The Fly
by Katherine Mansfield
Published in 1922, The Fly is often heralded as one of Katherine Mansfield's finest short stories. But it does not reward lazy readers! Your enjoyment of this story depends on how well you read the story. So please take your time and read it with careful attention. Readers will wish to contemplate the symbolism of the fly, and notice that the ending of the story plays on one of Woodfield's problems mentioned near the story's beginning. This story is featured in our collection of World War One Literature.
" Y'ARE very snug in here," piped old Mr. Woodifield, and he peered out of the great, green leather armchair by his friend the boss's 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 couldn't 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, " It's snug in here, upon my word ! "
" Yes, it's 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.
" I've had it done up lately," he explained, as he had explained for the past—how 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 Woodifield's 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, he's on his last pins, thought the boss. And, feeling kindly, he winked at the old man, and said jokingly, " I tell you what. I've got a little drop of something here that'll do you good before you go out into the cold again. It's beautiful stuff. It wouldn't hurt a child." He took a key off his watch-chain, unlocked a cupboard below his desk, and drew forth a dark, squat bottle. " That's 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 Cassel."
Old Woodifield's mouth fell open at the sight. He couldn't have looked more surprised if the boss had produced a rabbit.
" It's whisky, ain't it ? " he piped, feebly.
The boss turned the bottle and lovingly showed him the label. Whisky it was.
" D'you know," said he, peering up at the boss wonderingly, " they won't let me touch it at home." And he looked as though he was going to cry.
" Ah, that's 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. It'll do you good. And don't put any water with it. It's 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, " It's nutty ! "
But it warmed him ; it crept into his chill old brain—he remembered.
" That was it," he said, heaving himself out of his chair. " I thought you'd like to know. The girls were in Belgium last week having a look at poor Reggie's grave, and they happened to come across your boy's. They're 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. Couldn't be better if they were at home. You've not been across, have yer ? "
" No, no ! " For various reasons the boss had not been across.
" There's miles of it," quavered old Woodifield, " and it's 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.
" D'you 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 hadn't 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 ; it's trading on our feelings. They think because we're over there having a look round we're ready to pay anything. That's what it is." And he turned towards the door.
" Quite right, quite right! " cried the boss, though what was quite right he hadn't 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 : " I'll 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 boy's grave. It was exactly as though the earth had opened and he had seen the boy lying there with Woodifield's 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 boy's 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 boy's 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 boy's 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 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, 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 wasn't feeling as he wanted to feel. He decided to get up and have a look at the boy's photograph. But it wasn't 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.
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 ; 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 pen—in 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.
The Fly is featured in our collection of Short Stories for High School I
Frequently Asked Questions about The Fly
What is "The Fly" by Katherine Mansfield about?
"The Fly" (1922) centers on two elderly men—Mr. Woodifield, a retired and infirm gentleman, and his friend known only as "the boss," a prosperous businessman. During a Tuesday visit, Woodifield casually mentions that his daughters saw the boss’s son’s grave in Belgium while visiting war cemeteries. After Woodifield leaves, the boss retreats behind closed doors expecting to weep, but discovers he can no longer summon tears for the son he lost six years earlier in World War I. He then notices a fly struggling in his inkpot, rescues it, and watches it laboriously clean itself—only to drop fresh blots of ink on it repeatedly until the fly dies. Afterward, the boss is seized by a "grinding feeling of wretchedness" and cannot even remember what he had been thinking about before.
What does the fly symbolize in Katherine Mansfield’s "The Fly"?
The fly carries multiple layers of symbolism. Most directly, it represents the boss’s dead son—both fought valiantly against overwhelming forces (ink drops and war, respectively) until they were destroyed. The fly also symbolizes the fragility and expendability of human life, particularly the lives of young soldiers sent to die in World War I by an older generation that remained safe at home. The boss’s repeated dropping of ink onto the fly mirrors the way military leaders repeatedly sent waves of soldiers into fatal conditions. Finally, the fly’s struggle and death serve as a mirror for the boss’s own grief—his emotional resilience, like the fly’s physical resilience, has been worn down by time until he can no longer feel what he once felt.
What are the main themes of "The Fly" by Katherine Mansfield?
The story explores several interconnected themes. Grief and the erosion of memory is central: the boss discovers that six years after his son’s death, he can no longer summon the intense sorrow he once felt, and by the story’s end he cannot even remember what he was mourning. The passage of time and its power to diminish even the deepest emotions is portrayed as both merciful and disturbing. Death and mortality appear through both the son’s wartime death and the fly’s death at the boss’s hands. Power and cruelty emerge in the boss’s treatment of the fly—he admires its courage yet destroys it anyway, echoing how the older generation sent young men to war. The story also touches on masculinity and emotional repression, as the boss arranges to weep but finds himself unable to, deflecting his grief into a cruel game instead.
Why does the boss torture the fly in "The Fly"?
The boss’s behavior is psychologically complex and open to interpretation. On one level, he is displacing his grief: unable to cry for his dead son, he unconsciously channels his emotional turmoil into a cruel experiment with the fly. He initially admires the fly’s courage—"That was the way to tackle things; that was the right spirit"—projecting onto it the fighting spirit he valued in his son. But he keeps testing it, perhaps compulsively reenacting the war’s dynamic of sending young lives into repeated danger. The act also reflects his need for control: powerless against death and the fading of his own grief, he exercises absolute power over the only living thing available. Mansfield leaves the boss’s motivations deliberately ambiguous, suggesting that he himself does not fully understand why he does it.
What is the significance of the ending of "The Fly"?
The ending is one of the most discussed passages in Mansfield’s work. After the fly dies, the boss feels a "grinding feeling of wretchedness" and calls for fresh blotting paper—then realizes he cannot remember what he had been thinking about. The final line, "For the life of him he could not remember," is devastating in its implications. It suggests that grief, no matter how profound, eventually fades from consciousness. The boss, who once declared that time could never diminish his sorrow, has now literally forgotten his son in the span of a few minutes. The ending also raises unsettling questions about guilt: the boss has just killed a creature whose courage he admired, and his inability to remember may be a psychological defense against confronting both his loss and his own cruelty.
Who is "the boss" in Katherine Mansfield’s "The Fly"?
The boss is the story’s central character, never given a proper name—a deliberate choice by Mansfield that reduces him to his social role and authority. He is a stout, rosy, prosperous businessman, five years older than Mr. Woodifield but "still going strong, still at the helm." He takes pride in his newly refurbished office and his position of power. Before the war, he had built his entire business with the expectation that his only son would step into his shoes. When his son was killed, the boss declared he would never recover—yet six years later, he finds his grief has dulled. The character is widely read as representing the older generation of British men who sent their sons to fight in World War I and were left to grapple with the consequences.
Is "The Fly" by Katherine Mansfield based on a true story?
While "The Fly" is fiction, it draws heavily on Mansfield’s personal experience with wartime loss. Her younger brother, Leslie Heron Beauchamp, was killed on October 7, 1915, at age 21, during a grenade training drill while serving with the British Expeditionary Force near Ypres, Belgium. Like the boss’s son in the story, Leslie had worked in his father’s firm before enlisting, and his grave was in Belgium. Mansfield wrote "The Fly" in February 1922 at the Victoria Palace Hotel in Paris, and it was first published in The Nation and Athenaeum on March 18, 1922. By the time she wrote it, nearly seven years had passed since Leslie’s death—closely paralleling the six years mentioned in the story—suggesting the tale reflects her own meditation on how grief changes over time.
What literary devices does Katherine Mansfield use in "The Fly"?
Mansfield employs several notable literary techniques. Symbolism is the most prominent: the fly represents the dead son, the fragility of life, and the soldiers of WWI. Personification brings the fly to life—its legs "wave" for help, it cleans itself "like a minute cat," and its front legs rub together "lightly, joyfully." Stream of consciousness reveals the boss’s shifting thoughts, moving fluidly from pride to grief to cruelty to confusion. Irony pervades the story: the boss who prides himself on deep feeling discovers he can no longer feel; he admires the fly’s courage while destroying it. Mansfield also uses free indirect discourse, blending the narrator’s voice with the characters’ thoughts, and contrast between Woodifield’s trivial complaint about jam prices and the profound topic of their sons’ graves.
How does "The Fly" relate to World War I?
World War I is the story’s historical backdrop and emotional catalyst, though it is never directly named. Both the boss and Mr. Woodifield lost sons in the war—their graves lie near each other in Belgium, a detail that points to the massive British cemeteries in Flanders and the Ypres Salient. The boss’s son had been "learning the ropes" at his father’s office before the war interrupted everything, and his death was announced by telegram: "Deeply regret to inform you..." The story captures the long aftermath of the war on those left behind—the guilt, the fading grief, and the inability of the older generation to fully comprehend their complicity. The boss’s treatment of the fly can be read as an allegory for the callousness of military leaders who repeatedly sent young men to their deaths.
What is the role of Mr. Woodifield in "The Fly"?
Mr. Woodifield serves as a narrative catalyst and a foil to the boss. He is an elderly, retired man who has suffered a stroke and is "kept boxed up in the house" by his wife and daughters, allowed out only on Tuesdays. His casual mention of the boss’s son’s grave in Belgium triggers the entire emotional crisis that follows. While both men have lost sons in the war, Woodifield seems to have processed his grief more naturally—he speaks of the graves matter-of-factly and quickly pivots to complaining about the price of jam. This contrast highlights the boss’s more complicated and repressed relationship with loss. Woodifield’s frailty also serves as a reminder of mortality and aging, which the boss, "still going strong," tries to deny through his displays of wealth and power.
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