THE FLY BY KATHERINE MANSFIELD

_THE FLY_

The story "Fly" by Katherine Mansfield throws light on the fact that time is a great healer and it conquers grief. The story begins when Mr. Woodifield comes to see his ex-boss. He is retired and is a heart patient. He praises the new setting and furniture of the office. Then the boss offers him whisky. After drinking it, Mr. Woodifield remembers what he has forgotten. He tells the boss that his daughters have visited the graves of the boss 's as well as Mr. Woodsfield 's son. Actually, they have died in a war.

The reaction of the Boss is that of a father over the death of his only son. However, he does not express his grief before Mr. Woodifield. When Mr. Woodifield has gone, he sits in his chair. He asks Mr. Macey that he will see nobody for half an hour. He wants to feel the same pang of grief. The writer describes his condition, "He wanted, he intended, he had arranged to weep…" It is a terrible shock to him when Mr. Woodifield mentions the grave of his son. He imagines his son lying in his grave. He groans, "My son!" However, no tears come yet.

In the past, in the first months and even years after the death of his son he could not control his tears. He thought that the time would never change the condition of his grief. He had developed his business for his son. Everybody liked his son. However, he went to a war and died. When he received a telegram about his death, he felt the whole place crashing about his head.

Now the situation is different. Six years have passed and he does not feel the same pang of grief. As a last try, he decides to get up and have a look at his son 's photograph. He thinks that by looking at the photograph he will feel the same pang of grief as he used to feel. However, a fly in the inkpot attracts his attention and he forgets about his son in a moment.

When the boss watches the fly struggle for life after having dropped a blot of ink upon it, his thoughts read like the type of patriotic, yet hollow‐sounding, slogans a British military leader at the time would try to rally his troops with. He later also says "Look sharp!". The act of dropping ink upon the fly after watching it struggle back to life is itself symbolic of the way the young soldiers were sent off to various battles which served no purpose but to reduce the numbers of soldiers on both sides in that war of attrition. The boss treats the fly as a plaything, just as the British military leaders treated their soldiers in the "game of war." He pushes the fly to its limit and, once he sees that the fly is beginning

to recover from the last blot of ink, he drops just one more which, of course, ends up killing the fly.

Thus, this incident conveys the idea of futility of wars and how recklessly soldiers are treated by military leaders - "As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport." However, the incident may also symbolize the idea of helplessness of man before fate. Just like the fly, man tries hard and gets out of the grip of death for the time being, but fate captures him again. Man has no power to defy fate and fall an easy prey to it. Therefore, we are just like the fly in the story and the Boss is just like a god who kills it just for his sport.

The boss throws the dead fly, along with the blotting paper, into the wastepaper basket, and asks his clerk for fresh blotting paper. He suddenly feels a wretchedness that frightens him and finds himself bereft. He tries to remember what it was he had been thinking about before, but has no recollection of what he was thinking about before the fly.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fly_(short_story)

http://englishnotesforba.blogspot.in/2010/10/fly-by-katherine-mansfield.html

Bibliography: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fly_(short_story) http://englishnotesforba.blogspot.in/2010/10/fly-by-katherine-mansfield.html