Kathleen Mansfield: The Fly

Ø  She was born and raised in colonial New Zealand and wrote under the pen name Katherine Mansfield.

Ø  At 19, Mansfield left New Zealand and settled in the United Kingdom, where she befriended modernist writers such as D.H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf.

Ø  In 1917, she was diagnosed with extra-pulmonary tuberculosis, which led to her death at the age of 34.

Ø  Mansfield was born Kathleen Mansfield Beauchamp in 1888 into a socially prominent family in Wellington, New Zealand.

Ø  Her first published stories appeared in the High School Reporter and the Wellington Girls’ High School magazine in 1898 and 1899

Ø  Māori characters are often portrayed in a sympathetic or positive light in her later stories, such as “How Pearl Button Was Kidnapped”.

Ø  Mansfield recommenced playing the cello

Ø  She was particularly interested in the works of the French Symbolists and Oscar Wilde

Ø  After finishing her schooling in England, she returned to New Zealand in 1906, and only then began to write short stories

Ø  Her first same-gender romantic relationship was with Maata Mahupuku (sometimes known as Martha Grace), a wealthy young Māori woman

Ø  Mansfield submitted a lightweight story to a new avant-garde magazine called Rhythm.

Ø  Mansfield was inspired by Fauvism

Ø  In 1914, Mansfield had a brief affair with the French writer Francis Carco.

·       The text was first published in The Nation & Athenaeum on 18 March 1922 and it later appeared in The Dove’s Nest and Other Stories.

·       The boss is five years older than Woodifield.

·       Mr. Woodifield has lost a son in World War I

·       He is only allowed to leave his house on Tuesdays

·       Macey, the office clerk

·       Gertrude is Mr. Woodifield’s daughter

·       Reggie is Mr. Woodifield’s son, whom he had lost in World War I

·       The use of symbolism and allegory is carefully employed in “The Fly” in order to criticise the British military leaders and the elder generation of the early twentieth century who supported the first World War out of irrational patriotism and a childish desire to win at all costs, themselves remaining wilfully ignorant of the horrors of modern warfare into which they sent their nation’s sons.

·       The fly actually symbolises the Boss who is fighting for his life.

·       The fly, also, is a symbol of the young men who went to war, not knowing what horrors awaited them

·       ‘Six years have passed since the death of the boss’s son, and he has now lost his acute emotions and memories.’- Time is a great healer, vanquisher of all the grieves and sorrows of man.

·       Mansfield may be using the setting of the story (the Boss’ office) to explore the theme of control.

·       Woodifield has told the boss that the office is ‘very snug.’

·       Woodifield’s remark that ‘there is miles of it,’ symbolizes the large volume of death occurred in the war.

·       ‘cold, even stern-looking.’- It is possible that Mansfield is suggesting that even though the boss’ son is dead, should he be alive he may look at his father in a different light, particularly if the reader accepts that the boss may be symbolism for the old generals of World War I.

·       Both Woodifield and the boss are at various stages of the story described as being old. Mansfield may be suggesting that, after World War I, all that remained were old men, the young men who fought in the war having given their lives for their country.

·       Both of them lost their only sons six years ago

·       Just as Woodifield and the boss don’t appear to be bestowed with any wisdom, Mansfield may also be suggesting that the old generals who sent the young men to fight in World War I likewise have no wisdom.

·       The boss, while dropping the ink from the pen onto the fly, is exerting a level of control.

·       The fly can be seen to symbolise the young men who were sent to fight in the war and who, like the fly, died.

·       The pen that the boss uses to drop the ink on the fly may also have some symbolic significance. It is possible that just as the boss uses the pen to drop the ink on the fly and finally kills it, likewise, Mansfield may be suggesting that the continued signing of orders by generals during the war resulted not in any great advancement but rather in the slaughter of so many young men.

·       When the boss throws the fly into the waste-paper basket that likewise the generals are also disregarding (without any thought) the lives of the young men that they have sent to war and if anything they will continue to send young men to war while sitting comfortably (and in control) in their offices, just like the boss.

·       The incident with the fly further reinforces the idea that no amount of control

·       “For the life of him he could not remember” what it was he had been thinking about previously. It is an ironic statement because it is “for the life of him” that he cannot remember his grief over his son’s death. The boss’s life is not in ruins but is still moving forward, and the thought of his own mortality is the only thing that shakes him now.

·       As the fly is the boss’s plaything, able to live or die based on the latter’s whim, the soldiers were little more than pawns in a game waged by old men who knew nothing of what the war was truly like on the frontline.

·       The boss seems to have set himself up as chief mourner, as indicated in the text: “Other men perhaps might recover, might live their loss down, but not he” (75).

·       “‘I’ll see nobody for half an hour, Macey,’ said the boss. ‘Understand? Nobody at all,’” (74) is a strong indication that Macey and the rest of the office staff know full well that the boss has “arranged to weep” (74), indicating that the boss’s grief is all for show and that he is trying to fool himself and everyone else that he remains in mourning for his son.

·       This photograph seems to be there in order to properly motivate him to mourn when he “arranges” to do so, as well as to exhibit his patriotism

·       his son’s grave in Belgium

·       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’s a plucky little devil, thought the boss, and he felt a real admiration for the fly’s courage. That was the way to tackle things; that was the right spirit. Never say die”

·       This short story is an excellent example of social criticism through symbolism and allegory

·       “For the life of him he could not remember” (76), must be taken as a warning to all to remember the hard‐won lessons of war “lest we forget” and find ourselves in a war which is much worse

·       The lack of identity by this individual allow readers to understand that his character represents many, who continue to exercise control and tries to toy with the life of individuals under him.

·       Spectrality is a central aspect of the short story ‘The Fly’ by Katherine Mansfield. The notion of spectrality refers to phantoms and forbidding apparitions, all things that unhinge the mind.

·       Katherine Mansfield’s autobiographical writings are quoted to connect her brother’s death during WWI and the difficult mourning that ensued with the killing of the fly described in the short story.

·       The story “The Fly” is about the conquest of time over grief.

·       “As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport.”- 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.

·       The city is a familiar term for the business area of London

·       Windsor castle: one of the principal residence area of the English Royal Family

·       Man jack- ‘every man Jack’- ‘every one of them’; Jack is a familiar form of John and is sometimes used to refer loosely to any ordinary man whose specific name is not important to the speaker.

A.     Her brother Leslie’s dying

2.     “The Fly” can be described as a story of

A.     Anguish

B.     Anger

C.    Mourning

D.    NOTA

3.     The well-decorated office and polish of the Boss imply that 

A.    He is a prosperous man

B.     It is just a show to hide his great tragedy

C.    He is a big businessman

D.    He is doing well.

4.     What is the function of the photograph of the boy?

A.     It introduces a discordant note and relates the rest of the story to the personal tragedy

5.     “…with photographer’s storm-clouds behind him” The storm-clouds suggest

A.     The destructive power of the War.

6.     “…he was proud of his room,; he liked to have it admired…” Does the author really mean what she says

A.     No [for the outward decoration is only a kind of defence mechanism to hide his great sorrow]

7.     “…told me on the strict Q.T…” Q.T. means?

8.     The Boss’s sympathy for Woodifield is

A. Ironical [for after few moments he will be in need of sympathy himself for his grief

9.     “Only a quiver in his eyelids…” suggests

A.     Suppression of emotion

10.   “It was plain from his voice how much he liked a nice broad path.” Woodifield liked because

A.     He was a city-dweller

11.     Who is Gertrude in The Fly?

12.    What is the name of Woodifield’s son who died in the War?

13.    “…the boss covered his face with his hands. He wanted, he intended, he had arranged to weep…” Why could he not weep?

A.    Because he knew he supported the destructive War out of some illusions of patriotism and heroism. [The Boss’s support can be detected in his military language with the fly]

14.   “He’s a plucky little devil…” is an expression from

A.    The military culture

15.    “But such a grinding feeling of wretchedness seized him that he was positively frightened” What could be the feeling?

A.     The awareness of death at the hands of some big power.

16.   “But such a grinding feeling of wretchedness seized him that he was positively frightened” Why was he frightened?

A.     He felt existential horror of life and death

17.    The way the Boss kills the fly and flings it into the basket reminds us of some famous lines from Shakespeare’s play

A.    King Lear [Gloucester: As flies to wanton boys are we to th’ gods./They kill us for their sport.]

18.   Who could be the fly in its symbolic presentation?

A.    The boy

B.     The Boss

C.     The Boss and the boy

D.    NOTA

19.   Through this story the author seems to criticize

A.    The older generation is responsible for the War

20.  “What was it?…could not remember.” Why could he not remember?

A.    Because to move away from his personal grief, he took refuge in a kind of mental state rooted in his unconscious, driven by his instinct for violence, and waking up from that state, he could not remember the instinct which forced him.

21.    What function does the ellipses “…” fulfil in the story?

A.    They leave a considerable part for the readers to construct and it also suggests the incompleteness in the life of the Boss and his son.

22.   What could be the meaning of the pen in the story?

A.    When the Boss assumes a God-like position with the fly, the pen becomes an instrument of writing down the fate of the fly.

23.   “Six years ago, six years…” Such repetition in the play occurs to suggest

A.    The compulsive attachment of the Boss to certain things which he misses.

24.  “Time is a great healer”. This has proved untrue for the Boss because

A.     Of his guilt in being involved with the War in the position of a supporter of war.

25.   The author leaves the ending of the story in an enigmatic manner because

A.     She wanted the readers to interpret it

B.     She was herself confused with it

C.    The theme is itself enigmatic