Though this story was one of the shortest so far, I found it had deep emotional depth. There are many different interpretations of what the fly and the boss are! I hope everyone liked our presentation today. Here is a summary of our theories:
1. Fly = Katherine Mansfield
Boss = God/ Fate
In this theory, it is argued that Mansfield is writing this story about herself. She's angry with how the world has been pushing her down when she struggles to live. After the war killed her brother, she became especially disillusioned with God/fate and feels like no matter how hard she tries, she will just die in thee end. After finishing this story, Mansfield passed away form tuberculosis.
2. Fly = Europe
Boss = War
In this one, Europe is the fly slowly but brutally being destroyed by the war, who is the boss in the story. Mansfield HATED the war because it killed her brother and other family members. Also, at the end of the story when the boss forgets what he was thinking about before the fly, it could be showing that the heroes who died fighting have been forgotten too.
Serrano's question: "Although the story “The Fly” never overtly mentions World War I, make a list of details which indicate that the story is related to WW I and takes place shortly thereafter."
"to the photograph over the table of a grave-looking boy in uniform... It had been there for over six years."
"The girls were in Belgium last week having a look at poor Reggie's grave, and they happened to come across your boy's."
"There's miles of (graves)."
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."
" The boy had been in the office learning the ropes for a year before the war."
The story references "the war" and "graves" and "six years" and "Belgium." When Mansfield was alive, there was one war that killed more than all the others. It was called The Great War until WWII and it changed the make-up of Europe. It took place in Europe, where Belgium is located, and many mass grave sites were placed throughout the continent.
I agree that although short, this piece was very moving and emotional. It seems that there are many many interpretation of who the boss and fly are symbolizing which made it even more interesting!
ReplyDeleteI think that Mansfield pretty much projected her whole life into this story because I feel like so much of it had to do with her anger towards the war because of the loss of her brother. I agree with all of the references you found that it had to the war and how the loss of the heroes was such a common occurance, that it very much is possible that Mansfield was in fact referring to how often they would get forgotten.
ReplyDeleteI like how Mansfield left the story up for everyone to make their own interpretation of what they thought it represented. I think she purposely made her story interpretable in many ways so that people would look past the simplicity of her story. The boss and the fly seem to be the main characters of the story that people choose to interchange when interpreting who represents what. I mainly think that the boss was looking at the fly as being his son, fighting for his life but ended up dying. I think the boss represents the person in the war who killed his son and it shows that they killed him without remorse.
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