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Character Analysis Of The Fly By Katherine Mansfield

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In the short story “The Fly” by Katherine Mansfield, a man named the boss holds a conversation with an ex-employee named Old Woodifield. While talking, Woodifield brings up the boss’s son, who passed away six years ago. Initially the boss is unaffected; however, as the boss forces the man to leave, he is stricken with the feelings of his dead son. As a result, he expresses his anger on an insect. The boss, who has a constant need to control situations, starts to overcome the loss of the son but unknowingly kills a part of himself while murdering an innocent fly. Throughout the story, the boss displays acts of being controlling, cruel, and distraught. Old Woodifield, a frail man that used to work for the boss, says his wife will not let him drink whiskey, but the boss presents him with some whiskey to drink despite what Woodifield’s wife says: "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.” The boss hands Woodifield a drink because he firmly believes that men know more than women. He controls the action of Woodifield by forcing him to take a drink of the whiskey. To add on, the boss gives orders to his assistant:“ ‘I'll see nobody for half an hour, Macey,’ said the boss. ‘Understand? Nobody at all’.” Macey, the assistant for the boss, partakes in any errand or wish that the boss demands of him with no backlash like a dog. The narrator states, “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.” Based on how Macey acts while waiting for the boss to give him an order, one can conclude that the boss is very demanding by the way Macey gets compared to a “dog.” As well as being controlling, the boss treats the fly with extremely poor manners, making it suffer again and again before he kills it. According to Mansfield, “The boss decided that this time should be the last, as he dipped the pen deep into the inkpot. It was.” The boss is displaying his barbarous personality by showing no remorse for the insect. The boss dipped the pen in the ink not once, not twice but three times. To repeat this process more than once is cruel and disturbing. Not only is the boss harsh

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