First of all, I'm going to give you two literary sources, and I would like you to comment on how these illuminate the text for you... Mansfield would have been familiar with both.
SOURCE 1, from King Lear:
Enter GLOUCESTER, led by an Old Man
EDGAR: My father, poorly led? World, world, O world!
But that thy strange mutations make us hate thee,
Lie would not yield to age.
Old Man: O, my good lord, I have been your tenant, and
your father's tenant, these fourscore years.
GLOUCESTER : Away, get thee away; good friend, be gone:
Thy comforts can do me no good at all;
Thee they may hurt.
Old Man: Alack, sir, you cannot see your way.
GLOUCESTER: I have no way, and therefore want no eyes;
I stumbled when I saw: full oft 'tis seen,
Our means secure us, and our mere defects
Prove our commodities. O dear son Edgar,
The food of thy abused father's wrath!
Might I but live to see thee in my touch,
I'ld say I had eyes again!
Old Man: How now! Who's there?
EDGAR : [Aside] O gods! Who is't can say 'I am at the worst'?
I am worse than e'er I was.
Old Man: 'Tis poor mad Tom.
EDGAR : [Aside] And worse I may be yet: the worst is not
So long as we can say 'This is the worst.'
Old Man: Fellow, where goest?
GLOUCESTER : Is it a beggar-man?
Old Man: Madman and beggar too.
GLOUCESTER : He has some reason, else he could not beg.
I' the last night's storm I such a fellow saw;
Which made me think a man a worm: my son
Came then into my mind; and yet my mind
Was then scarce friends with him: I have heard more since.
As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods.
They kill us for their sport.
EDGAR : [Aside] How should this be?
Bad is the trade that must play fool to sorrow,
Angering itself and others.--Bless thee, master!
EDGAR: My father, poorly led? World, world, O world!
But that thy strange mutations make us hate thee,
Lie would not yield to age.
Old Man: O, my good lord, I have been your tenant, and
your father's tenant, these fourscore years.
GLOUCESTER : Away, get thee away; good friend, be gone:
Thy comforts can do me no good at all;
Thee they may hurt.
Old Man: Alack, sir, you cannot see your way.
GLOUCESTER: I have no way, and therefore want no eyes;
I stumbled when I saw: full oft 'tis seen,
Our means secure us, and our mere defects
Prove our commodities. O dear son Edgar,
The food of thy abused father's wrath!
Might I but live to see thee in my touch,
I'ld say I had eyes again!
Old Man: How now! Who's there?
EDGAR : [Aside] O gods! Who is't can say 'I am at the worst'?
I am worse than e'er I was.
Old Man: 'Tis poor mad Tom.
EDGAR : [Aside] And worse I may be yet: the worst is not
So long as we can say 'This is the worst.'
Old Man: Fellow, where goest?
GLOUCESTER : Is it a beggar-man?
Old Man: Madman and beggar too.
GLOUCESTER : He has some reason, else he could not beg.
I' the last night's storm I such a fellow saw;
Which made me think a man a worm: my son
Came then into my mind; and yet my mind
Was then scarce friends with him: I have heard more since.
As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods.
They kill us for their sport.
EDGAR : [Aside] How should this be?
Bad is the trade that must play fool to sorrow,
Angering itself and others.--Bless thee, master!
King Lear Act 4, scene 1, 32–37
Source 2: William Blake, The Fly
Little fly,
Thy summer’s play
My thoughtless hand
Has brushed away.
Am not I
A fly like thee?
Or art not thou
A man like me?
For I dance
And drink and sing,
Till some blind hand
Shall brush my wing.
If thought is life
And strength and breath,
And the want
Of thought is death,
Then am I
A happy fly,
If I live,
Or if I die.
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William Blake (1757-1827) P.
1793
I look forward to your insights! More tomorrow.
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I thought the extract from King Lear added a possible religious interpretation of The Fly. Perhaps the boss is playing with the fly as he feels God (or 'the gods') has/have played with him - first taking his son away, then letting him start to recover, before dropping Mr Woodifield's tactless comments into his life, then taking his memory ('he could not remember'), and possibly even his humanity away. Similarly, the boss repeatedly drops ink onto the fly and lets it recover, until he goes too far, and it dies.
ReplyDeleteHowever, perhaps the fly is not simply an illustration of the boss's view of his relationship with God,but actually represents the boss's son? This scene deals with Gloucester regretting his harsh actions towards Edgar ('the food of they abused father's wrath')so possibly the part with the fly represents the boss's realisation of his mistakes, although it is interesting that, despite this, he does not correct his actions. Maybe the boss's experiment with the fly represents his method of upbringing his son - always pushing his son to do more, turning him into a miniature version of himself ('they had started off together;they had come back by the same train' possibly suggests an unatural fusion of identity, as does 'the boy's stepping into his shoes'). After all, apart from Woodifield's vague description of him as 'your boy', the only information we have about the son is from the boss, so could well be biased, especially when we learn that his mourning technique seemed quite self-centred (he groans 'my son', rather than using his name, and assumes his grief is different to that of other men, 'other men might perhaps recover...but not he'). Maybe the 'boy' had gone off to war without any intention of coming back, just as Larry doesn't come back from the war in All My Sons. Blake's transformative link between man and fly strengthens this image, and his line 'the want/of thought is death' seems especially pertinent, as the fly dies due to the boss's carelessness, and perhaps the son died due to the boss's selfish focus on his business: 'Ever since his birth the boss had worked at building up this business for him', as if the boy's future role as a businessman (and the father's role in providing a business for him) is more important than a happy childhood, and a well balanced personality.
I think the overriding comment of both of these extracts' uses of the metaphor of a fly is that life is fleeting. Gloucester asserts that we have about as much control over our destiny as "flies to wanton boys". We don't decide our fate; the "Gods" do - "They kill us for their sport". Implicitly Therefore we shouldn't put too much faith in living.
ReplyDeleteSimilarly, Blake uses his "thoughtless" killing of a fly as a metaphor for the fragility of life and perhaps also life's insignificance. Implicitly, we humans, like flies, should make the most of a short and fleeting lives and be "happy".
This clarifies for me the intention of "The Fly" as a comment on life's fleeting nature, and also the unfairness of this.
I feel Blake's poem highlights the significance of all life, rather than human life domineering over a fly's seemingly meaningless life. He is stating there should be a balance between the two lives and one shouldn't needlessly destroy another's life regardless of how small and insignificance a life it may appear. He also questions what will happen when some greater being than him, such as God, would take his life from him, and how easily it would be done. This reflects in the Boss' lack of mournfulness in killing the fly, probably due to the insignificance he feels it holds, and the way that the world, or God, or the Army, took his son away from him, and the repercussions of this.
ReplyDeleteKing Lear reflects this same message, from when it says:
"As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods.
They kill us for their sport"
It shows how the life of a fly is to us meaningless, as are ours to God. Therefore while we have the power to kill a fly by, say, drowning it in ink, God has the power to kill us just as easily. This could again reflect how we should feel there is significance in a fly's life, something that the Boss did not recognise in his grief stricken state over his son.
The poem 'The Fly' is very similar to the story, as it refers to the disregard we have for the life of a fly, and explores how this can be related to the life of a human. Both also see the fly as a symbol of fragility and insignificance and immediately relate it to the concept of death.
ReplyDelete'As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods.
They kill us for their sport.' Gloucester can be easily be related to the fly in 'The Fly', as he is put through several horrific trials, his torture at the hands of Cornwall, and the thought of his son's death. It is also directly relatable to the Boss's sick game-like taunting of the fly.
I feel that the extract form lear and the fly have possible regilous connotations. The idea of an omnipotent character controling a lesser or weaker being could resemble how he may feel god has been doing to him, similarly to this scene in king lear "As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods."
ReplyDeleteThey kill us for their sport. The repetitiveness of the ink droping and smothering the fly may represent the angst that had spwan from the death of his son.Each drop weakens the fly until the fly is no more, i believe that the flys death symbolise's the death of his emotional attachment to his son.
This scene deals with Gloucester regretting the way he was with Edgar ('the food of they abused father's wrath') this could relate to a possible guilt that the boss may feel for no longer feeling remorse for dead son.
Do any of you think that the fly may represent not only the boy himself, but in some senses all victims of World War 1? We know Mansfield was deeply affected by her brother's death before she write the story. Perhaps 'as flys to wanton boys' comments on the cruelty or blindness of fate rather than on God's purposes (after all it's 'gods' not God').
ReplyDeleteThe vulnerability of the Fly, and its death at the hands of a businessman and an older man would seem to reinforce this reading (big business was often thought to be guilty for prolonging the war--or for not seeing its true horror, and the idea of young men being sent off to die by older ones was a theme of many WW1 poets) and the idea of the older man, safe in his luxurious office, drinking black market whiskey, and playing with life and death, would certainly have had some symbolic resonance... what do you think?
The fly could well represent all victims of WW1, but in that case does the boss's reaction to the fly's death of 'grinding...wretchedness' and later forgetfulness echo the actual (public or private) reactions of the older men and businessmen to the war, or is it what Mansfield wishes they would or wouldn't feel?
ReplyDeleteI would also question how 'safe' the boss is in his luxurious office - for me, the pride he feels at his newly refurbished office suggests an emotional instability that he is trying to ignore by surrounding himself with luxurious, solid material things. This is a direct contrast to Woodifield's weak physical state that belies his emotional inner strength, that allows him to easily talk about 'poor Reggie's grave'.
The boss's cold actions and reactions to the torturing of the fly, summarized through the simplistic, matter-of fact statement ' the fly was dead', could reveal a contradicting symbolic representation, that epitomizing the majority of the population who stayed in Britain for the duration of world war one. Throughout this time period, every day multi-media would reveal soldiers who had died, become injured or been taken as prisoners of war - here is an example of a newspaper front page I found from 1914:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.gtj.org.uk/en/large/item/GTJ61402//page/1/
Therefore it was inevitable for people to become eventually emotionally disconnected from violence and death, as seen clearly through the Boss's factual description of his behaviour towards the fly. This is previously reflected through his inability to cry over the tragic death of his son, ' But no tears came yet'; essentially his numbing towards death has detached him from his emotions .
Similarly, Shakespeare's King Lear contributes to this idea of detachment from emotions, 'Which made me think a man a worm: my son'. The punctuation places a break between 'worm' and 'my son' consequently suggesting a parallel between the two. And so like the boss in 'The Fly', Gloucester could be seen to not be able to really feel for the apparent death of his son
The extract from King Lear brings the idea of fate to The Fly:
ReplyDeleteAs flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods.
They kill us for their sport.
There is a likeness here to The Boss killing the fly, but there are also parallels with the Boss' son. It could be seen that in the war the large number of deaths meant that each man killed seemed relatively insignificant, this is why the Boss wants to continue grieving, in an effort to make his son's death more significant to others. The King Lear quote addresses death as an issue of fate, suggesting man has no control over death. Perhaps this is why the Boss kills the fly. He is playing with fate, perhaps in anger over his sons death, as a need for man to have control in a world where it has been made apparent, in the aftermath of the war, that this is not the case.
Blake's poem also has parallels to "The Fly".
For I dance
And drink and sing,
Till some blind hand
Shall brush my wing.
Here Blake is showing the similarities between man and fly suggesting that they both "dance and drink and sing" until their death. This parallels the fly's actions before he dies, its tenacity in cleaning himself could almost be seen as a performance in the way that the Boss watches it in fascination. Furthermore, it also reiterates the theme of fate, as in the King Lear extract. Furthermore, if we take the idea of man's life being a performance until death, this can be reflected in The Bosses life. He has built up his business almost as a show for his son, arguably this is why he is so sorrowful because his performance has no use any longer now his son is dead. Also, his attempts and desire to continue grieving for his son, also reflects another show of display in his existence. The bosses son has now died, which could be seen as the event that "brushes his wing", crippling him and resulting in him having to change his life dramatically in order to survive.
‘Our means secure us, and our mere defects prove our commodities.’
ReplyDeleteThis quote from King Lear shares a likeness to the Boss' position. In essence, it means what we stand for literally secures us in the knowledge that we are adhering to morality. However, our 'defects' will seek to test these values that we can so easily claim to, and it is these imperfections that reveal the true nature of a character. Gloucester makes this line as he knows his initial positions of power and superiority did nothing to make him a good father to his boys. Indeed, the Boss makes himself out to be a more significant mourner, prompted by the line 'Other men might recover, might live their loss down, but not he.' He tells Macey that he'll 'see nobody for half an hour' thus making it known that he will be grieving and making a show of it. Furthermore, after his disturbing incident with the fly, he 'could not remember' what he had planned to do- strongly signalling that his exterior emotions are not genuine.
Blake’s' poem also draws similitude’s to 'The Fly'
Am not I
A fly like thee?
Or art not thou
A man like me?
This stanza introduces notions about the superiority of man to seemingly insignificant matters of life and what makes this dominance acceptable. It is possible to view this superiority in terms of the younger and elder generations during the First World War whereby the latter encouraged and instilled a level of patriotism that went to somewhat justify a pointless conflict- still remaining ignorant to the true horrors of the front line. We can see how the Boss has been conditioned into this mindset in his treatment of the fly. He asserts complete control over the fly deciding his third attempt to defeat it ‘should be the last’ (wise to note the word choice- ‘should’ is not ‘would’) and his thoughts read similar to a British military leader ‘Look sharp!’ The fly, in many ways representing all that have died or struggled in the war, show the brutal nature of those leading them who have grown desensitised to its horrors in the face of greed and a childish desire for victory- indeed the boss sits in ‘solid satisfaction’ of his proud and grandeur office ignorant to how it was probably attained.
The poem 'The fly' written by William Blake has parallels with the short story The Fly’ by Katherine Mansfield, not only do they have the same title; they also explore themes of life and death and the pointlessness of life. The Boss’s reason for living was his son, but as he passed away, he now thinks that he has no reason to live. This life has essentially become like the fly’s life. The boss almost seems nihilistic at the end, as he has forgotten his son and is then amoral towards the fly. The man in Blake’s poem ‘The fly’ kills the fly with such ease, makes the audience ponder on how easy it is to kill something or someone and the possibility of the weakness of life.
ReplyDeleteHowever we all know that flies are extremely annoying creatures so it could be considered that it maybe all the flies fault. :D
I think what is most useful about these resources is to use them as context in relation to how Mansfield would have been effected in her writing of the poem. When Blake states in his poem 'The Fly' that 'My thoughtless hand Has brushed away'it shows that the life of the Fly has not been regarded as important and is shown as the enemy that must be killed. This serves as a powerful metaphor that Mansfield has utilised to show how her brother's life may have been seen by his killer in the war as he is merely viewed as the enemy much like the fly without any of their individuality taken into context before their deaths. I do disagree with Stanley B. Greenfield's comment that the fly in her story is a metaphor for Mansfield herself as I believe she would be the Boss if any character. I say this because Mansfield states in her journal 'Supposing I were to die as I sit at this table, playing with my Indian paper-knife, what would be the difference? No difference' which shows she has become emotionally detatched and so effected by her own losses that life has become unimportant much like the Fly's life has become unimportant to the Boss.
ReplyDeleteI think that using King Lear is an important piece of contextual evidence as it shows the whole idea of succumbing to our personal weaknesses and losing compassion. I feel the most relevant line from king Lear to 'The Fly' is 'As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods.
They kill us for their sport' for it shows the theme of playing god much like the Boss is doing to the fly by choosing whether it dies. At the end of 'The Fly' when it has just died and the Boss has not realised he states 'Look sharp!' to the fly so it is said almost in a sick way. Right at the end of the story the Boss calls to Old Woodifeild 'Bring me some fresh Blotting paper' showing how the Fly's life is still of little importance to the Boss as he is about to go on with his day after this very intense and what appears to be life-changing a moment, again showing how the Fly has just been sported by the Boss.