the fly. Even in the story, there is no detailed description of a longer period. The boss rewinds time from the year of his son’s death and the war.
The six-year time that has passed after his son’s death has made the boss heal the pain of loss. Therefore, he does not feel the anguish that he used to do in the past years. Also, the time has weakened his youthful vigor and power due to his son’s death. However, he moves on to another lapse of time in the end when he demands a new blotting paper after killing the fly.
Emotions
Throughout the story, Mansfield presents the conflicting nature of emotions expressed by a man. For example, when the boss hears about his son’s grave, he falls in an intense trauma. However, he cannot mourn like past days. He also ignores his photo to deal with the emotions passively. He is unable to express the pain in a satisfying way.
Likewise, when he kills the fly, he feels similar grief and is reminded of his son’s death. However, he ignores it too by calling Macey and disposing of the fly. Mansfield depicts the traditional male characters in the story who deal with emotions and pain by ignoring them under the veil of forgetfulness and superiority. They do not know how to tackle the grief that afflicts their lives.
Characters Analysis
The Boss
The boss, an unnamed protagonist, is a successful business owner in London and Mr. Woodifield’s former boss. The boss is presented as a vigorous and strong character at the beginning of the story. He is dominant and is respected by the people. The boss is also commanding over Woodifield and reminds him of his inferiority by showing him new furniture in the office over and again.
He also asserts his superiority by calling his former employee “old Woodifield”. He names him such due to his oblivious nature, even though the boss is five years senior to him. Similarly, he is revered by his clerk, Macey but the boss calls him a “dog” and orders him to run errands for him.
On the contrary, it is the volatile memory of Woodifield that changes his mood and stature instantly. When he recalls that their sons’ graves are close to each other in Belgium and his son has a real grave, the boss becomes unnerved. He is haunted by the memory of his young son when Woodifield leaves. However, he cannot cry for him and grieve him like the past. Previously, a mere imagination of his son would burst him in insane anguish.
Suddenly, he sees a fly, and his thoughts are distracted by it. He eagerly looks at its toils to get out of the inkpot and save its life. The boss determines to torture the fly to death. Though, he is impressed by the courage of the fly and tells it to “look sharp”. When it dies through the boss’ repeated trials to test it, he is again aggrieved.
However, he suddenly turns into a forgetful character and slips his son’s memories from his mind. This makes him similar to the “old Woodifield”. For instance, he becomes a reflection of Woodifield and falls in the same state for which he would assert superiority over him.
The boss is presented as a static character in the story. He ignores the photo of his son and does not visit his grave to neglect the reality of his son and his own life. He distracts himself in meager things like a fly. In these distractions, he easily forgets the crucial reality.
Woodifield
Woodifield is the first character to be introduced in the story. He is also the one who breaks the details of the boss’s son’s grave to him and turns his former vigor and strength down. Woodifield is an aged man who suffers from memory loss due to a stroke that was inflicted upon him. He is a frail and dim-eyed man. Woodifield is dependent upon his wife and daughters due to his weak health.
For instance, he stays at home locked up for the whole week instead of Tuesday. On Tuesday, he visits his former employer, the boss. The boss also enjoys his company because he asserts his commanding and superior nature over Woodifield. He shows him the new furnishing and other goods in his office repeatedly, thus gaining pleasure in his superiority over Woodifield’s memory.
However, Woodifield’s discussion about his daughters’ visit to Belgium and their encounter of the grave of the boss’ son raises the internal conflict of the boss. He realizes once again the painful repercussions of his son’s demise.
Although Woodifield is introduced first that makes him an important figure, he disappears from the story after the first scene. He also serves as a reflection of the seemingly strong character of the boss. The boss imparts similar forgetfulness and frailty in the end. Also, both of them have lost their sons and fall into conscious oblivious fits to soften their grief.
The Boss’s Son
When Woodifield reminds the boss about his son’s grave in Belgium, he gets trapped in his wild thoughts about his son. The boss’s son was killed in World War-I. He was the only son and heir to his business. The boss remembers his apprenticeship in his office for one year. He was a talented boy and was popular among the office staff.
His son signifies the boss’ materialism because he remembers him as his heir. He thinks that his son was the only person he was setting the business for. Now, Woodifield tells him that his girls went to see their brother’s grave in Belgium and they came across his son’s grave also. On this revelation, the boss suddenly experiences confused emotions. He is unable to precisely predict his situation and is in a perplexing agony without having violent outbursts. He is quite emotional for his son and fights with his death by ignoring his discussion to a possible extent.
Literary Analysis
The writer shapes “The Fly” according to the crucial subjects of contemporary society i.e. effects of war, control, and miseries of death. In the story, Mansfield defines control of the boss over the environment by using his office as the setting of the story. He asserts his superiority over the people and engages in materialistic pleasures to forget his son’s grief. For instance, his superior nature can be likened to the effects of war on people’s mentality. In the war, a general commands his soldiers and carries out plans and is responsible for the outcome, as in World War-I
Mansfield also uses third-person narrative like her other stories to make the story unbiased and explore the inner self of the characters. Similarly, the killing of the fly also serves as a symbol for the slaughter of many young men in the war. For example, the boss tests the fly by dipping it in the ink and it gets killed in the end. Similarly, in WWI, the generals loaded the soldiers with orders to fight, which resulted in massive deaths.
The story begins in medias res and closes with no significant occurrence. The boss kills the fly and forgets about his grief and his killing of the fly. This oblivion is good for himself and his selfish superiority. The time setting is also very important for the action. It happens six years after the war that shows the boss’s torment and anguish for his son even six years after the war. The boss has an internal struggle and confusion regarding the war and his son.
Being the protagonist, the boss’s emotions are driven by only one subject that is war. The fly is a metaphor for the devastation and despair caused by war. For example, many young people died in the war just like the fly died by the hands of the boss. This bloodshed resulted in a huge disillusionment and chaos among the people. Their lives became empty and emotionless like the boss. Similarly, many people suffered from mental stress and illness as Woodifield.
Setting
The story occurs in the year 1922 in England, UK. It happens one year before Katherine’s death due to tuberculosis. The mention of “the City” refers to London. The story occurs in three separates scenes that use the setting to contribute to the plot by evoking feelings of sympathy in the readers. In this technique, Mansfield uses feelings all different from one another in the three scenes.
The scene-1 begins when Woodifield is introduced to the lavish surroundings of the boss’ office. The boss takes exceptional pride in his office décor and recounts the new things he buys to Woodifield. Woodifield observes the room as “snug” and is impressed by the boss’ choices. Also, the narrator names the things e.g. the red carpet with white rings, the green chair, and the table with twisted legs. In this way, the author gives a complete picture of the setting description that establishes the tone. It also points out the characteristics of the protagonist’s personality.
Similarly, the boss’s description of the office like the new carpet, electric heater, and other furnishing determines his control over the setting and the people. For instance, he realizes to Woodifield that he is weak in memory and lower in status. Likewise, it shows the changes in the boss’s personality since his son’s death in World War-I.
In the second scene, Woodifield leaves the boss’ office and the boss comes to his office to sit alone for some time. He locks himself inside under the effect of great pain. After agonizing for some time, he gets up to look at his son’s photo. This scene lacks external description and there is a detailed examination of the character’s inner turmoil. He also keeps the photo of someone whose departure makes him depressed. This setting peeps into the personality of the protagonist.
In the third scene, the boss is distracted from his thoughts and his attention is drawn towards a drowning fly in his inkpot. To elaborate, the fly tries hard to get himself out of the inkpot. It nearly succeeds in its struggles. However, the boss begins to play with it. This detailed description of the fly and its struggles against the inkpot and ink drop depicts the struggles of the boss’s son in the war.
However, the boss discards the dead fly in the waste bin that shows how he discards his son’s thoughts for his own life and comfort.
Tone
Katherine Mansfield creates a melancholic and darkly humorous tone of “The Fly”. At the beginning of the story, the tone is darkly humorous as the boss retains the upper hand over the characters calling the one a “dog” and the other “old” while he is himself older than him. Likewise, he mocks Woodifield’s forgetfulness by repeatedly reminding him of his newly purchased things while he becomes forgetful of the reality of his life in the end.
In the later part of the story, the tone turns to a melancholic one in which the boss laments for his son’s demise. He looks at his photograph and expresses deep pain for him. However, he cannot cry like he was in previous years. Furthermore, the melancholic tone also blends with a humorous mode in the killing of the fly and then disposing of it selfishly.
The tone tries to impart a sad and intense mood of the story. The boss and Woodifield are both aged characters with memory loss and fragile souls. They meet and converse with each other to forget their painful memories and pass their useless time in talking about unimportant things.
Writing Technique
Mansfield, being interested in psychology, uses less action in her stories to convey maximum human feelings and behavior. In “The Fly” there is little action also. It involves a beginning dialogue between the boss and Woodifield, a soliloquy, order to the clerk, killing of the fly, and then calling the clerk for a fresh paper.
Mansfield gives the point of view of the story entirely to the boss. He is commanding and self-satisfied in the beginning and then moves towards mental torture and frailty. Also, Mansfield creates the protagonist opposite to her sensitive and sympathetic protagonists. He is selfish, superior, and dominating others.
The author also creates parallels in the form of Woodifield and the boss. They are both struggling to cope with the premature demise of their sons. They also suffer from forgetfulness and do not seem to stick to their sons’ death in moving forward in life. The boss engages in his business and buys new materials for his office to bring a change to his life. Likewise, Woodifield gets trapped in his home with his commanding wife and daughters. He also comes every Tuesday to gossip with the boss. In this way, they successfully ignore the grim realities of their lives.
Likewise, the language helps create the mood of the story. Also, it confirms the essential details that the author skips to mention. For instance, certain sentences foreshadow the boss’s personality. For example, the boss was overwhelmingly “proud of his room”. This shows his superiority over the lower people in his office. He “liked to have it admired” by Woodifield. When Woodifield tells him about his son’s grave and then departs, the boss sinks in a depression but he feels that he cannot feel the past pain e.g. “ ‘My son!’ but no tears came yet”.
Point of View
The story is set in third-person limited omniscient narration. Throughout the story, the perspective remains that of an absent narrator. However, he has access to the mind of the boss, the protagonist. Although unnamed, the readers know enough of the boss’s personality that they can withdraw a good conclusion from his behavior.
The narrator is limited omniscient because he does not access the inner feelings of the other characters like Woodifield or Macey. However, for the boss, the narrator uses the expressions of emotions like “the boss thought” and “feeling kindly, he winked at the old man”.
Genre
In a broader description of literary genres, “The Fly” comes under a fictive short story genre. It also consists of a realistic point of view of Mansfield signifying the objective reality of the world after the destructive World War-I. Therefore, it is also a part of realistic fiction. Although there is a glance at the inner thoughts of the protagonist, most of the actions and expressions are depicted by external details.
The story is written as an anti-war tale to narrate to the people the effects of war on the personal lives of the people. It shows how the cruelty of war takes away the life of soldiers and the comfort of their families. Through the open-ended narrative, Mansfield tries to make the readers think of the life of the families of war soldiers. They have no meaning of life and do not end up anywhere.
Title
In “The Fly”, the title refers to the major symbol of the fly that gets killed by the boss. It identifies the feebleness of humans to escape death. For instance, the fly symbolizes collective humanity in the danger of war. The humans are helpless in denying death in the war. The war turns out to be a nightmare for humanity crushing them in its bloodthirsty pangs. As the fly is helpless in the hands of the boss and he kills it after repeated trials, similar happens to humans. They suffer through the hands of war and after huge struggles, they die in the end.
Conflict
The point of conflict in “The Fly” is a man’s quest in the world. It represents the human’s fight against self, human versus nature, and human versus society. For example, the boss fights with his feelings and memories and ignores them consciously to move forward in life. Likewise, the boss also struggles against society and other individuals in the form of his commanding nature and superiority over others to keep himself high. Likewise, he deals with the idea of death by becoming complacent with his son’s death by forgetting it in the end.
Symbolism
The Fly
The fly serves as a symbol for various interpretations of the story. It first appears in front of the boss when he is immersed in his son’s thoughts. However, he gets distracted easily and is attracted to the struggles of the fly for survival. Although the fly is not something extraordinary, yet it succeeds in gaining immense attention from the boss.
The fly simply makes efforts for its survival without the threat of any external force before the boss’ attention. However, it becomes a victim of nature in the form of a human threat when the boss is involved in its toil for life. When the boss becomes an overpowering danger for him, he loses the battle.
The fly becomes the prey in the boss’s hands. He, in his frustration, sees the fly as inferior to him and determines to use his force on it to check its vulnerability. In the fly scene, the boss presents a picture of the brutality and misuse of power in the war. He makes the struggles of the fly more difficult. For instance, the boss leaves it helpless by dipping it in drops of ink on the blotting paper repeatedly.
The fly symbolizes the struggles of the boss’s son or those of Reggie, Woodifield’s son in the war. The narrator presents a war situation by personifying the fly as a soldier helplessly “waving” its “little front legs” in a hopeless “cry for help”. This situation suggests Britain’s sacrifice and hardships in World War –I. It determines how a sea of young people lost their lives in the brutal war.
The fly’s death also symbolizes the loss of vigor and memory of the old ones like Woodifield and the boss. They have lost their energy to life and are treading towards death just like the fly loses its energy after repeated attempts to save its life. Likewise, Mansfield was also near her death and was struggling for life when she wrote the play in 1922. Ultimately, she died of tuberculosis in 1923.
Another symbolic significance of the death of the fly is generation guilt. For example, when the boss kills the fly, he feels severe pain and distress. This pain also stands for the guilt of the old parents in sending their children to war for death. As young sons are their companions in agedness, the boss and Woodifield lose them for the country. Now, they have no one to tend them at an older age.
The fly also determines the superiority and control of the boss over his surroundings. As he controls his environment, he overpowers the plays with the fly’s life also. Similarly, it can be compared to Woodifield’s status at home. He is under the command of his wife and they do not let him control his life.
Furthermore, the fly stands for collective humanity. For example, it craves life through its repeated efforts to get itself out of the impending danger. Likewise, humanity also suffered from the effects of war even six years after World War-I. Most of them either fought in the war or had someone who fought in it. Therefore, the firsthand experience made their lives aggrieved and disillusioned.
Literary Devices
Similes
“he peered out of the great, green leather armchair… as a baby peers out of its pram”. The comparison makes Woodifield vulnerable and predicts his physical situation. For instance, he suffers from memory loss and has a frail body that limits his freedom.
The narrator also uses a simile to describe the status of Macey. The office clerk “dogged in and out of his cubbyhole like a dog” to see whether the boss needs him for a task. This comparison depicts his inferiority in the boss’s eyes.
Also, the fly is likened to a living being e.g. it is “like a minute cat” while struggling for life.
Metaphor
The boss calls Woodifield as the “planted there in the midst…. that frail old figure in the muffler”. He recognizes him as something aged and weak planted in the chair with a pathetic life. However, it is later revealed that it is the boss who suffers from memory loss and is a pitiable figure.
Likewise, the fly is a metaphor for the miseries of war, the struggles of the soldiers and their families, humanity in fear, and the loss of will. For example, the boss calls it “the little beggar… cowed, stunned, and afraid to move” and “a plucky little devil”.
Irony
Woodifield’s Oblivion
Woodifield’s forgetfulness is a source of satisfaction for the boss. He shows him the luxuries of his office repeatedly as new despite their being five years old. However, Woodifield’s memory becomes a source of misery for him. When he reminds him about his son’s grave, the boss sinks in deep pain.
The Boss
In the beginning, the boss is considered a youthful vigor. He takes great pride in the memory loss of Woodifield. However, the boss transforms into a weak figure that trips and suffers from the memory of his son.
The Old Inkpot
The boss is a modern figure with new furnishing and “snug” office. He gets great satisfaction in his office décor. On the other hand, he keeps inkpot and uses ink for writing that was common in past times.
Imagery
The Boss’s Office
The boss’s office is the setting of the story. It determines the mental state of the boss. For instance, his endless counting of the new furniture shows his superiority over other characters. However, he ignores his son’s photograph that presents his grief and pain for him. The boss has control over the location but he cannot rule the elements in it.
Alcohol
The boss keeps alcohol in his office that shows he uses a strong liquor to dull his pain by forgetting his memories. As he hands it over to Woodifield with great satisfaction, it turns out to be a trigger for him. Woodifield reminds the forgotten memory and informs the boss about his son’s death.
The Photograph
The photo of the boss’s son represents a significant symbol in the development of the story. The boss ignores it at first and skips it out of his description. When he becomes increasingly immersed in his son’s thoughts he looks at the photograph to remember his son. However, there is nothing like the past feelings in his heart for his lost son. This presents the fading of his son’s memory and his memory loss with time.
Graves
The graves of the sons of Woodifield and the boss represent the destruction caused by war. They were young men who lost their lives in World War-I. To Woodifield, the graves are a sign of national honor for their sons. On the other hand, to the boss, his son’s grave presents his inability to cope with his demise. He does not visit the grave because he will only find emptiness and loss towards his son.
Allusion
Through the story, there is an allusion to the devastation caused in World War-I. For example, the killing of the boss’s son and the demise of Woodifield’s son cause emptiness in their fathers’ lives. The picture presents a young man in a military uniform that the boss should feel pride in. On the contrary, he ignores it and becomes sad at the discussion of his son.
Foreshadowing
The boss intentionally ignores a picture on his table while describing his new furnishing to Woodifield. This predicts his later wretchedness in his son’s memory. His son is always there in the boss’s mind but he ignores it to soften his pain. The office room is a symbol of his mind.
Personification
The fly in the story is a personification for the wretched deaths of the soldiers in the war. Although the boss is impressed by the struggles of the fly to save its life, he becomes the cause for its death. Similarly, in the war, many young people struggled against enemy forces and died a miserable death.
Understatement
When Woodifield discusses the grave of the boss’s son in Belgium, he is deeply affected. However, he does not react explicitly. The boss expresses “only a quiver in his eyelids”. Despite the intensity of the feelings, he does not appear to be moved by it. This revelation leads to the rising crisis of the story.
Parallelism
The symbol of the fly is paralleled with the boss’s son. The boss kills the fly directly through his attempts in testing the fly’s strength and courage. Also, he sends his son to war and exposes him to the cruelty of the battle. Similarly, he intentionally forgets the memory of his son and removes him from his world.
