The Fly by Katherine Mansfeild - Book Report/Review Example

Woodifield's admiration. However, as the two men enjoy a glass of whisky, Woodifield's eye falls on the image of "a grave-looking boy in uniform standing in one of those spectral photographers' parks with photographers' storm-clouds behind him" (Mansfield). The casual-seeming comment this image brings up in Woodifield's conversation reveals both the identity of this boy as being the son of the boss as well as informs the audience that this son is dead after having fought in the trenches of World War I.

After having mentioned the pleasant aspect of the boy's grave, Woodifield is ushered out of the office with the boss in a daze and the boss returns to his desk preparing for the incapacitating grief that has always overwhelmed him at the mention of his son's death. Instead, he becomes distracted by his activities with a small fly he finds struggling in his ink pot and completely forgets what he was preparing to do before becoming involved with the fly. Finding it difficult to react the way he intended, the boss becomes distracted by the struggles of the fly as it slowly drowns in the inkpot.

It is true that without the man's involvement, the fly would have been dead anyway, but the man's involvement greatly extends the insect's suffering as he repeatedly offers it salvation only to drown it in repeated successions of ink dropped on its head at each individual attempt at recovery. This is obviously not his original intention as he fishes the fly out of the ink and gently places it on the ink blotter on his desk. The valiant efforts of the fly to survive move the boss to get involved while the delicate behavior of the insect continues to grab his attention.

"Then the front legs waved, took hold, and, pulling its small, sodden body up, it began immense task of cleaning the ink from its wings" (Mansfield). The narration of the fly's efforts reflect this fascination as the activities of the bug begin to look like the activities of a more adorable creature - the face cleaning activities begin to look like those of a tiny cat. Instead of seeming like a loathsome bug, the fly begins to appear as a cute and defenseless kitten. In this sense, the fly is a great deal like the innocence and relative defenselessness of the young man in the photograph who is "stern-looking" but "the boy had never looked like that" (Mansfield).

From this point of view, it would seem that the man is attempting to discover the strength in the fly that the boy evidently lacked. From this perspective, the subsequent torturing of the fly can be seen as the man attempting to work out these feelings of failure and weakness he has struggled against in considering the fate of his son. The boy was evidently on a track to success. "As to his popularity with the staff, every man jack of them down to old Macey couldn't make enough of the boy.

And he wasn't in the least spoilt. No, he was just his bright natural self, with the right word for everybody" (Mansfield). This description indicates a young man with every chance to be successful and yet he had failed to return home at war's end. As the boss watches the fly recover from its harrowing experience, he becomes angry with it for surviving when his son had not. Is this some indication that his son did not