The Fly Littérature Britannique By Katherine Mansfield

The Fly, by Katherine Mansfield

Katherine Mansfield : influenced by Virginia Woolf, DH Lawrence. She was a symbolist.

1915 : her brother was killed in the tranchees : she was traumatized.

1922 : the Fly.

The Fly

Part1 : Mr Woodifield

Part2 : Boss remembers the past

Part3 : The fly

1) Rhythm

The whole short story is a scene. Part 3 is the most detailed, the most important.

2) Narrator (Who tells?)

Extradiegetic and heterodiegetic => a criticism.

3) Focalization (Who sees?)

Internal foc., centered on Woodifield and then on the Boss (variation)

=> modernism : more than one point of view one things (attempt at objectivity) so the reader is not influenced by a single vision.

Part1 : Showing (following the characters+stream of conciousness) and some telling.

Part2:Telling more important than showing.

Part3:Showing + stream of conciousness.

4) Time

Part1 : dialogues : present + preterit.

Analepses : heart attack changed Wood. Life + death of Boss' son + Belgium

=> alternance between the time of the story and the past

Part2 : many analepses (one ref to the present)

Part 3 : Fly. Present.

5) Characters / Onomastics

-Woodifield : wood + field. Heart attack, not allowed to go out, quite old, controlled by wife and daughters, surrounded with women.

=> Contradiction : an ambivalent character, considered as weak bbut capable of hurting people

-Boss : strong appearance but weeps. A materialis man only interested in the present, he does not want to think about the past.

Appearances are traitorous.

-The Fly : « He », embodies a human being (the Boss' son in the tranchees, and he kills it like he killed his son)

6) Interpretation

-Fly = Boss' son, inkpot = tranchees

The Boss kills the fly (he represents the social class which sent its sons to death)

-The fly = the Boss, ink = past

Plan :

1) Appearances VS Reality

-Part1 : appearances

-Telling

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