Preview

The boss, a crutical analysis of Katherine Mansfield's The Fly

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
939 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The boss, a crutical analysis of Katherine Mansfield's The Fly
The Boss

We have all experienced traumatic incidents in our lives. Some of us have endured more than others. But the question remains: How much is enough? At what point is a person tired of fighting? When will a person give up hope for survival? Such is the question that confronts the boss in Katherine Mansfields short story, 'The Fly.' The boss is an intelligent and determined individual who has overcome many obstacles in his life. However, he is now confronted with an insurmountable barrier that he is frightened of facing --the death of his only son. The boss in this story, although resilient, has come to realize that people do have limits.

The boss is an extremely resilient individual. He has endured a great amount and is able to use these experiences to catapult himself to the top. A business is extremely difficult to start and once started, there are many obstacles to face. The road to a successful business is a very treacherous one that leaves many people heartbroken or hopeless. The boss is an example of someone who has traveled this treacherous road successfully, and therefore has a thriving business.

The boss is shown to be intelligent through his success and also by the way he contemplates a situation before making a decision or an assumption. For example, when the boss is confronted with the fly, he doesn't merely think of the fly as insignificant. On the contrary, the boss examines the fly's actions, questions them, and experiments to find out more. It is also shown that the boss likes to prepare for the future through how the boss had been building up his business for the sole purpose of leaving it to his only son.

So, as you can see, the boss was a fighter. He was a survivor. He was the type of person to face all obstacles with a positive mind and resolve within himself to overcome these barriers. However, the boss had now come to an obstacle that is not so easily overcome -the death of his one and only son.

The boss loved his son dearly. Early

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    This chapter is on a, what they think to be, deserted island surrounded by what they know to be the Pacific ocean. It's a very tropical climate and the island is made up of what seems to be mostly jungle.…

    • 2823 Words
    • 14 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Fly's West Play Synopsis

    • 10126 Words
    • 41 Pages

    Each petition provoked the by-nowfamiliar debate over slavery. At the time of their acceptance, state constitutions would include…

    • 10126 Words
    • 41 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Golding, William. Lord of the Flies. New York: Perigee, 2006. Print. Golding’s novel centers on marooned boys’ attempts to adapt to the dangerously undiscovered locations of the Island to maintain survival until they get rescued. With the frightening paranoia of the “beasts”, it places the children more in depth of the unknown terrain to venture off into. Also, in order to survive, the boys must swallow their fears and search through the lush jungles of the island for resources that will assist them to live in a suitable environment. While the young men grown into the apprehensive monsters of their own, they face the struggle of cooperating on travels, scavenges, and shelter building.…

    • 895 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The boss comes across a struggling fly on his desk which instantly makes him think of his son struggling. The fly is stuck in a cup of ink and figuratively exclaims “help, help said those struggling legs (Mansfield 3). Through the struggling of the fly we can see that the fly is similar to the boss's son who was injured in battle and unable to continue. Similar to that of the boss's son, the fly is also unable to continue because it is stuck in a bottle of ink and practically drowning, with its legs frantically waving, trying to survive. Ultimately, the fly represents the boss’s grief of his deceased son. The boss tries not to acknowledge that his son has passed away because of the fact that he lost his life at such a young age. The boss has always thought of his son as a strong person and he does not want to see that strength go away. In “The Fly” the boss comes across a common house fly that is struggling and trying to get out of the bowl of ink that it just flew into. In “The Fly” the boss interprets how the fly is struggling to get out of the bowl, and he wants to test the struggling fly's ability to stay strong on all conditions, and to do so the boss “ plunged his pen back in the ink, leaned his thick wrist on the blotting-paper, and as the fly tried its wings down came a great heavy blot (3). This shows us that the boss is trying to test the fly to see if it…

    • 635 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The story “Miss Brill” follows around an elderly woman who spends her Sunday afternoons visiting what seems to be a park. The woman is known as Miss Brill, she gives the impression of fulfillment and happiness as she admires her surroundings and the sound of the band playing. The chance to be able to live in another person’s life by watching and listening to them seems to be what she enjoys most about those Sunday afternoons. Although her enjoyment comes from watching the lives of others and forming another reality for herself, she is faced with a rude awakening at the end.…

    • 638 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Lord of the Flies by William Golding is a novel, where a group of young British boys are lost on an island after their plane crash lands. Throughout the novel William Golding utilization of literary devices are in place to reveal a theme of the novel, civilization and innocent are destroyed due to the savagery of the boys', desire for power, and fear of the unknown. William Golding utilizes three important literary devices throughout the novel, symbolism, of when the conch is destroyed civilization on the island is gone, foreshadowing the deaths of the boys on the island and irony as the civilize British boys turn savages.…

    • 1088 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Shoe Horn Sonata

    • 507 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Discuss how the author utilizes dramatic techniques to explore the themes of post- traumatic stress, survival and friendship.…

    • 507 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The central theme of the Lord of the Flies is the influence of others. Each boy had to pick between a set of rules and morals to live by, dividing them into two groups. The conflict consisted of Civilization versus savagery. In one group the influence of Ralph was a sense of order and everyone lived by rules. The influence of good beliefs and values generated these boys from committing sinful crimes. In Jacks group, the boys were influenced by evil. The killing of animals empowered them to become sinful people. Jack would measure value in the group by ones immediate desire to kill coldblooded. To obtain authority you needed to act violently. These acts shaped how the boy’s mental state developed. Damaging the human they will grow up to be.…

    • 311 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    "Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every man's greed."-Mahatma Gandhi. Everything man needs is right in front of them, but human nature drives them to be evil. Savagery and civilization is what the humans conscience battles. William Golding addresses this argument in the novel, Lord of the Flies, through an island of lost boys. They are strive to live civilized however, the evil inside begins to seep out, transforming them into savage hunters.…

    • 550 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    group of adolescent boys. The boys are forced to learn how to live on the land…

    • 653 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Bullying – something that happens every day in high schools, but yet people do not always acknowledge what goes on. According to the article Bully Facts & Statistics, 56% of students have personally witnessed some type of bullying at school. Bullying exceedingly affects a person. Whether it comes to a stop or not, the person harassed will never have the same mentality. In William Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies, a plane crashes on a deserted island and all that remains is a group of boys. No adults – young boys all alone. Throughout the novel the children have leadership roles and rules in order for their continued existence. The experience a person has while on the island is how they reach their goal – survival. Lord of the Flies is a classic because it is seen as a metaphor for high school in this contemporary era because of the struggle for power that is showed through the setting, the characters, and the symbols.…

    • 944 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Every day we are given a fresh start; another chance to move forward in our lives and accomplish the things we thrive to achieve day to day. A new day can also liberate us from our past mistakes and provide us with a chance to change our ways. We are all faced with misery and misfortune at points in our lives, some more than others. We must recognize that it is not the burden in itself that shapes who we are, but how well or how poorly we deal with the difficulties. Sometimes misfortunes can be seen in a negative light; because it seems unjust, therefore we response in a negative matter, and become negligent to change. Overcoming tragic events is what truly counts, for we are meant to live happily and in acceptance that there are things that we cannot change. In many cases, individuals seem to feel as though they’ve lost an amount so great that they are unable to free themselves of the pain. This perspective often leads to further suffering. A Temporary Matter by Jhumpa Lahou and Kiss Me by Andrew Pyper demonstrate a loss of identity, negligence towards communication, and eventually leading to the destruction of a relationship.…

    • 1444 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The novel Lord of the Flies can be a violent like story. All throughout the novel, William Golding does a good job of showing how Ralph and Jack quarrel between each other whether who should take charge and who will be the leader to keep things in order. William Golding uses the struggle for power to show the different sides of good and evil throughout the novel Lord of the Flies. The theme Struggle for Power plays a huge part between Ralph and Jack which causes them and the boys to act in savagely ways.…

    • 871 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Lord of the Flies, a novel by William Golding, reflects upon the very core of human beings. Golding described human beings as innately evil. He also showed readers that all it takes to bring humans’ true nature out is by being in an unknown environment that is free of laws. Being surrounded by mysterious creatures in an unknown land, the stranded boys are left for dead. In the small world without adults, the boys slowly corrupt in to follow their instinct to satisfy their immediate desires. By being in a microcosm of society with no rules or restriction, the boys begin to seek absolute power. By setting the novel in an island without adults, Golding shows how civilization can quickly deteriorate into savagery.…

    • 853 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the short story, The Fly by Katherine Mansfield, it tells of a man often referred to as the boss. A man who lost someone very close to him. The boss tries to find a way to cope over his loss whether it’s the bottom of the bottle, or just a simple hobby. After years of grieving it seems like the boss can no long cry over his loss, no matter how hard he tries. While keeping to himself in his own office, the boss encounters a struggling fly who just might teach him the value of life and death. Little did the boss know that this small and fragile fly would help him forget the loss of his only son that he lost all those years ago.…

    • 1006 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays