the fly
Kai Jansson The Use of Symbolism in Katherine Mansfield’s “The Fly”
“The Fly,” by Katherine Mansfield, is a short story which can be understood best as social criticism. It has long been a staple of literature for authors to veil social criticism with allegory and symbolism in subtle ways, thus forcing the reader to determine for himself what a story may actually mean. For example, the act of the boss dropping ink onto the fly repeatedly to see what it will do makes little sense if taken at face value, but the scene begins to make sense once it is acknowledged that the boss and the fly, as well as the situation itself, are symbols best understood in the context of
World War One. In fact, it can be demonstrated that the use of symbolism and allegory is carefully employed in “The Fly” in order to criticise the British military leaders and the elder generation of the early twentieth century who supported the first World War out of unthinking patriotism and a childish desire to win at all costs, themselves remaining willfully ignorant of the horrors of modern warfare into which they sent their nation’s sons. The fly, first and foremost, is a symbol of the young men who went to war not knowing what horrors awaited them. We are given a glimpse into the fly’s point of view in the line which reads, “The horrible danger was over; it had escaped; it was ready for life again” (75). Likewise, no young men who are sent off to war believe that they are going to die. Just as the fly escapes one close scrape with death only to find itself doused with one blot of ink, then another, and another, many of the young soldiers in World War One were thrust forward into battle again and again until they, like the fly, were killed. As the fly is the boss’s plaything, able to live or die based on the latter’s whim, the soldiers were little more than
“The Fly,” by Katherine Mansfield, is a short story which can be understood best as social criticism. It has long been a staple of literature for authors to veil social criticism with allegory and symbolism in subtle ways, thus forcing the reader to determine for himself what a story may actually mean. For example, the act of the boss dropping ink onto the fly repeatedly to see what it will do makes little sense if taken at face value, but the scene begins to make sense once it is acknowledged that the boss and the fly, as well as the situation itself, are symbols best understood in the context of
World War One. In fact, it can be demonstrated that the use of symbolism and allegory is carefully employed in “The Fly” in order to criticise the British military leaders and the elder generation of the early twentieth century who supported the first World War out of unthinking patriotism and a childish desire to win at all costs, themselves remaining willfully ignorant of the horrors of modern warfare into which they sent their nation’s sons. The fly, first and foremost, is a symbol of the young men who went to war not knowing what horrors awaited them. We are given a glimpse into the fly’s point of view in the line which reads, “The horrible danger was over; it had escaped; it was ready for life again” (75). Likewise, no young men who are sent off to war believe that they are going to die. Just as the fly escapes one close scrape with death only to find itself doused with one blot of ink, then another, and another, many of the young soldiers in World War One were thrust forward into battle again and again until they, like the fly, were killed. As the fly is the boss’s plaything, able to live or die based on the latter’s whim, the soldiers were little more than