A Review of "The Fly" by Katherine Mansfield

"The Fly" is told in two sections, in the point of view of "the boss", the main character who lost his only son in World War I. The story starts off when "old Woodifield" comes to visit the boss to tell him about how Woodifield's daughters went to visit the grave of Woodifield's son, which so happens to be next to the grave of the boss' son. He tells the boss about how the graves are well kept, and they share some whiskey. When the friend leaves, the boss tells his office messenger to give him 30 minutes alone, and he tries to mourn over his son by crying, but the tears don't come. By then, he sees a fly in his inkpot, and places it on a piece of blotting paper. He procedes to torture the fly by dropping a blot of ink on the fly every time the fly seems to have freed itself from the liquid, crushing its hope to become liberated. He repeats this procedure until the fly dies, and feels miserable because of it. He tries to recall what he was thinking of before he saw the fly, but could not remember.

I thought this story was quite ironic in different ways--partially because "the boss" couldn't remember what he was thinking of before he killed the fly, even when he felt superior to Old Woodifield because the latter couldn't remember his own story about his daughters' visit to the cemetery; but also partially because the name "the boss" brings about an assumption of control, but the boss does not have such control as his son's death ruined his plans of establishing a business for his son to take over in the future. Overall, I felt like this story was rather tragic, as the father was not able to mourn over his son (tears could not come to his eyes), but instead was able to torture a living being, and end up taking its life.