The Fly by Katherine Mansfield Yare very snug in here, piped old Mr.

Woodifield, and peered out of the great, green-leather armchair by his friend the bosss desk as a baby peers out of its pram. His talk was over; it was time for him to be off. But he did not want to go. Since he had retired, since his stroke, the wife and the girls kept him boxed up in the house every day of the week except Tuesday. On Tuesday he was dressed and brushed and allowed to cut back to the City for the day. Though what he did there the wife and girls couldnt imagine. Made a nuisance of himself to his friends, they supposed. Well, perhaps so. All the same, we cling to our last pleasures as the tree clings to its last leaves. So there sat old Woodifield, smoking a cigar and staring almost greedily at the boss, who rolled in his office chair, stout, rosy, five years older than he, and still going strong, still at the helm. It did one good to see him. Wistfully, admiringly, the old voice added,Its snug in here, upom my word! Yes, its comfortable enough, agreed the boss, and he flipped the Financial Times with a paper-knife. As a matter of fact he was proud of his room; he liked to have it admired, especially by old Woodifield. It gave him a feeling of deep, solid satisfaction to be planted there in the midst of it in full view of that frail old figure in the muffler. Ive had it done up lately, he explained, as he had explained for the pasthow many!weeks. New carpet, and he pointed to the bright red carpet with a pattern of large white rings. New furniture, and he nodded towards the massive bookcase and the table with legs like twisted treacle. Electric heating! He waved almost exultantly towards the five transparent, pearly sausages glowing so softly in the tilted copper pan. But he did not draw old Woodifields attention to the photograph over the table of a grave-looking boy in uniform standing in one of those spectral photographers parks with photographers storm-clouds behind him. It was not new. It had been there for over six years. There was something I wanted to tell you, said old Woodifield, and his eyes grew dim remembering. Now what was it? I had it in my mind when I started out this morning. His hands began to tremble, and patches of red showed above his beard. Poor old chap, hes on his last pins, thought the boss. And, feeling kindly, he winked at the old man, and said jokingly,I tell you what. Ive got a little drop of something here thatll do you good before you go out into the cold again. Its beautiful stuff. It wouldnt hurt a child. He took a key off his watch-chain, unlocked a cupboard below his desk, and drew forth a dark, squat bottle. Thats the medicine, said he. And the man from whom I got it told me on the strict Q. T. it came from the cellars at Windsor Castle. Old Woodifields mouth fell open at the sight. He couldnt have looked more surprised if the boss had produced a rabbit. Its whisky, aint it? he piped feebly. The boss turned the bottle and lovingly showed him the label. Whisky it was. Dyou know, said he, peering up at the boss wonderingly, they wont let me touch it at home. And he looked as though he was going to cry.

Ah, thats where we know a bit more than the ladies, cried the boss, swooping across for two tumblers that stood on the table with the water-bottle, and pouring a generous finger into each. Drink it down. Itll do you good. And dont put any water with it. Its sacrilege to tamper with stuff like this. Ah! He tossed off his, pulled out his handkerchief, hastily wiped his moustaches, and cocked an eye at old Woodifield, who was rolling his in his chaps. The old man swallowed, was silent a moment, and then said faintly,Its nutty! But it warmed him; it crept into his chill old brainhe remembered. That was it, he said, heaving himself out of his chair. I thought youd like to know. The girls were in Belgium last week having a look at poor Reggies grave, and they happened to come across your boys. Theyre quite near each other, it seems. Old Woodifield paused, but the boss made no reply. Only a quiver in his eyelids showed that he heard. The girls were delighted with the way the place is kept, piped the old voice. Beautifully looked after. Couldnt be better if they were at home. Youve not been across, have yer? No, no! For various reasons the boss had not been across. Theres miles of it, quavered old Woodifield,and its all as neat as a garden. Flowers growing on all the graves. Nice broad paths. It was plain from his voice how much he liked a nice broad path. The pause came again. Then the old man brightened wonderfully. Dyou know what the hotel made the girls pay for a pot of jam? he piped. Ten francs! Robbery, I call it. It was a little pot, so Gertrude says, no bigger than a half-crown. And she hadnt taken more than a spoonful when they charged her ten francs. Gertrude brought the pot away with her to teach em a lesson. Quite right, too; its trading on our feelings. They think because were over there having a look round were ready to pay anything. Thats what it is. And he turned towards the door. Quite right, quite right! cried the boss, though what was quite right he hadnt the least idea. He came round by his desk, followed the shuffling footsteps to the door, and saw the old fellow out. Woodifield was gone. For a long moment the boss stayed, staring at nothing, while the grey-haired office messenger, watching him, dodged in and out of his cubby-hole like a dog that expects to be taken for a run. Then: Ill see nobody for half an hour, Macey, said the boss. Understand! Nobody at all. Very good, sir. The door shut, the firm heavy steps recrossed the bright carpet, the fat body plumped down in the spring chair, and leaning forward, the boss covered his face with his hands. He wanted, he intended, he had arranged to weep. It had been a terrible shock to him when old Woodifield sprang that remark upon him about the boys grave. It was exactly as though the earth had opened and he had seen the boy lying there with Woodifields girls staring down at him. For it was strange. Although over six years had passed away, the boss never thought of the boy except as lying unchanged, unblemished in his uniform, asleep for ever. My son! groaned the boss. But no tears came yet. In the past, in the first months and even years after the boys death, he had only to say those words to be overcome by such

grief that nothing short of a violent fit of weeping could relieve him. Time, he had declared then, he had told everybody, could make no difference. Other men perhaps might recover, might live their loss down, but not he. How was it possible! His boy was an only son. Ever since his birth the boss had worked at building up this business for him; it had no other meaning if it was not for the boy. Life itself had come to have no other meaning. How on earth could he have slaved, denied himself, kept going all those years without the promise for ever before him of the boys stepping into his shoes and carrying on where he left off? And that promise had been so near being fulfilled. The boy had been in the office learning the ropes for a year before the war. Every morning they had started off together; they had come back by the same train. And what congratulations he had received as the boys father! No wonder; he had taken to it marvellously. As to his popularity with the staff, every man jack of them down to old Macey couldnt make enough of the boy. And he wasnt in the least spoilt. No, he was just his bright natural self, with the right word for everybody, with that boyish look and his habit of saying, Simply splendid! But all that was over and done with as though it never had been. The day had come when Macey had handed him the telegram that brought the whole place crashing about his head. Deeply regret to inform you And he had left the office a broken man, with his life in ruins. Six years ago, six years. How quickly time passed! It might have happened yesterday. The boss took his hands from his face; he was puzzled. Something seemed to be wrong with him. He wasnt feeling as he wanted to feel. He decided to get up and have a look at the boys photograph. But it wasnt a favourite photograph of his; the expression was unnatural. It was cold, even stern-looking. The boy had never looked like that. At that moment the boss noticed that a fly had fallen into his broad inkpot, and was trying feebly but desperately to clamber out again. Help! Help! said those struggling legs. But the sides of the inkpot were wet and slippery; it fell back again and began to swim. The boss took up a pen, picked the fly out of the ink, and shook it on to a piece of blotting-paper. For a fraction of a second it lay still on the dark patch that oozed round it. Then the front legs waved, took hold, and, pulling its small, sodden body up, it began the immense task of cleaning the ink from its wings. Over and under, over and under, went a leg along a wing as the stone goes over and under the scythe. Then there was a pause, while the fly, seeming to stand on the tips of its toes, tried to expand first one wing and then the other. It succeeded at last, and, sitting down, it began, like a minute cat, to clean its face. Now one could Imagine that the little front legs rubbed against each other lightly, joyfully. The horrible danger was over; it had escaped; it was ready for life again. But just then the boss had an idea. He plunged his pen back into the ink, leaned his thick wrist on the blotting-paper, and as the fly tried its wings down came a great heavy blot. What would it make of that! What indeed! The little beggar seemed absolutely cowed, stunned, and afraid to move because of what would happen next. But then, as if painfully, it dragged itself forward. The front legs waved, caught hold, and, more slowly this time, the task began from the beginning. Hes a plucky little devil, thought the boss, and he felt a real admiration for the flys courage. That was the way to tackle things; that was the right spirit. Never say die; it was only a question of But the fly had again finished its laborious task, and the boss had just time to refill his pen, to shake fair and square on the new-cleaned body yet another dark drop. What about it this time? A painful moment of suspense followed. But behold, the front legs were again waving; the boss felt a rush of relief. He leaned over the fly and said to it tenderly, You artful little b And he actually had the brilliant notion of breathing on it to help the drying process. All the same, there was something timid and weak about its efforts now, and the boss decided that this time should be the last, as he dipped the pen deep into the inkpot.

It was. The last blot fell on the soaked blotting-paper, and the draggled fly lay in it and did not stir. The back legs were stuck to the body; the front legs were not to be seen. Come on, said the boss. Look sharp! And he stirred it with his penin vain. Nothing happened or was likely to happen. The fly was dead. The boss lifted the corpse on the end of the paper-knife and flung it into the waste-paper basket. But such a grinding feeling of wretchedness seized him that he felt positively frightened. He started forward and pressed the bell for Macey. Bring me some fresh blotting-paper, he said sternly, and look sharp about it. And while the old dog padded away he fell to wondering what it was he had been thinking about before. What was it? It was He took out his handkerchief and passed it inside his collar. For the life of him he could not remember.

Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923) - Pseudonym of Kathleen Murry, original name Kathleen Mansfield Beauchamp New Zealand's most famous writer, who was closely associated with D.H. Lawrence and something of a rival of Virginia Woolf. Mansfield's creative years were burdened with loneliness, illness, jealousy, alienation all this reflected in her work with the bitter depiction of marital and family relationships of her middle-class characters. Her short stories are also notable for their use of stream of consciousness. Like the Russian writer Anton Chekhov, Mansfield depicted trivial events and subtle changes in human behavior. "Henry was a great fellow for books. He did not read many nor did he possess above half a dozen. He looked at all in the Charing Cross Road during lunch-time and at any odd time in London; the quantity with which he was on nodding terms was amazing. By his clean neat handling of them and by his nice choice of phrase when discussing them with one or another bookseller you would have thought that he had taken his pap with a tome propped before his nurse's bosom. But you would have been wrong." (from 'Something Childish But Very Natural') Katherine Mansfield was born in Wellington, New Zealand, into a middle-class colonial family. Her father, Harold Beauchamp, was a banker and her mother, Annie Burnell Dyer, was of genteel origins. She lived for six years in the rural village of Karori. Later on Mansfield said "I imagine I was always writing. Twaddle it was, too. But better far write twaddle or anything, anything, than nothing at all." At the age of nine she had her first story published. Entitled 'Enna Blake' it appeared in The High School Reporter in Wellington, with the editor's comment, that it "shows promise of great merit". As a first step to her rebellion against her background, she withdrew to London in 1903 and studied at Queen's College, where she joined the staff of the College Magazine. Back in New Zealand in 1906, she then took up music, and had affairs with both men and women. Her father denied her the opportunity to become a professional cello player she was an accomplished violoncellist. In 1908 she studied typing and bookkeeping at Wellington Technical College. Her lifelong friend Ida Baker (L.M., Leslie Moore in her diary and correspondence) persuaded Mansfield's father to allow Katherine to move back to England, with an allowance of 100 a year. There she devoted herself to writing. Mansfield never

visited New Zealand again. After an unhappy marriage in 1909 to George Brown, whom she left a few days after the wedding, Mansfield toured for a while as an extra in opera. Before the marriage she had an affair with Garnett Trowell, a musician, and became pregnant. In Bavaria, where Mansfield spent some time, she suffered a miscarriage. During her stay in Germany she wrote satirical sketches of German characters, which were published in 1911 under the title In a German Pension. Earlier her stories had appeared in The New Age. On her return to London, Mansfield became ill with an untreated sexually transmitted disease she contracted from Floryan Sobieniowski; a condition which contributed to her weak health for the rest of her life. Sobieniowski was a Polish migr translator, whom she met in Germany. Her first story published in England was 'The Child-Who-Was-Tired', about a overworked nursemaid who kills a baby it has been claimed that it was a copy of Chekhov's story 'Spat Khochetsia' (1888, Sleepyhead). Mansfield attended literary parties without much enthusiasm: "Pretty rooms and pretty people, pretty coffee, and cigarettes out of a silver tankard... I was wretched." Always outspoken, she was once turned out of an omnibus after calling another woman a whore; the woman had declared that all suffragettes ought to be trampled to death by horses. In 1911 she met John Middleton Murry, a Socialist and former literary critic, who was first a tenant in her flat, then her lover. Mansfield co-edited and contributed to a series of journals. Until 1914 she published stories in Rhythm and The Blue Review. During the war she travelled restlessly between England and France. When her brother "Chummie"died in World War I, Mansfield focused her writing on New Zealand and her family. 'Prelude' (1916), one of her most famous stories, was written during this period. After divorcing her first husband in 1918, Mansfield married Murry. In the same year she was found to have tuberculosis. Mansfied and Murry were closely associated with D.H. Lawrence and his wife Frieda. Upon learning that Murry had an affair with the Princess Bibesco (ne Asquith), Mansfield objected not to the affair but to her letters to Murry: "I am afraid you must stop writing these love letters to my husband while he and I live together. It is one of the things which is not done in our world." (from a letter to Princess Bibesco, 1921) Mansfied did her best work in the early 1920s, the peak of her achievement being the Garden Party (1922), which she wrote during the final stages of her illness. Her last years Mansfield spent in southern France and in Switzerland, seeking relief from tuberculosis. As a part of her treatment in 1922 at an institute, Mansfield had to lie a few hours every day on a platform suspended over a cow manger. She breathed odors emanating from below but the treatment did no good. Without the company of her literary friends, family, or her husband, she wrote much about her own roots and her childhood. Mansfield died of a pulmonary hemorrhage on January 9, 1923, in Gurdjieff Institute, near Fontainebleau, France. Her last words were: "I love the rain. I want the feeling of it on my face." Mansfield's family memoirs were collected in Bliss (1920). Only three volumes of Mansfield's stories were published during her lifetime. 'Miss Brill' was about a woman who enjoys the beginning of the Season. She goes to her "special" seat with her fur. She had taken it out of its box in the afternoon, shaken off the moth-powder, and given it a brush. She feels that she has a part in the play in the park, and somebody will notice if she isn't there. A couple sits near her. The girl laughs at her fur and the man says: "Why does she come here at all who wants her? Why doesn't she keep her silly old mug at home?" Miss Brill hurries back home, unclasps the neckpiece quickly, and puts it in the box. "But when she put the lid on she thought she heard something crying."

In 'The Garden Party' (1921) an extravagant garden-party is arranged on a beautiful day. Laura, the daughter of the party's hostess, hears of the accidental death of a young local working-class man, Mr. Scott. The man lived in the neighborhood. Laura wants to cancel the party, but her mother refuses to understand. She fills a basket with sandwiches, cakes, pastries and other food, goes to the widow's house, and sees the dead man in the bedroom where he is lying. "He was wonderful, beautiful. While they were laughing and while the band was playing, this marvel had come to the lane." Crying she tells her brother who is looking for her: "'It was simply marvellous. But, Laurie ' She stopped, she looked at her brother. 'Isn't life,' she stammered, 'isn't life ' But what life was she couldn't explain. No matter. He quite understood." Mansfield was greatly influenced by Anton Chekhov, sharing his warm humanity and attention to small details of human behavior. Her influence on the development of the modern short story was also notable. Among her literary friends were Aldous Huxley, Virginia Woolf, who considered her overpraised, and D.H. Lawrence, who later turned against Murry and her. Mansfield's journal, letters, and scrapbook were edited by her husband, who ignored her wish that he should "tear up and burn as much as possible" of the papers she left behind her.

INTRODUCTION This disturbing tale has been the subject of considerable, often heated, critical debate, and there is little consensus on either the story's meaning or literary merit. The events surround a boss who is reminded of his son's death during a visit from an old friend. The man then rescues and causes the death of a common housefly. The story's simple action, which is understated but offers a telling description of character and place, is marked by a lack of humor and compassion. The story also makes a fascinating study of a psychological crisis that afflicts a man almost completely lacking in self-awareness. The story has elements found in many of Mansfield's other works, including the use of epiphany as the focal point of the narrative; greater concern with internal crisis than external crisis of plot; and use of symbolic patterning, with key ideas and images repeated to suggest the complexity of characters' motives and situations. Interpretations of the work abound, and is often interpreted as the author's autobiographical statement in her final months of life and how she viewed herself as a helpless victim of dark and unknown forces. The story also is a critique of war and patriarchy, as well as a metaphysical exploration of humans' place in the world. All interpretations, however, seem to concur that The Fly is perhaps the darkest and most haunting treatment of human corruption in Mansfield's literary oeuvre, as well as and one of the starkest expressions of post-World War I existential helplessness and despair. Plot and Major Characters The story begins with a retired man, old Mr. Woodifield, making his weekly visit to the office where he worked before suffering a stroke. Woodifield has made a habit of returning to visit his old boss on Tuesday afternoonsthe only day of the week his wife and girls allow him out of the house. The boss, five years older, is stout and fit, a stark contrast to his enfeebled former employee. It does a man good, Woodifield thinks, to see the boss going so strong. Woodifield admires the office and the boss explains, as he has done for several weeks now, that he has done it up lately. He points to the new carpet, new furniture, and new electric heating. Woodifield notices that the boss does not point to the photograph of a grave-looking boy in uniform. The photograph is not new; it has been there for the past six years. As the two men enjoy their surroundings and each other's company, Woodifield says he cannot recall something he wanted to tell the boss. The boss feels sorry for the old man, thinking he is obviously on his last pins. He encourages Woodifield to drink some of his excellent whisky to restore his memory, even if it is against doctor's orders. As they enjoy their drinks, Woodifield suddenly remembers what he had meant to tell the boss. His daughters had recently been in Belgium where they visited their brother Reggie's gravesite. They noticed while there

that the boss's son's gravesite was nearby. Both plots, the girls reported, were well cared for, and the gravesites were in a beautiful place, with broad paths and flowers growing on all the plots. The boss is visibly upset and distracted as Woodifield gives him the details. Woodifield asks if the boss has been there; the boss says he has not. Woodifield carries on about how expensive the jam was at the hotel where his girls stayed, but the boss responds without listening and hurries to end the conversation. He shows Woodifield out. The boss stares blankly for a time, then orders his clerk to make sure he remains undisturbed for a half hour. He closes his office door, slumps into his chair, and covers his face with his hands. Woodifield's announcement had come as a shock; when he talked of his son's grave it was as though the earth opened up and he saw his boy lying in the earth with Woodifield's girls staring down at him. During the previous six years he only thought of his boy, lying unchanged and unblemished in his uniform. He groans My son! but no tears come. In the first months and years after his son's death, he had only to say those words and he would begin weeping violently. He was sure that the passage of time would make no difference in the intensity of his emotion. Other men might live their loss down, but he would not. How could he? This was his only son, whom he had worked for, who was to have taken over his business, whom everyone loved. He was the only thing that gave meaning to the boss's life. Six years earlier he had received the telegram announcing his son was dead, leaving him a broken man. Six years following his son's death, he is unable to weep and doesn't understand what is wrong. He decides to get up and look at the boy's photograph. At that moment, he notices a fly has fallen into his inkpot, struggling to get free. The boss lifts the fly out of the inkpot with his pen and shakes it on some blotting paper, then watches as it begins to clean itself. The boss imagines that the fly must be joyful knowing it has narrowly escaped death. The boss then has an idea, and plunges his pen back into the pot and drops a blot of ink on the fly. The fly seems stunned, but eventually begins to clean itself again. The boss admires the creature's fighting spirit, but then drops a second blot of ink. He is relieved when the fly again makes the effort to clean itself. He decides he will drop just one more blot of ink on the fly. But after a third inkdrop, the fly does not stir. The boss tries to move it with his pen, telling it to look sharp but to no avail; it is dead. The boss lifts the corpse of the fly and throws it into the waste-paper. He feels wretched and frightened. He barks an order to his clerk to bring him fresh blotting paper, and to look sharp about it. Then he tries to recall what he was thinking about before the fly died and cannot. Major Themes Mansfield never explained exactly what she meant The Fly to signify, and the story has spawned a variety of interpretations. It is frequently seen as an indictment of the brutal horror of World War I, along with the hopelessness and despair left in its wake. Many scholars have remarked that the timetable that the story sets for the death of the two sons coincides with the 1915 death of Mansfield's brother, a victim of wartime fighting. The war dead, it is claimed, are likened to flies and innocently slaughtered by cruel forces over which they have no control. Some critics have pointed to references Mansfield made in her journals and letters about flies to show that the fly represents herself, struggling to fight the ravages of her tuberculosis, only to be crushed in the end by a selfish and cruel father much like the boss in her story. Other critics have resisted such autobiographical interpretations, insisting they detract from a more universally compelling existential message concerning the inevitability of death and man's unwillingness to accept this truth. These scholars see the story as essentially about the boss's brief realization of his own pitiful ambitions and mortality before he subconsciously tries to suppress this horrible knowledge. Much attention has been paid to the central character of the boss. He has been seen as a symbol of malignant forces that are base and motiveless, a representative of the generation that sent its sons to their slaughter in a cruel war, and a god-like figure who, in the words of King Lear, toys with the lives of human beings for sport. Most critics agree that the reader's early good impression of the boss is continually undermined as the story unfolds. In the end, some have claimed, he can be viewed as a sadomasochist who likely cowed his son as he does Woodifield and his clerk. He is a bully who torments the fly for boyish pleasure, and his sense of loss is no more than self-pity. However,

some commentators claim that the boss should not be viewed as an unsympathetic character, but simply as a man whose experiments on a common housefly are manifestations of an unconscious metaphysical questioning about the meaning of life. The answer comes to him briefly, but he becomes frightened and quickly pushes it out of his mind. Other critics have seen the boss as a man coming to terms with his own selfishness and heartlessness, who recognizes briefly that his grief for his son has been based on a kind of self-deception. As a result, when the fly dies the boss suffers a spiritual death. Critics have also remarked on the story's multi-layered symbolism. The vigorous boss is at first seen in contrast to doddering old Woodifield, but by the end of the story both men have forgotten about their son's deaths. Woodifield, in his dotage, is likened to a baby, and the boss to a greedy boy; both men are immature and lacking in real strength. Neither of them visits his son's grave because of their respective weaknesses, but while the frailty of Woodifield is immediately apparent, the deficiency of the powerful boss is revealed to be far more disturbing. The fly seems to be a symbol for, among other things, the men under the boss's control. The boss treats the fly condescendingly and benevolently as he does Woodifield who is on his last pins. He also demands that the fly look sharp, the same order he gives his clerk. This leads us to wonder if his son did not suffer the same unthinking treatment at the hands of his father, and if the boss's grief is in fact genuine. Critical Reception Mansfield wrote the The Fly in Paris in 1922 while undergoing X-ray treatment for tuberculosis, and it is clear from her letters and journals that she was not wholly pleased with it. It is likely that she was hard-pressed for money to pay for her medical treatment at the time, and was working under the additional pressures of market requirements and publication deadlines. In a response to her friend William Gerhardi, who had confessed to her that he disliked the piece, Mansfield herself admitted that she hated writing the story. Mansfield died less than a year following the story's publication and did not witness the intense critical and popular interest in The Fly. After its initial magazine publication in 1922, the story appeared in the highly regarded, posthumously published collection, The Dove's Nest and then again in successive volumes of Mansfield's works. The work began to receive serious critical treatment beginning in 1945, when a series of short articles in The Explicator sought to uncover the symbolic meanings and thematic concerns hidden in the deceptively simply tale. A 1962 essay by F. W. Bateson and B. Shahevitch in Essays in Criticism, remarking on Mansfield's use of realism to make the setting of the story authentic so as to draw readers in to the narrative, spawned a series of responses complaining that the complexity of the piece had been overlooked with this assessment. Later commentators took their cue from Bateson's and Shahevitch's critics and have tried to understand why the story has elicited such a range of interpretations. Ironically, most critics acknowledge that The Fly is not one of Mansfield's strongest works, and some have even suggested that it is the story's flaws that make it an interesting subject of scrutiny. However, the work continues to enjoy a reputation as one of Mansfield's most famous stories, and is regarded as a fine example of the complexity of method that is the author's great contribution to the short story form.