24 pages • 48 minutes read
The Fly
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Symbols & Motifs
The Fly
One of many interpretations of the fly is as a symbol for the struggle with grief that the boss is experiencing. Its presence in the scene immediately follows the boss’s mourning of his son. By watching the fly overcome the impossible obstacle of ink covered legs and wings, the boss is forced to consider his own response to the tragedy of losing his son and all the dreams he had for him. When the fly finally manages to clean itself, the boss, who is not able to accept life again after his son, cannot handle this reminder of life after tragedy and drops more ink onto the fly. The boss thinks, “What would it make of that?” (82). The fly has become a testing ground for how one handles grief. When the fly once again survives, the boss experiences a mixture of emotions: admiration for the fly’s tenacity, relief that it hasn’t died, and tender impulses to help it. Yet he also still decides to drop one more drop of ink, which kills the fly. The boss is unable to witness this weaker creature overcome trauma when he himself is unable to overcome his own personal adversity. The adage “Misery loves company” applies to the boss’s reaction to the fly. The boss does not want others to recover from their difficulties but would rather have something, even a fly, join him in the dark existence he has been living in since the loss of his son.
The Photograph
The photograph of the boss’s son is a motif that supports the thematic development of Death and Reconciling the Loss of a Son. The photograph hangs in his office and reminds the boss of a painful absence. The first time the photograph is mentioned, it is something the boss avoids drawing Woodifield’s attention to. The subject of the photograph is described as “a grave-looking boy in uniform standing in one of those spectral photographers’ parks with photographers’ storm clouds behind him” (75). This description suggests that the photo has a fake background designed to look like a park with clouds. Neither the setting nor the expression on the boy’s face is natural. When the photograph is mentioned a second time, the boss comments that “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” (81). The photograph contrasts with the description of the son from before the war when he was “his bright natural self [...] with that boyish look” (80).
Time
The motif of time surfaces through the repetition of the phrase “six years.” As a motif, time supports the theme of The Relationship Between Grief and Time. In an attempt to rationalize his lack of emotional affect, the boss emphasizes the years that have passed between the deaths of Woodifield and the boss’s sons and the current scene. Six years is both too long and not long enough. For Woodifield, the six years have aged him quickly so that he now appears older than the boss, who is five years his senior. For the boss, six years has still not given him the ability to adequately process his son’s death. He has rejected time’s ability to heal his sorrow: “Time [...] could make no difference” (80). He also feels like the time has passed so fast that his son’s death could have been yesterday, yet he doesn’t have the same emotional response as he did in the first months and years following the loss of his son.
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