So, hello and welcome to this twentieth century fiction NPTEL course, where we will

begin with a new text today, which is Katherine Mansfield’s short story “The Fly”. We
just finished “Ulysses” by James Joyce and move on from there into a shorter structure,
shorter text which is this particular story “The Fly”.
Now, before I dive into the text, just a little background about the story, I think is in
order. This is essentially a story about the First World War and although the war is never
really mentioned. I mean it just comes as a very-very tacit and oblique presence, but it is
very much there as symbol of a spectral presence; a spectral field, as it were, informing
the characters informing the action, informing the events of this particular story.
Now, one of the key things about the story is as is a case with most Mansfield stories and
she is one of the greatest writers of short fiction is what gets told is something,
sometimes less important than what does not get told right.

So, you know we need to pay very close attention to things which are not being said,
things which are hinted; things which are insinuated; things which are very obliquely
referred to and often times things which are told directly or talked about directly are just
you know cover ups for things which the characters do not want to discuss, do not want
to confront and it is this whole tension between what is told and what is not told is one of
the great masteries you know in writing short fiction, in terms of making, you know what
we call the economy of expression that you know, you can say so much by showing. So,
little by telling, so little right so and showing and not telling becomes important as well.
So, Mansfield is a great artist in that tradition, I mean she obviously, is like I mentioned
one of the greatest short story writers in the history of English literature, but also I think
what makes her particularly interesting as a writer especially, in this course is how she is
so reflective of twentieth century fiction in terms of looking at human consciousness in
terms of looking at human memory, in terms of looking at epiphany and also in terms of
the entire condensed structure of communication, the condensed communication where
we sort of crystallize different moments together in some kind of a literary alchemy and
then it produce as magnificent effect. The effect could be one of mourning, the effect
could be one of loss, effect could be one of epiphany, etcetera.
Now, this particular story is one of the shortest short stories you ever come by, but you
know despite its brevity it is actually a very-very complex short story. It is packed with
different things; different kinds of moods; different kinds of affective tunnels and also

the whole idea behind the short story about you know endurance. It is, because it is very-
very important and of course, as I mentioned the First World War, it is never really

talked about directly except in a very-very oblique reference, but it is very much there as
a spectral presence and it is like a ghostly presence, behind everything that happens in
the story.
Now, the other thing which we need to pay attention to in these short stories is the entire
idea of superficiality. So, we have some very superficial structures or strands; superficial
structures of solidity; superficial structures of a supremacy etcetera, which are there as
constructs which are very-very quickly, deconstructed; very-very quickly decimated and
instead what emerges in the short story very quickly is the idea of existential fragility.
So, fragility becomes very-very important over here and the whole idea of strength and
supremacy they appear as very superficial categories and the superficiality is important.

Especially, at the beginning of the short story, where we find that how a certain kind of
affective mood, a certain kind of affective architecture is being very forcibly constructed,
a very forcibly foregrounded, but what it is actually there beneath all the artificiality and
superficiality, it is a very fractured fragile self and a fractured fragile quality and the
fragility is something which we are, I know we should pay close attention to. And again
this fragility is obviously, a psychological slash existential condition, but at the same
time it is often also informed of material conditions. So, the materiality of fragility is
something which we also should keep in mind.
Now, among other things this is also a short story which should interest those of you who
are keen on research on masculinity especially, post war masculinity.
So, the whole idea of masculinity, the whole idea of a male body as something which is
robust, something which is healthy, something which is productive something obviously,
which corresponds to a sense of supremacy are all hinted at very-very closely in this
particular story, but at the same time again like I mentioned, what gets very quickly
revealed is the idea of fragility, is the idea of the fractured self which is something which
keeps coming up despite the superficiality of supremacy, the superficiality of supreme
you know characteristically controlled masculinity or controlling masculinity, a coercive
masculinity.
So, there is a character called the boss in this short story and interestingly and
appropriately, it is never named. We never know, get to know the name of the character
except that he is called the boss all the time and obviously, the boss-ness of his character
is a marker of his supremacy; is a marker of his dominance; is a marker of his love to
dominate over everything and as a marker for a supremacy of superiority apropos of his
surrounding people and this supremacy and super you know and superiority is obviously,
part of this manly masculinist package which he is embodying very-very clearly.
So, the story opens with the boss and the boss is, obviously, contrasted with someone
who is just the opposite; someone who is already fragile; someone who is already
essentially decimated; someone who is already senile; someone who is already beginning
to lose memory, etcetera. So, this pitching is important right. So, the boss against the
other person that contrast is very-very important. How? That is something which we will
pay attention too as we move on.

So, with that background in mind and there is another background so which we should
bear in mind although, I am not a big fan of biographical readings, but there is a very
valid criticism or is a very valid scholarship which says that this particular story quite
often, is that Mansfield drew on her own experiences. You know of having lost her own,
own brother, Leslie Mansfield you know in the First World War and the boss in this
particular story, “The Fly”, is often said to be drawn on Mansfield’s own father.
You know again someone who was apparently very-very domineering and a complete
patriarch and the patriarchal quality of the boss is important, because he seems to be the
embodiment of high patriarchy, high handed patriarchy and obviously, the entire story is
told from a feminist perspective.
Although, there are no women at all in the story which is interesting, the woman had a
very conspicuous presence, conspicuous absence sorry, in the story except when they are
mentioned a couple times as minor characters, as secondary and even tertiary characters
right, but they are very much there despite their absence in the story, they are very much
there around the story. So that the whole perspective becomes important and men who
inhabit the center of the story, they actually end up being decimated, end up being quite
fragile as we see in due course, but let us take the opening of the story.
At the opening as I mentioned, it carries this deceptive sense of superiority, this
deceptive sense of supremacy, which very quickly reveals to be fragile and superficial in
quality.
So, here we are “The Fly”, Katherine Mansfield and the opening of the story is thus and
this should be on your screen. ‘Y’ are very snug in here, piped old Mister Woodifield,
and peered out of his great, green leather armchair by his friend the boss’s desk as a baby
peers out of his pram. So, the entire focalization as a verb, the character through which
through his perspective the entire story is revealed at the beginning, opened up at the
beginning is a character called Mister Woodifield and Woodifield we are told is staring
out of his great, green leather armchair.
So, the armchair is important and he is looking at the boss and he is complementing the
boss and his comfortable situation, you are very snug in here piped old Mister
Woodifield and peered out of his great, green leather armchair by his friend the boss’s
desk as a baby peers out of his pram and the last image is important, we find that

increasingly Woodifield is infantilized and infantilization of Woodifield is indicated by

the different baby images, baby metaphors he is equated with so the great, green leather
armchair that he is sitting in seems to be too big for him and he is having to peer out of it
as a baby peers out of his perambulator right. So, the baby image is important and this
obviously, is equating senility with infantilization.
His talk was over; it was time for him to be off. But he did not want to go. Since he had
retired, since his stroke, the wife and the girls kept him boxed up in the house every day
of the week except Tuesday. So, we are told, we are given some background information
about Woodifield that since he retired and since he had a stroke so obviously, he is been
socially and biologically you know dysfunctional for a long time, because he is retired,
he cannot make any more money, he is not productive anymore, socially speaking,
professionally speaking.
So his professional productivity is gone and the same time we are told he is had a stroke
which is to say he is biologically also unproductive, he is biologically also quite
unhealthy.
So, he is essentially someone who is just waiting to die. He is waiting to come to an end,
he has got nothing to offer in terms of professional productivity and also in terms his
biological health right. So, since his stroke his wife and his girls kept him boxed up in a
house every day of the week except Tuesday.
So, we are told again he is boxed up in the house, he is confined in the house and this
whole idea of being confined is important, because what it does is it reverses entire
gender dynamics away, because we know for a long time the confinement was a very
standard quote unquote medical cure for female hysterics and female hysterics were
confined to their houses obviously, by male doctors, who would look at hysteria as a
female malady. So, the whole idea of confinement is reversed over here right and that
becomes important reversal.
So he is confined in his house every day of the week except Tuesday by his wife and his
daughters. So on Tuesday, he was dressed and brushed and allowed to cut back to the
City for the day. So, again look at the verbs, he was dressed and brushed, just like a child
would be dressed and brushed.

So, again there is an infantilization of Woodifield continuing over here. So, he is dressed
and brushed and he is allowed to cut back to the City for the day.
So, the word allowed is important, because it is often equated with agency so, whoever
allows something often obviously, has agencies. If I allow someone to do something it
means I have the agency, which I am conferring to the other person. So, the wife and the
girls away assumes, they have the agency to allow Woodifield to do something which he
is otherwise forbidden to do.
So, what is he allowed to? He is allowed to cut back to the city for the day, he is allowed
to come to the city for one day of the week which is Tuesday and this happens to be a
Tuesday as well. Although, what he did there the wife and girls could not imagine. Made
a nuisance of himself to his friends, they supposed. Well, perhaps so. All the same, we
cling to our last pleasures as the tree clings to its last leaves. So, again the tree metaphor
is important as a dying tree, clinging on to some last leaf. So, Woodifield is increasingly
and consistently equated with a dying organism with something coming to an end. So,
senility of Woodifield is something which is emphasized over and over again.
So, he is equated with the dying tree, which is clinging on to its last leaves, in the same
way as a dying man who is clinging on to his last pleasures, you know and this would be
you know coming and seeing old friends in the city okay.
So, there sat old Woodifield, smoking a cigar and staring almost greedily at the boss,
who rolled in his office chair, stout, rosy, five years older than he and still going strong,
still at the helm. It did one good to see him right. So, again the whole idea of the boss is
is projected in front of Woodifield and we see the boss for the first time through
Woodifield’s eyes. How does the boss look like? So there sat old Woodifield and he is
looking greedily at the boss.
So, he also has his greedy gaze on the boss, because he seems to be healthier and rosier
and most stout than Woodifield. Despite being five is older than him and this becomes
interesting, because biological age over here seems to have nothing to do with the social
age that the boss seems to enjoy and the social age of privilege he is obviously in a very
privileged position. Woodifield in contrast is in a very-very underprivileged position,
because of his ill health, right. It did one good to see him.

Wistfully, admiringly, the old voice added, ‘It is snug in here, upon my word!’ So, again
snug being comfortable, see he is complimenting the boss over and over again on this
comfortable location and obviously, the comfortable location is not as a physical
location, but also as the social location right. So, the world seems to be you know
socially situated in a very comfortable and privileged place and the fact that he is called
the boss is indicative of that.
‘Yes, it is comfortable enough,’ agreed the boss, and he flipped the Financial Times with
the paper knife. So, again this whole idea of flipping, opening the Financial Times with a
paper knife becomes very robust manly maneuver. He is opening the Financial Times
with one you know swoop of the paper knife, one cut of the paper knife and, obviously,
the Financial Times becomes in as a newspaper for financial information, as a newspaper
for the share market.
So, it is a very-very quote unquote manly newspaper, is what men read, because men
make money and men invest money on different shares and men control the market. So,
the whole idea of the masculinist consumption becomes important over here with the
arrival of the Financial Times.
So, obviously, the paper knife with which he opens it up is here a phallic instrument. So,
he opens the Financial Times with a paper knife. As a matter of fact he was proud of his
room; he liked to have it admired, especially by old Woodifield. It gave him a feeling of
deep, solid satisfaction to be planted there in the midst of it in full view of that frail old
figure in the muffler.
So, again Woodifield becomes a very handy contrast to the boss, a very handy visual
contrast to the boss, because what he is saying is that in comparison to Woodifield, he
feels very big; he feels very amplified; he feels very magnified and that amplification
and magnification is something which is obviously feeding his male ego. It is masculinist
presence of privilege.
So, he feels great, it gives some sense were solid satisfaction, almost tangible almost
tactile sense of satisfaction in comparison to the frail old figure in the muffler which is
obviously, a very–he looks like a mummy, is he someone he is an almost zombie like
Woodifield, he is frail, he is old, has almost shrunken into his muffler and muffler
becomes more important than his face which is literally shrunken in size, biologically

speaking and compared to which the boss is stout rosy healthy and he enjoys the position
of difference which is also position of privilege.
So, privileged which, which is generated out of difference compared to Woodifield. ‘I
have had it done up lately,’ he explained, as he had explained for the past how many
weeks. So, again he is beginning to now tell, what he is done to the office in terms of
repairing it. ‘New carpet,’ and he pointed to the bright red carpet with a pattern of large
white rings. ‘New furniture,’ and he nodded towards the massive bookcase and a table
with legs like twisted treacle. ‘Electric heating!’ He waved almost exultantly towards the
five transparent, pearly sausages glowing so softly in the tilted copper pan.
So, he is showing off his new furniture, new gadgets, new carpet, new furniture, electric
heating. Obviously, he is surrounding himself with a lot of comfort, lot of material
comfort, but also and equally this sense of being comfortable, this sense of comfort or
comfortable location is very much a part of his embodiment of the boss.
So, embodiment in the story could be seen as something which is obviously biological.
He is stout, rosy and healthy compared to Woodifield, but also he is something more
social and more extended. He has got new furniture; he has got new heating; he has got
new you know bookcase around him he has got and everything is around him is new and
the carpet too is new and all that newness around him gives him an architecture of
superiority, an architecture of an embodiment of privilege, an embodiment of superiority,
and obviously, strength compared to Woodifield. It is very relative kind of an
embodiment, but that is something he is enjoying compared to Woodifield.

(Refer Slide Time: 16:17)

But he did not draw old Woodifield’s attention to the photograph over the table of a
grave-looking boy in uniform standing in one of those spectral photographers’ parks with
photographers’ storm-clouds behind him. It was not new. It had been there for over six
years. Again, so the whole idea of the ‘but’ becomes important, because the ‘but’ is the
reversal of what we have seen so far. So, till this point we are told the boss is
surrounding himself with new gadgets, new furniture, new heating, new bookcase,
etcetera.
But, there was a big ‘but’ and that is he is not drawing Woodifield’s attention to
something else in this room, which is presumably not new and it is a grave looking boy’s
photograph or photograph of a grave looking boy in uniform standing in one of those
spectral photographers’ parks, with photographers’ storm clouds behind them.
So, again the word spectral becomes important as a ghostly quality about the photograph
the spectral quality bothered photograph which is to say this becomes an indicator of
deadness to a certain extent. Something which is dead, something which lives as a
specter at the moment and the boy we are told is a grave looking boy in uniform.
So, it is a soldier’s uniform that he is wearing and, obviously, you know the gravity, the
seriousness of the boy is also compounded and there is a bit of pun over here. The grave
looking boy, who we could also read it as a boy looking towards his grave, grave
looking, looking towards grave as a deadly coveting; it smacks of death; it smacks of

decadence; it smacks of something which is exhausted and elevated right and obviously,
the specter corroborates that reading, corroborates that you know death-like quality about
the photograph.
We are also told it was not new, it have been there for over six years. So, that is
something which is a bit of an oddity in this office where everything else seems to be
very-very new and very well done up right and compared to that done-up office, he has
this one photograph which is six years old photograph, and it is a photograph of a boy
looking very grave in a soldier’s uniform in a spectral photographers’ park.
So, we can see already how Mansfield is using an economy of expression in terms of
looking at certain objects and how communicating how this object stand for certain
things. So, a newness, the new materials of newness, the markers of newness around the
boss—the, obviously, objects of accusation, objects of privilege, objects of superiority.
An entire sentiment of superiority is embedded in all these objects, is strewn across all
these objects, and compared to that we have the photograph of the boy which is
obviously not a marker of superiority.
We do not quite know at this point what it stands for, but we do know that is something
that boss is not really showing off. It is something odd about the photograph in this
location in that particular office and the reason why the boss is not showing off is
revealed to us in a moment.
Ah. ‘There was something I wanted to tell you,’ said old Woodifield, and his eyes grew
dim remembering. ‘Now what was it? I had it in my mind, when I started out this
morning.’ His hands began to tremble, and patches of red showed above his beard.
So, again Woodifield wants to say something to the boss, but the senility of Woodifield
is making his presence felt in a very heavy handed way as his hands began to tremble
with patches of red showing above his beard. So, again the whole process of
remembering becomes a very strenuous activity, very stressful activity for Woodifield.
So, when he is trying to remember something what he ends up doing is shivering and
acting very-very senile and his hands were beginning to tremble. So, he tells the boss
there was something he wanted to tell him, but he has forgotten about it now and he does
not remember what that is.

Now, look at the gaze of the boss over here. The boss gazes at Woodifield in a very
condescending, patronizing way and also what he thinks. ‘Poor old chap, he is on his last
pins,’ thought the boss. And feeling kindly, he winked at the old man, and said jokingly.
So, this is a very masculinist, patriarchal you know boy scout-ish kind of a rhetoric over
here when you feel pity for someone whose is not as physically strong, someone who is
not physically healthy right and immediately in further, the person is about to die if you
are an old man and not in control of your motor mechanism it means you are on your last
pins, it means you are about to die very-very shortly and the whole idea is conveyed to
us in a very condescending way almost humorous way, but obviously, the boss will try
and continue to be condescending and it is what he will do subsequently in order to feel
more manly compared to Woodifield.
Ah. So, he winked at the old man and said jokingly, what does he say? ‘I tell you what. I
have got a little drop of something here that will do you good before you go out into the
cold again. It is beautiful stuff. It would not hurt a child.’ So, he is offering Woodifield
alcohol, he is offering Woodifield a beverage of alcohol and he says it is going to be a lot
of good. So, before you go out and step out on those cold world outside have a drop of
this before you leave. It would not hurt a child. Again, a child metaphor is important, as
Woodifield is constantly compared to a child, he is constantly equated with a child
metaphor which is obviously, part of his infantilization package okay.
So, and what does the boss do subsequently? He took a key off his watch-chain,
unlocked a cupboard below his desk, and drew forth a dark, squat bottle. ‘That is the
medicine,’ said he. ‘And the man from whom I got it told me on the strict Q.T. it came
from the castle cellars at Windsor Castle.’ So, this is a bottle of whiskey which has come
from the Windsor castle. Obviously, it becomes a marker of privilege, a marker of
royalty, a marker of very limited access right.
So, the boss seems to have a lot of access over things which other people might have
limited access to. So, this becomes the whole idea of access and privilege have become
increasingly equated with each other in this particular section.
So, he has got it from a Windsor Castle and is presumably is a very-very old bottle of
whiskey that he is about to offer to Woodifield.

(Refer Slide Time: 21:45)

Old Woodifield’s mouth fell open at the sight. He could not have produced; he could not
have looked more surprised if the boss had produced a rabbit. So, again the whole idea of
awe and wonder and amazement is conveyed to us in almost a very funny way.
Ah, Woodifield’s mouth fell open at the sight and it seems to be him that the boss has
produced a rabbit right, pulled a rabbit out of his hat.
So, whiskeys are rare to him; whiskeys are forbidden to him; whiskeys are privileged to
him compared to saying you know a rabbit pulled out of a hat that would be a magic
trick and so, to Woodifield this too is a form of magic in some sense.
‘It is whiskey, ain’t it?’ he piped feebly. The boss turned the bottle and lovingly showed
him the label. Whiskey it was. So, again like the Financial Times, like the paper knife,
like the electric heating, like the bookcase, like the new furniture, the new carpets, the
whiskey bottle over here too becomes a marker of boss’s masculinity.
A very privileged consolidated, strong robust masculinity and the robustness in the
masculinity is interesting over here, because that is exactly what will be portrayed now
and then decimated later.
So, it is whiskey; ain’t it? he piped feebly. The boss turned the bottle and lovingly
showed him the label. Whiskey it was. ‘Do you know,’ said he peering up at the boss
wonderingly, ‘they will not let me touch it at home.’ And he looked as though he was

going to cry. So, again, oh I love complaining about the women, the women are
forbidding him from drinking whiskey, women take away all access to whiskey, the
women take away all access to his outside world which is obviously, reversal of the
gender dynamics which is commonly consumed across the world where men control
things and women.
But this is what the First World War does. The First World War historically, it
destabilized the demographic equation, a demographic map of Europe in particular,
because suddenly at the end of war they were very few young men left or rather they
were very few able young men left. Most people even came back from the war, they
became differently able, they became you know paralyzed in different degrees, they
could not function properly.
So, women began to take more agency in social and familial spaces after the First World
War. We see over here and we will see continually as a story progresses Woodifield’s
daughter and what daughters and wives—they seemed to have, they seemed to enjoy
more real privilege and more real agency compared to Woodifield, even the boss.
Okay so, they do not allow Woodifield to touch whiskey at home. And he looked as
though he was going to cry. So, again the baby metaphor is important, the baby you
know the analogy is important as someone who is looking as if he is going to cry in a
moment.
‘Ah, that is where we know a bit more than the ladies,’ cried the boss, swooping down
across the two tumblers that stood on the table with the water-bottle, and pouring a
generous finger into each.
So, again look at the very offensive and patronizing statement the boss makes about
women in general and he says oh the women do not let you touch whiskey at home, that
is where we know more than the ladies, this is a medicine right. So, we know it is the
medicine, because you know it is a manly thing to acknowledge and talk about.
So, the women forbidding Woodifield from drinking—they are completely sidelined
over here and what incident emerges is a boss’s agency of giving him the whiskey and
wilful consuming not just the whiskey, but also the bosses superiority that is ultimately
consumed by Woodifield’s point.

‘Drink it down. It will do you good. And do not put any water in it. It is sacrilege to
tamper with stuff like this right. So, he is trying he is being a connoisseur of whiskey and
he is saying do not put any water into this whiskey, because that is going to dilute
everything and that would be amounted to sacrilege. So, do not drink whiskey at all
okay, except if you are drinking it directly. So, drink it down it will do you good and do
not put any water with it, it is a sacrilege to tamper with the stuff like this.
Ah!’ he tossed off his, pulled out his handkerchief, hastily wiped his moustaches, and
cocked an eye and cocked a crooked eye at Woodifield’s attention. Woodifield who was
rolling on his last pin now cocked an eye is interesting, because this you can see, it is a
very boy scout-ish kind of movement that the boss is exhibiting over here.
It is very manly robust boyish sprightly energetic, he is cocking an eye, he is hastily
drinking down his whiskey and he pulled his handkerchief, you know hastily wiped his
moustaches say all his motor movements at this point of time are very-very robust and
sprightly in quality and his cocking the eye at old Woodifield and he is cocking the eye is
important, because it is almost like winking in a very Clint Eastwoodish kind of a way.
You know and a very manly robust masculinist kind of a movement the boss is
exhibiting and obviously, Woodifield is just the opposite that. He is senile, he is weak, he
is not robust at all and he is exhibiting weakness right.
So, we have this weak man compared to this strong man who is, obviously, exhibiting
great masculinist strength and also social privilege right and that becomes the whiskey
becomes a metaphor of a certain kind of consumption, manly consumption and just
before this when we see that the boss very condescendingly saying, the wife and
daughters they do not seem to know much about whiskey and drinking and alcohol and
that is good for men, because we know more than ladies in the particular aspect.
So, that too becomes a very condescending offensive statement of superiority, which is
in continuation of the masculinist narrative that the boss is exhibiting. They form an
embodiment which is offensive, dominating and all annoying to a large extent.
The old man swallowed, was silent a moment, and then said faintly, ‘It is nutty!’ But it
warmed him; it crept into his chill old brain, he remembered. So, this becomes the
turning point in the story with the boss offers Woodifield whiskey and Woodifield drinks
down the whiskey, but then that reminds him of what he wanted to tell the boss at the

beginning of the story and this is the beginning of the turning point, reversal as it were in
the story.
‘Well that was it,’ he said, heaving himself out of his chair. This is a report he wanted to
give to the boss. So, the report which is going to turn the entire story around in terms of
mood and sentiment.
(Refer Slide Time: 27:34)

‘I thought you would like to know. The girls were in Belgium last week having a look at
poor Reggie’s grave, and happened to come across your boy’s. They are quite near each
other, it seems.’ So, the girls meaning the wife and the daughters were in Belgium last
week Woodifield tells us and they were taking a look at poor Reggie’s grave. So, Reggie
presumably is a son of Woodifield, who died in the First World War and while they were
looking at Reggie’s grave, they happened to come by the boss’s son’s grave and they are
quite near each other, it seems.
Now, just a bit of a digression over here; it is interesting to know that you know the
entire First World War, the experience of First World War, when the war ended, we had
something which is now called in a slightly unfortunate way ‘trauma tourism’. In a sense
that people would go to different places where their near and dear ones were buried and
lost their lives across Europe and visit that place, visit a graveyard, visit the you know
monument, which wrote down the names, etcetera.

So, trauma tourism was a big thing after the First World War, which the war itself was a
big boom to the tourism industry, because everyone wanted to travel post First World
War and look at the places where the war was fought historically important and also
more personally, look at the places where people lost their loved ones.
You know people who lost their loved ones in different places across Europe, they would
just visit those places as some form of respect giving to the people who died. So, that
also worked wonders as it were for tourism industry and they all boomed around this
time of the human history after the First World War.
So, and also you can see how the wife and the girls have travelled on their own without
any male chaperone, without any male supervision, without any male monitoring. So,
again that tells us something about the liberation, the movement, the mobility and as
associated agency enjoyed by the woman after the First World War and compared to
which we have the two men; one of them is boxed up in his house every day of the week
except Tuesday and the other person involved, he has essentially locked himself in his
very-very posh and magnificent office right. So, we see how that gets expanded quickly.
So, they are quite near each other, it seems.
Old Woodifield paused, but the boss made no reply. Only a quiver in his eyelids showed
that he had heard. So, again Mansfield is good at something which we now call not just
defamiliarization with by which defamiliarize something which you know already, but
also deceleration, slowing down time, suspension time. So, you know the whole idea the
boss responding to Woodifield through a little movement in his eye, little quiver in his
eyelid. So, that becomes important, it’s obviously, the camera zooms in on the quiver of
the eyelid of the boss and communicates to us the quiver is happening, which means he
is responding to Woodifield’s report posthumous report of the boss’s son’s grave. So,
only a quiver in his eyelids show that he had heard.
‘The girls were delighted with the way the place is kept,’ piped the old voice.
‘Beautifully looked after. Could not be better if they were at home. You have not been
across, have yer?’.
So, again the whole idea of the sublimity of horror becomes important because
obviously, the horror is the horror of loss of the loved one, but you know the entire
horror site has been aestheticized and a aestheticization of horror, the aestheticization of

the trauma topos that obviously, becomes by the trauma tourism, if people go and
consume the death of the loved ones in a various aestheticized sites of consumption.
So, it is all beautifully looked after somewhat like a hotel resort, where all the dead
people are put together in one mass of symmetry. Could not be better if they were at
home. You have not been across, have yer?’ No, no!’ For various reasons the boss had
not been across. Again look at the vagueness of the statement for various reasons the
boss had not been across. So, you know we never quite know at this point why the boss
had not travelled. We will get to know why in due course, but we told at this point the
boss did not really bother to go all the way. So, he has not been there at the site of his
sons grave okay.
Various reasons the boss had not been across. ‘There is miles of it,’ quavered old
Woodifield, ‘and it is all as neat as a garden. Flowers growing on all the graves. Nice
broad paths.’ It was plain from his voice, how much he liked a nice broad path. So, again
we look at the aestheticization, the sublimity of entire horror site. We have that nice
broad path set up, we have everything put together, manufactured and manicured like a
garden.
And there is a garden growing around the graves which is obviously very manicure in
quality. So, it is a manicured quality; the orchestrated quality; the aestheticized quality—
they all inform the trauma tourism; the trauma narrative which is at play over here okay.
The pause came again. Then the old man brightened wonderfully. ‘Do you know what
the hotel made the girls pay for a pot of jam?’ he piped. ‘Ten francs! Robbery, I call it. It
was a little pot, so Gertrude says, no bigger than half a crown. And she had not taken
more than a spoonful when they charged her ten francs. Gertrude brought away the pot,
brought the pot away to teach them a lesson. A quite right, too; it is trading on our
feelings.
They think, because we are over there having a look around we are ready to pay
anything. That is what it is.’ And he turned towards the doors. Again, if you look at it in
a rhetorical way, it is a very touristy rhetoric. One tourist mentions this to another tourist,
to another potential tourists be careful what you eat, because you will end up being
overcharged quite you know rapidly over there.

So, he is saying you know they had to pay ten francs for a very-very decent meal, very
modest meal as well and you know they also made them you know buy the pot of jam
you know, because they just used it once period and as a result you know Gertrude
brought back the jam and she just got it back because she paid for it.
So, the pettiness of it, the great tourist quality about the whole experience where you go
and get overcharged, because you use certain things and as an act of revenge you just
take away some things which you use, which are meant to be returned to the hotel. So,
she brought back this pot of jam in a way to take revenge on the hotel and you know this
discussion about the price of jam in Belgium becomes important, because we do not
really see accounts of horror, even the graveyards of the boys—Woodifield’s boy and the
boss’s boy. This would be quite aestheticized. They are very beautiful; there are very
sublime in quality right and then the rest of the conversation is entirely a sort of
monologue entirely brought you know the pot of jam which the girls were forced to buy.
And so, Gertrude brought by the whole jam to teach them a lesson and the last bit is
important to say just because they were there having a look around that we are ready to
pay anything that is they think that is what it is and they are trading on our feelings.
So, you know the whole thing becomes very ironic in quality over here, because we
realize Woodifield does not seem to have much feeling left about the son’s death,
because he is more concerned talking about the price of jams; he is more concerned
talking about the nice broad paths; he is more concerned talking about the aesthetic
quality of the entire horror site right and that becomes the key condition over here and as
a result of it you know he just keeps talking about different touristy things, different
commercial things, etcetera which is got nothing to do with the real experience of horror
okay.
So, you know he says that we were ready to pay anything they think, because we were
taking a look around and that is like trading on our feelings and he turned towards the
door. ‘Quite right, quite right!’ cried the boss, though what was quite right he had not the
least idea. He came round by his desk, followed the shuffling footsteps to the door, and
saw the old fellow out. Woodifield was gone.
Now, if we take a look at this point of story from this point, we find the Woodifield’s
you know departure it begins to begin the fall of the boss in a certain sense, because he

seems less in control of his motor mechanisms, he is less in control of his language and it
does not quite understand why he said such a thing as quite right quite right. He is a loss
to figure out why he said it.
Now, if you contrast that with the beginning of the story where the boss seems to have
complete motor control; complete cognitive control over everything around them. So,
that particular controlled, self control in service beginning to give way to a more
unstable, more vulnerable self which we see in this particular story. So, he saw the old
Woodifield out, he saw the old fellow out, Woodifield was gone.
So, I stop at this point today and we will continue with this in our next lectures, but just
to very quickly recap what we have done. This is a story which begins by presenting a
very-very supposedly a strong masculinist character, someone who is a patriarch, the
grand old boss who has surrounded himself with new machines is obviously, updated
himself, he is very switched on with the new gadgets of his times.
He reads the Financial Times, opens it with one swing of a paper knife and offers
whiskey to a friend of his who is obviously, in comparison to him dying, in comparison
to him very-very weak.
And the reason why he offers whiskey is, because it makes him feel better and greater
and stronger right. So, the whiskey consumption becomes a symbolic act. By offering
him whiskey, by offering Woodifield whiskey and by consuming it the boss consumes
and corroborates his own masculine privileges in his own mind. He is corroborating that
through an act of consumption, he is consuming his own masculinist persona and
Woodifield, obviously, becomes very handy contrast, a very handy ontological opposite
compared to that particular construct right.
So, you know and that, but at this point we feel that you know the moment Woodifield
mentions the graveyards, the moment Woodifield mentions Belgium where the daughters
and the wife had gone to actually pay the last respect to Reggie, Woodifield son’s grave,
and as we can see you know we discussed already he has got no feeling at all about the
loss of his son and he talks about the commercial entities, the tourist entities which are
obviously, irrelevant to the boss.

But what it does is, it opens up the boss, it forces him to think about his own son who too
was dead and we are told that their graves are very close to each other, Reggie’s grave
and the boss’s son’s grave interestingly like the boss, the son of the boss too he does not
have a name which gives an everyman character to the entire, everyone qualities of the
entire characters. So, the boss is an everyman patriarch, is an everyman grand old
patriarch, the ones that control everything and the son over here becomes a different kind
of masculinist package which we will see in due course of time.
So, I stop at this point today and I continue with this lecture, this particular text and
hopefully finish this in a couple of more lectures.
Thank you for your attention.

So, hello and welcome to this NPTEL course entitled Twentieth Century Fiction, where
we were looking at Katherine Mansfield’s short story, ‘The Fly’. So, we already had
some lectures on this. So, we will just continue from where we left off last time. So, we
see how this story is obviously, very modernist in terms of looking at memory, in terms
of looking at trauma and streams of consciousness, but also equally this is a story about
masculinity and masculinity crisis post First World War, something which we have seen
already in Mrs. Dalloway and also to a lesser extent in Eliot’s early poetry. Now, well
the three obvious in the story is how there is an allegorical quality about the
characterization.
So, the boss and the boss’s son are very allegorically representative of certain kinds of
masculinity; the boss being that of robust domineering, hegemonic masculinity, socially,
prestigious you know and lots of money, healthy robust, etcetera. Whereas, the son is
someone who is supposed to step into that same shoe and we see how the First World
War, which can also be seen as a masculinist event or masculinist expansionist event of

greed and territorialization. Ironically, the First World War actually interrupts this
masculinity narrative in his sense of killing the son.
So, the boss’s son has been killed in the war and we see how that interrupts the entire
narrative in the story and contrasted with the boss we have someone like Mister
Woodifield who was obviously, very senile, very fragile and who represents a very
enormous disembodied kind of masculinity, enervated, exhausted, etcetera. and the
exhaustion and enervation are quite obvious in Woodifield’s characterization and we see
how he seemed to have moved on from the point of trauma. I mean he too had lost a son
in the war. Son is called Reggie, and we see how his wife Gertrude and his daughters had
been to Belgium, to take a look at his son’s grave, and he was not there in Belgium.
So, you know he represents in a whole story of visiting the son’s grave, in a second hand
information way, to the boss and we saw how the entire metaphor the entire rhetoric the
entire vocabulary in terms of how Woodifield describes his son’s grave is very touristy
kind of vocabulary; very touristy kind of rhetoric. It is not really the rhetoric of a
grieving father or a mourning father and you know instead it is the rhetoric of a visitor, a
tourist. He goes and looks at the gaze is very touristy and the gaze is important over here,
because he goes and he describes he has not been that, but he describes how the paths are
nice and broad. How the graveyard was beautiful looked after.
Then he talks about the price of jam in the hotels, etcetera, and how the entire hotel
industry is blossoming around this trauma tourism as it were, but what obviously, gets or
does not get highlighted or rather what is an inconspicuous, what is a conspicuous
absence in Woodifield’s description is any real sentiment for a son’s loss and
conspicuous absence is very important thing in Mansfield’s fiction, because it is a very
as you can see from the story it is a very economic kind of expression, has an economy
of expression, it is very minimalist, very sparse in terms of how it is represented and you
know there is a lot of things packed into it say conspicuous absence becomes a very
important point.
So, for instance there is no mention at all about the boss’s wife or the son’s mother, it
would happen to be the boss’s wife. So, the mother is conspicuously absent in the story.
There is no mother figure at all. It is entirely about the boss and his heir, the son and how
he is heirless now, because son has been killed in the war. So, this very masculinist kind

of universe is something which is obviously, parodied and critiqued by Mansfield. This

is very scathing feminist critique on the First World War and only women we get to
know over here are Woodifield’s wife and daughter.
So, when we see how post First World War, they seem to have more agency over
Woodifield, I mean they seem to decide when he is released to a city, they seem to
decide to dress him up, to brush him and release him to the city just so he can go and
visit his old friends and also they are the ones who travel to Belgium to take a look at her
son’s grave and not Woodifield. Woodifield is just repeating what he heard from the
woman back to the post.
We see how at the beginning of the story how the boss had draped almost violently
decided or tried or orchestrate or engineer this entire architecture of newness around
them right.
Everything is new; the carpet is new; the heating is new; the bookcases are new, etcetera,
but amidst all this newness there is a spectral photograph of the boy something which is
quite old and almost six years old and obviously, we know now that the photograph of
the boy is exactly what holds the key to the boss’s trauma.
Now, before I move on to the next section where Woodifield has left the room and the
boss was you know had been patronizing in the beginning, poured in whiskey, had sort
of a very sexist comment on woman’s lack of understanding. So, all that hegemonic
masculinity bits were all covered and marked embodied.
Now, the moment the grave of the boss’s son was mentioned, the moment the grave of
Woodifield’s son was mentioned that is the moment when the boss’s masculinity is so
shaken up a little bit, because we see now that he does not really have a male heir to
carry on his kingdom per say right. So, this heirlessness is something which is becoming
obviously, part of the loss the sense of existential loss, the boss suffers now.
Now, what this story does and I have an article which I am happy to upload in the course
of this particular NPTEL course on Twentieth Century Fiction. I have a published article
on this particular story that I am happy to share in the platform that we have, but in that
article and also elsewhere and also here, I would like to make the argument that there is a

very perverse equation over here between masculinity and trauma or traumatophilia or
hysteria to some extent.
Now, hysteria as some of you would know had traditionally been medicalized as a
female malady, something which happens only to women, because it is part of the
woman’s body and the man, the male body can never be hysteric. Now obviously, that
all changed with the First World War, because post First World War we had something
called a shell shock which is something which anticipated what we now called PTSD or
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, where we have this very muscular strong, manly men
coming back from the trenches shivering, like children shivering, like quote unquote
women.
So, suddenly it was very spectacularly evident that men could also be nervous, men
could also be hysteric. Obviously, hysteria had been always historically medicalized as a
female disease the female malady. So, new name had to be given to this male condition
and a new name for a time was shell shock and then later on of course, it became more
classified medically and military medicine we know now as, PTSD. Now, interestingly
in this particular story what we get to see in a moment we will see, how the boss
basically congratulates himself on his masculinity by retaining in his mind, the original
moment of trauma the original experience of trauma. In other words, he always wants to
feel exactly the same way as he felt six years ago, when the first news of his son’s death
came to him right.
So, that was a big moment for him and his loss in his mind is bigger than anyone else’s
loss right and that sense of superiority that sense of entitlement to one’s trauma is very
perverse thing, but it is exactly what happens over here. So, he has a sense of entitlement
to this trauma and at one point he will say he will think and it will be told to us that other
men might live the loss on; other men might move on; other men might just make peace
for that, but he the boss could never do it, because his son is dead and that is a very-very
special kind of tragedy. So, we can see how the equation between trauma and
masculinity gets established in the story in a very-very complex psychological manner
okay.
So, we see at this point where the Woodifield is about to leave, leave the boss’s office
and as the boss is seeing him out, he came around his desk and this should be on the

screen. He came around by his desk, following the shuffling footsteps to the door, and
saw the old fellow out. Woodifield was gone. For a long moment the boss stayed, staring
at nothing.
So, again we can say this is probably staring at nothingness, which is staring back at him
right. Staring at nothing, while 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. So, again look
at the you know animal metaphors used over here, the infantilized metaphors, animal
metaphors all be used very-very interestingly right. So, and then he says: I will see
nobody for half an hour, Macey,’ said the boss. Nobody at all.
So, we see how even the office messenger has a name Macey, but the boss and the son
do not have a name at all. So, again this is part of the allegorical quality about this
characterization over here. ‘Very good, sir.’
(Refer Slide Time: 09:00)

So, Macey is obviously, her job is to say yes to whatever the boss says. The door shut,
the firm heavy footsteps, the firm heavy steps recrossed the bright carpet, the fat body
plumped down in the spring chair, and leaning forward, the boss covered his face with
his hands. He wanted, he intended, he had arranged to weep. So, the last bit is interesting
over here because we can see how the boss is making this entire ritual about weeping. He
is going back to his office, his fat body is plumped down a spring chair and he is
covering his face with his hands and we are told that he wanted, he intended, he had
arranged to weep.
So, the entire idea of weeping, the entire hysteria of mourning becomes a masculinist
activity over here which is a subversion in some sense of the stereotypical understanding
of mourning and hysteria, but the interesting thing is the boss here, wants the
appropriate, the sentiment of mourning and add that to his masculinity and he wants to
appropriate a sentiment of hysteria and add that to his masculinity right.
So, the whole idea of equating masculinity and trauma becomes interesting and we see
over here, how we are told that he wanted, he intended, he had arranged to weep. So,
weeping obviously, becomes a ritual, a part of the ritual or fall out of the ritual. So, he
had intended he had arranged to weep and he better start weeping now. So, that becomes
part of the masculinist, almost muscular control or motor control over his own senses.
So, he intends to have he wants to have entire ownership or absolute ownership of his
motor mechanisms including weeping. It had been a terrible shock. We get this back
story now a little bit. It had been a terrible shock to him when old Woodifield’s sprang
that remark upon him about the boy’s grave. It was exactly as though the earth had
opened and he had seen the boy lying there with Woodifield’s girls staring down at him.
Again, this becomes almost like a Medusa stare where the woman looks at the man and
turns them into stones. He is literally a stone, he is literally a tombstone now and in some
of his dreams or nightmares or visions the boss thinks his bravest son is opening up and
his son is inside the grave lying unblemished forever.
So, there is no degeneration whatever, but Woodifield’s daughters and wife are staring at
him. It is really freezing Medusa kind of a stare that a woman gives to the man over here
and that in a sense is an experience of emasculation for the boss as well as for the son
who is dead now right. So, the son is immobile, almost stuck in the coffin, he does not
know where to go, does not know what to do and the woman are staring at him as if you
know they are turning him into a stone further right. So, for it was strange. Almost six
years have passed away, the boss never thought of the boy, except as lying unchanged.
So, in the boss’s mind, the boy had always remained unchanged. You know six years ago
whatever he looked like, whatever he seemed like that is exactly the way he has stayed in
boss’s imagination okay. Unblemished in his uniform, asleep forever. “My son!”

groaned the boss. But no tears came yet. In the past, in the in the first months and even
years after the boy’s death, he had only to say those words to be overcome by such a
grief that nothing short of a violent fit of weeping could relieve him.
So, this is a point in the story where we begin to get a sense of the boss’s hubris. You
know what a hubris is. Hubris is false pride. It is something which we had borrowed
from the Greek tragedies, something which is there in almost all tragic heroes, the
otherwise impeccable, the otherwise, perfect otherwise very-very good and caring except

the fact that they have hubris to think too highly of themselves, that the vanity over-
shoots, eclipses the good work that they do.

So, you know and the boss over here obviously, will exhibit hubris, you know he would
tell himself that his son was the only son. So, everyone else might be moving on, but he
does not want to move on he cannot move on, because you know his son is the only son.
So, whenever we see how he also taught himself in his mind that he can control his
emotions, he can control his crying at will right.
So, I can cry anytime I want to again I can emote anytime I want to as far as my son’s
death is concerned and remembering that is concerned, and this is a hubristic statement
that he had made earlier to people. Time, he had declared then, he had told everybody,
could make no difference. Other men might perhaps might recover, might live the loss
down, but not he.
So, again this is a classic hubris statement where he says I defy time, I challenge time to
dry up my weep and this exactly is what happened in the story just becomes almost a
revenge of time in some sense, but the boss at this point at least wants to enact you know
some kind of revenge on time where he tells time openly that you know other men might
have looked down, but no matter how much time goes away I am going to be stuck to
this mourning figure forever right.
So, I will be the perfect mourner as the time could make no difference. Other men
perhaps might recover, might live the loss down, but not he. So, again this hubristic
understanding of himself becomes interesting over here, other men might live the loss, so
other men may move on, but not he, not me. I lost my only son except as if he was the
only father with an only son in the entire Europe, in the entire world fighting the First
World War okay.

Other men might live the loss down might recover might live the loss down, but not he.
How was it possible? His boy was an only son. So, it is almost as if no one else had an
only son who got killed in the war, but again look at the very myopic parochial and also
quite entitled view of the boss, only son. Ever since his birth the boss had worked as
building up his business for him; it had no other meaning if it was not for the boy. Life
itself had come to have no other meaning.
How on earth could he have slaved, denied himself, kept going all these years without
the promise forever before him of the boy stepping into his shoes and carrying on where
he left off? So, again look at the conspicuous absence of the woman figure over here.
The conspicuous absence of boss’s wife or the son’s mother over here.
So, everything is projected through the boss, everything is focalized to the boss,
obviously, that is critiqued by Mansfield in a very-very subtle and scathing manner, but
what he is saying, what the boss is thinking over here is you know the entire life of the
boss had been to prepare something which the person like him same gene, same blood,
same body, will step in and carry on and hopefully at some point his son will also
emerge and it will give him this kingdom.
So, it becomes constant and endless chain process and endlessness is exactly what is
interrupted by the death of his son and that is something which we will come back to
later okay. So, he was a very promising son, he was beginning to flower as an employee,
as a boss, as someone who is devastating and ruthless and cunning in business which is
exactly what the boss is, but then all that has come to an end, because of one incident and
again look at the way how this incident has been narrated to us. And that promise had
been so near been fulfilled. The boy had come in office learning the ropes for a year
before the war.
So, the boy who had come to the office, learning about the trade you know getting
accustomed to the trade for almost one year before joining office. Every morning they
had started off together; that had come back by the same train.
So, the boss and the son they would go out together, you know the boss would go to his
cabin and the son would go to the site perhaps and then he would do some very-very
menial jobs which is going to please the boss quite well right.

So, we are told that you know every time they used to go out together, come back
together and this entire narrative of intimacy between the boss and the son is interesting,
because again the other parent is absent, the other the spouse is absent and the mother
figure, the wife figure is entirely absent.
We are not even told if she is alive or dead, it is that sense of absence which is there,
which is articulated over here. And what congratulations he had received as a boy’s
father! No wonder; he had taken to it marvelously. As to his popularity with the staff,
every man jack of them down to old Macey could not make enough of the boy. And he
was not in the least spoilt. No, he was just say his bright natural self, with the right words
for everybody, with that boyish look and the habit of saying, ‘Simply splendid!’
Now, this bit is interesting, if you want to take a look at and those of you interested in
research in masculinity, this is definitely a very key point. If you take a look at the
rhetoric used in this particular point, simply splendid and not least be spoiled very
industrious you know and very-very enterprising that is exactly the brand of masculinity
created by the boy scout movements in Europe and America and other parts of England
especially, in England and this brand of boy scout masculinity is exactly what informed
the empire and the entire imperial expansion.
Now, the boy over here is obviously, part of the imperial expansionist program, because
the boy is someone we do not quite know what the boss’s business is, but obviously, he
seems to be quite ruthless in terms of his business enterprise. So, it could be something
which is morally dubious, we do not quite know, but the whole point is the son was
prepared was being groomed, was been trained to take over the kingdom from where the
boss had left right and he seems to be this very boyish, enterprising, industrious kind of
person who everyone likes.
So, he had this boyish look and he had this habit of saying simply splendid. So,
everything was simply splendid to him, made it alliterate and again that becomes very-
very boyish, boy scout-ish kind of a movement, boy scout-ish kind of rhetoric, used by

the boy over here.

So, we see how the entire construct of masculinity is applied over here. The boy is
someone who is supposed to take over from the boss and how this entire takeover is
supposed to take place in a very seamless way and the seamlessness is interrupted

exactly by the First World War and this is what we are told. But all that was over and
done with as though it never had been. So, in one flash for instance everything came to
an end how.
(Refer Slide Time: 18:40)

So, the day had come when Macey had handed him the telegram that brought the whole
place crashing about his head. ‘Deeply regret to inform you.’ And he had left the office a
broken man, with his life in ruins. So, this is a very standard telegram sent out to all the
you know parents who lost their sons in the war.
So, if you see movies of First World War, we find that as a long template which is being
tapped over the typewriter; we regret to inform you and as a blank space to which in
which the name is filled in and other biographical details are filled and whether the
template is very standardized and that actually makes it very-very cold—the fact that the
institution of military is letting you know that you have lost a dear one in the war and
then the entire impersonal touch makes it even more menacing.
So, the rhetoric over here is quite impersonal in quality and that had obviously, fueled
the boss’s trauma. So, deeply regret to inform you and he had left the office a broken
man, his life in ruins. So, again if you take this point and go back to the beginning of the
story find how the boss is trying to reconstruct himself.

So, he had been broken by the First World War, by the death of the son and now he is
making an effort to reconstruct himself by getting more material markers—an electric
heating, you know and different kinds of things right. Six years ago, six years. How
quickly time passed! It might have happened yesterday. The boss took his hands on his
face; he was puzzled. Something seemed to be wrong with him. He was not feeling as he
wanted to feel. He decided to get up and have a look at the boy’s photograph. It was not

a favorite photograph of his; the expression was unnatural. It was cold, even stern-
looking. The boy had never looked like that.

So, again this is a moment of epiphany for the boss’s son, you know and the boss is
obviously, looking at the boss’s son through a very focalized frame over here and a
focalized frame is a photograph. Interestingly this is a photograph which is supposed to
project a certain sentiment to the boss; he wants to cry, he wants to weep out his sorrow,
he wants to weep out his mourning and he is looking at the photograph to get a trigger
from which he is going to weep, but then he realizes this is not a good photograph of the
son.
So, he needs a different photograph. So, it almost becomes something erotic in quality. I
am looking at a photograph to have an erotic experience, this release that the boss talks
about over here is obviously, there is a quasi-erotic quality by this release, because that
also reestablishes his masculinity, because he know he thinks he is in complete control of
everything around him and the sense of control gives him a sense of entitlement.
So, he needs to know everything he needs to have this entire knowledge of everything.
So, that brand of masculinity which is all controlling all knowing all traveling that has
just come to an end over here after the First World War and hence, we have Woodifield
locked up in his house.
So, the all old travelling bit is completely gone, the daughter, the wife they all take over
in terms of running the house hold and they only granted permission to come to the city
every day except you know every Tuesday, every week right.
So, that becomes his only relief that he can look forward to right. So, the question of
agency becomes important in this sense, because agency stereotypically has always been
a manly enterprise, but post First World War we find how agency becomes more sort of
inverted in quality. So, wife and the daughters who travel to Belgium, is they who report
back about the jam, is they who haggle with the jam prices you know in the hotel rooms
and like I said is they who gave a report to the trauma in terms of how the traumatic, the
sites are kept now in terms of the buried soldiers right.
So, that degree of mobility and agency is now conferred or now visible with a woman
rather than the men. The men, obviously, senile and they are waiting to die. They are two
grieving fathers and they obviously, quite they have nothing do forward to. The only
thing they had to look forward to is the sons, that the creation of the sons in terms of
being heirs to the kingdom, but that possibility is now permanently gone, it is precluded
okay.
So, he is trying to take a look at the boy’s photograph and relieve himself by crying right.
He is got his clothes off, he is looking at the photo and tries to relive himself through a
very bodily functional way, but we are told that the you know the boss is unable to carry
out, it is almost a performance anxiety about weeping.
So, again if we take a look at weeping, mourning, hysteric weeping, hysteric mourning,
these are stereotypically speaking very-very feminine activities quote, unquote feminine
whatever that means, but the boss is trying to appropriate those activities in terms of
reestablishing his masculinity and therein lies a complication in this story right.
So, he is trying to look at the famous photograph of the boy that which that would help
him to weep that would help them to gush out his pent-up emotions, but he cannot find
anything at all okay. And then you know obviously, we are told that the expression was
unnatural. It was cold, even stern looking right.
So, it was not really warm and the way the boss wanted it. At that moment the boss
noticed that a fly had fallen into the broad ink pot. So, this is not a pointless story where
a fly episode takes place, it is obviously, quite symbolic in quality as well right.
So, you see that fly fall into a black ink pot, and was trying feebly, but desperately to
clamber out again. Help! Help! Said those struggling legs. So, again look at the way in
which the entire insect is now magnified and right so, we can see the legs, we can see the
front leg, we can see the back leg, we can see two wings. Everything can be seen in a
very magnified way right.

So, that becomes an interesting way of representation. At that moment the boss noticed a
fly. A fly had fallen into this his broad inkpot, it was trying feebly, but desperately to
clamber out again. Help! Help! said those struggling legs. But the sides of the inkpot
were wet and slippery; it fell back again and began to swim. So, it was becoming a bit of
a Sisyphean enterprise right.
So, it is like the birth of Sisyphus, where you know you push a stone on top of a wall and
then it the stone rolls on again you have to go to do it again and you are doomed to do it
forever right. So, there is a Sisyphean quality about the fly over here, it has got a blot of
ink falling over him, it is obviously, very injured, but he wants to get another chance he
wants to leave this place as soon as possible. So, the fly obviously, is exhibiting the kind
of masculinity, that a boss wanted his son to exhibit and the boss wanted himself to
exhibit right.
So, you know so, it fell back again and began to swim. the boss took up a pen, picked the
fly out of the ink, and shook it a little piece of blotting paper. So, he takes out the fly and
puts in a blotting paper. For a fraction of a second it lay still on the dark patch that oozed
round it. Then the front legs waved, took over, and pulling, and you know its small
sodden body up, it began the immense task of cleaning the ink from his wings.
So, what happens is the boss rescues the fly here now but he also drops a blot of ink on
her. So, now, obviously, she is very-very concerned, you know the fly becomes
concerned and the fly tries to restart the entire process.
So, again this whole idea of restarting and returning to the point of action gives it a
Sisyphean quality, it is like the fly’s doomed forever to keep restarting okay.
So, for a fraction of a second it lay still on the dark patch that oozed round it. Then her
front legs waved, took hold, and, pulling the small sodden body up, it began the immense
task of cleaning the he ink from its wing.
So, again you know it is trying to clear the wings on his ink, because it cannot fly with
such heavy ink on it okay. Over and under, over and under, when a leg along a wing as
the stone goes under the scythe, over and under the scythe. So, stones and scythe
metaphor is interesting, because scythe has traditionally been seen as a vehicle of death
right. So, if you find old medieval tragedies you find describe, they always come in with

this sense of death and this whole idea of having this the scythe metaphor. The scythe
metaphor is something which carries a sense of mortality to it in a very symbolic way
right.
So, we know already if we read the metaphor close enough. We know already the fly is
doomed into performing something that you know would lead to its ultimate demise.
Then there was a pause, where the fly seeming to stand on tip of its toes, tried to expand
first one wing and then the other. It succeeded at last, and, sitting down, it began, like a
minute cat to clean its face.
So, again the fly had been careful with his wings and now, he feels he sits in front of the
you know the entire magnification takes place over here and we find that how the fly is
equated with a minute cat and not just that if you take a look at the description of fly, the
legs, the you know the entire right leg, left leg thing as if as a human being has been
shown a very graphic and magnified detail.
So, the magnification is interesting over here, they are looking at a fly who is almost big
enough to be a minute cat. So, you know you can compare how big the fly is. It is
obviously, very hyperbolic in quality.
And no one could imagine the little front legs rubbed against each other lightly, joyfully.
The horrible danger was over; it had escaped; it was ready for life again right. So, but
then just then the boss had an idea. He plunged his pen back into the ink, leaned his thick
wrist on a blotting paper, and as the fly tried its wings down came a great heavy blot.
So, that the boss at this point he wanted to torture the fly and this becomes interesting,
because what happens is it becomes an episode of sadomasochism. So, the boss is
obviously, torturing the fly and he tries to torture, but at the same time the boss is
torturing himself, because he sees in a struggle of the fly, a projection of his own
struggle.
So, he wants the fly to win at one point, because that will also mean he would win right.
So, it is a very interesting idea of empathy that is created over here, albeit through
torture. So, the boss is torturing the fly, but in the process he is getting more empathic to
the fly in some sense right. So, that is what makes this sadomasochistic. So, instead of
just torturing the fly as masochistic as he is also torturing himself and that loop becomes

interesting for us to examine okay. So, he plunged his pen back into the ink, leaned his
thick wrist on blotting paper, and as the fly tried its wings down came a great heavy blot.
What would it make of that! What indeed! The little beggar seemed absolutely cowed.
So, you know again the word beggar is important, you know as a human being.
So, you can see how the fly is increasingly equated with bigger animals. So, first there is
a degree of deer and monkey and then you know the whole idea of the fly becoming
something like cat-like becomes interesting right. So, we see the dog image also before,
and all these animal metaphors become interesting, because in a very literal and
symbolic sense, this is almost like a post-human world right. The First World War had
just ended and the demography is very different. We can see in the story there is a very
conspicuous absence of women, but also the death of all the young men, the young men
are all gone they are all dead. So, Woodifield’s son is dead, the boss’s son is dead.

So, the entire demography becomes very disturbed demography right. So, in the sense all
these animal metaphors become important in this short story, because you know we take
a look at the cat image over here, the dog image is used to describe Macey, the boss’s
messenger and so the whole idea is to you know Mansfield is obviously trying to tell us
that this is a universe where the abled men are all gone.
So, this is the very differently abled kind of a universe, a differently abled kind of a
cosmos right and also the woman over here are very conspicuously absent. So, that
becomes interesting. Now, the whole idea of using the cat over here is interesting,
because it is obviously, magnifying the creature and its magnification just becomes also
an act of deceleration right.
So, we see how the entire episode is decelerated in a very-very interesting sense. It the
deceleration; obviously, dramatizes what happens. So, the boss is dropping blots of ink
on the fly, which is equated with a cat, but we see how each drop is described in great
detail and almost slowed down time and it slowed down time becomes important, the
magnification of the fly’s body becomes important right. So, the fly’s body almost get
corporealized So, there is a degree of corporealization of time as well as the fly’s body.

So, and also the whole idea of the little beggar becomes important, because the fly is
compared to little beggar and also this particular description obviously, comes from a
very patronizing offensive, masculinist position of privilege where someone who is
underprivileged becomes a little beggar and the fly over here becomes a little beggar.
Again, very boy scout elitist entitled sense of masculinity which is you know which is
being voiced over here, through this use of expression. The little beggar seemed
absolutely cowed, stunned, and afraid to move because of what would happen next right.
But then, as it painfully dragged its way forward. The front legs waved, caught hold, and,
more slowly this time, the task began from the beginning right. So, again the degree of
deceleration is important. It is more slow, and also look at the way in which the front
legs have been described.
I mean normally we would look at a fly, you do not see the legs. This is one little tiny
thing, but it is magnified and the entire process decelerated. So, we see how the front
legs are waving, catching hold and slowly began to move. So, this is what I mean about a
Sisyphean quality of the entire episode where those of you are aware of the myth of
Sisyphus would know that you know, he was doomed to push a stone against the
mountain and it would go up on the mountain and the stone would fall down again and
he was doomed to you know just carry on that task forever.
So, Sisyphus, obviously, represents a sense of purposelessness and he becomes a very
important symbol in existentialist literature especially in the works of examples Sartre
and Albert Camus and you know Mansfield obviously, draws on that Sisyphus image
quite heavily over here. He is a plucky little devil, thought the boss, and I felt a real
admiration for the fly’s courage.
Now, this is interesting, because again if you look at the metaphor. He is a plucky little
devil right. So, there is very boy scout, almost like a head coach, a goading on the star
player you know, you are a plucky devil go beat it you can do it. So, it becomes a bit of a
pep talk kind of rhetoric over here again very-very masculinist in quality. He is a plucky
little devil, thought the boss and he felt a real admiration for the fly’s courage that was
the way to tackle things and that was a right spirit never say die, it was only a question
of. So, again this vocabulary is very-very masculinist in quality that is the way to do it,
that is the right spirit, never say die, etcetera. It is almost like a coach goading on a

player to do something, there is a sporting image about it, a sporting quality about this
particular vocabulary.
(Refer Slide Time: 33:47)

It was only a question of, but the fly had once again finished his laborious task, and the
boss had just time to refill his pen, to shake fair and square on a new clean body yet
another dark drop. What about it this time? A painful moment of suspense followed. But
behold, the front legs were again waving; and the boss felt a rush of relief.
So, again this is what I meant when I said that it is sadomasochistic, because on the one
hand the fly is a fly and the boss is the boss, but on the other hand there is a bit of
empathy that a boss creates with the fly, because a fly’s struggle in a way, reminds him
of his struggle and in a way he wants the fly to win, because the fly’s victory would be a
very symbolic statement over the boss’s own victory. It will be motivation for the boss to
draw on, but obviously, he keeps torturing the fly in the same time.
So, it becomes a very interesting relationship of torture and empathy which is
simultaneously present both these sentiments simultaneously present. So, the boss drops
another blot of ink, what bothers this time? A painful moment of suspense followed. But
behold, the front legs again waving; the boss felt a rush of relief. So, again this is what I
meant when I say he wants the fly to win. He leaned over the fly and said to it tenderly,
“You artful little b.” And this b could be any word yeah which is obviously, you know
offensive in quality, but in a masculinist way it means something positive right.

So, and again look at the word tenderly, you see he is leaning on the fly and telling it
tenderly. It is almost like he is caressing the fly. Just now we saw that you know he
wants to fly to win, etcetera. and then we see this interesting thing and actually had a
brilliant notion of breathing on it to help the drying process right.
So, he is actually trying to breathe in the fly to help it dry itself at well at the same time
being the person who dropped the ink in the first place. So, we see this very curious
comingling of torture and empathy at play over here. So, he is more the torturer as well
as the tortured, the boss. So, he is feeling tortured with the fly and in the process he is
trying to help the fly to come out of it first. You know to get itself dry. All the same,
there was something timid and weak about his efforts now, and the boss decided that this
time should be the last, and he dipped the pen deep into the inkpot. So, again the last blot
is about to come now, the boss tries one more time to drop a blot of ink on the fly and
see what happens.
It was. Now, every time I read this story, I am reminded of this terrible sense of finality
that is there in this one sentence, it was which is two words right. So, the sense of
finality, the sense of mortality, the sense of ending, that is there is so brilliantly captured
by this very short sentence it was; so, you know everything comes to an end. It was the
last blot fell on the soaked blotting paper, and the draggled fly lay in it and did not stir.
The back legs were struck to the body; the front legs were not to be seen. So, again it
becomes very mangled body as you can see and again this almost becomes a human
body in a sense and we can always safely say that the fly becomes something of a
projection of the boss’s son.
It is perhaps the way he died the front legs were mangled and the back legs not to be
seen, the front legs not to be seen, the back legs were stuck to the body again. This is a
very typical image of a bombed human soldier right, bomb dropping on a trench and a
soldier’s body getting mangled, the limbs getting mangled and stuck to the body and
some limbs disappearing. So, this whole idea of the mangled body becomes a very
graphic description over here, very disturbing description over here and it is interesting,
how the descriptions are projected onto the body of the fly. This is what I meant, when I
say the fly is corporealized in a very-very human way. So, the fly becomes human
humanized and corporealized and only in the sense of suffering a torture.

‘Come on,’ said the boss. ‘Look sharp!’ And he stirred it with a pen in vain. Nothing
happened or was likely to happen. The fly was dead.
(Refer Slide Time: 37:43)

So, again the boss is goading the fly and again this is a very complex psychological
statement that we can make that when you say that boss had you know he felt a degree of
admiration empathy for the fly’s courage to come out of this torture chamber, but at the
same time he comes in and tortured him playing the god as well as the victim together
and now when the fly is dead his is trying to goad it to make it come back to life just so,
the fly’s coming back to life, the fly’s winning will be a motivation for him.
But then the fly’s death reminds him of his own death, reminds him of his imminent
mortality, reminds him of his imminent wait for an ending and obviously, reminds him
of his son’s death. He stirred it with his pen in vain. Nothing happened or was likely to
happen. The fly was dead. Again, a degree of finality and an ending about a statement.
The boss lifted the corpse on the end of the paper knife and flung it in the waste paper
basket. So, again if you look at the movements over here are very-very interesting. The
word corpse is used, which is obviously, used for human bodies. So, the fly is described
as a human body.
So, the fly’s body you know strange that he talked about the fly’s body, the fly is a
creature, but everything is magnified and decelerated as a mention of fly’s body is now
corporealized, and it is lifted with a paper knife and flung in the waste paper basket.

Again, this is very-very iconic, because on the First World War this is exactly how the
soldier’s dead bodies were flung out of trenches right into—it is like a garbage thing. So,
you know there would be a heap of dead bodies and the soldier’s dead bodies are to be
flung from the trenches with a big bayonet sometimes, flung in a big heap of corpses
right and that big heap became a very-very iconic symbol of human destruction, organic
destruction.
So, again a sense of trash becomes important. How human bodies become disposable
trash, everything organic becomes disposable trash and when you see this almost
obsession with trash throughout modernism and we will move onto this Virginia Woolf’s
short story from here after this called ‘Solid Objects’ just entirely about trash right, but
even if you take a look at Mrs Dalloway, The Wasteland, even Eliot’s early poetry or
Ulysses for the matter we find this whole idea of trash becomes important, because along
with the different machines of production in modernism or modernity in cultural,
modernity we also see different machines of dissemination and also production entails
the production of rubbish, the production of trash and the human body is now converted
into a trash right.
So, he flings it to the waste basket, but such a grinding feeling of wretchedness seized
him that he felt positively frightened. So, again it is a bit of an oxymoronic expression
positively frightened. So, he is being seasoned, consumed by a certain sentiment, you
know and is frightened by the sentiment. He started forward and pressed the bell for
Macey. ‘Bring me some fresh blotting paper,’ he said sternly, ‘and look sharp about it.’
So, again he wants desperately to clamber back to his masculinist rhetoric, he was trying
desperately to get back and recover and retrieve and re-articulate his masculinist
vocabulary, look sharp about is how a manly man speaks to his underling.
He wants to recover his sense of ownership, his sense of agency, but then it is too late as
we are told and while the old dog padded away, he fell to wondering what it was he had
been thinking about before, what it was. He took out his handkerchief and pressed it
inside his collar. For the life of him he could not remember.
So, this is how the short story ends, but what happens essentially is it just becomes a very
sweet revenge of time and as we mentioned the boss’s hubris was that he had taught that
anyone everyone else can live the loss down and move on with time, but he will have

triumph over time. In a sense of retaining his original experience of trauma and this is
what I mean when I say there is an equation and trauma and privilege in the story
because you know the boss thinks that I can consume, I can re-experience my trauma at
will at any given point of time, no passage of time can dilute my trauma in that sense
right.
So, that has been his hubris all the time. Every time I want to cry that my son is dead, I
can cry at will. I can weep at will. I can retain and re-articulate and re-experience my
trauma very-very experientially and viscerally in a great embodied way, but of course,
this fly episode, obviously, you know just completely ends you know finishes any sense
of struggle for the boss, because when the fly’s struggle comes to an end symbolically
and in every projected kind of way his own struggle comes to an end as well right. So,
the fly and the boss end together right.
So, now he goes back and he is trying to recover his boss-ness, he is trying to give orders
desperately to Macey to bring some fresh blotting paper and to look sharp about it and
that is all that he can order for. I mean also notice the way in which in this office there is
no indication of any work getting done, of any productivity at any level. Everything is
just coming and being designed as empty structures, the boss comes, there is an office, it
is a very decked up office, its messenger, etcetera. But do not quite know what work is
done, if any production happens itself or maybe not.
So, it just becomes an office in a very hollow emptied-out kind of away because
obviously, the person who would carry on the production, the son, is dead now. So, all
the boss is doing now is just you know stalling, the collapse of this entire architecture
and the last statement is important.
For the life of him I could not remember right. This becomes a very sweet revenge of
time when he cannot remember what he was thinking right. In other words, you know he
becomes quite essentially and symbolically and literally a timeless man right he becomes
someone who is you know denied of time. So, timeless in the sense he does not know
about future; obviously, because the son is dead and also, he cannot recover the past,
because he cannot remember. So, you know, obviously, his present becomes precarious
in that sense. So, the precarious quality of his present is because of his timelessness. The

father does not have a future to look forward to and also there is no past that he can think
off right.
So, so when I say this is a vendetta of time, what I am actually saying is time leaves the
boss right and in that sense is timeless. So, you know time goes away from the boss
entirely and you know you know he is just denied this comfort of time in every which
way and this becomes the vendetta, this becomes a revenge of time very symbolic and
exponentially, a revenge against this erstwhile hubris of having control over time in
terms of you know never living this loss down right.
So, we see how this entire story is deeply psychological as you can see, is very
existential psychological is very modernist with the First World War as very spectral
background draw the story as you can see you know which is something we just saw in
The Wasteland as well and also Mrs Dalloway more directly, but if you compare and
contrast this with Mrs Dalloway, we find that the minimalism in Mansfield’s short
fiction actually makes it very-very sinister in quality.
So, the sinister cooled quality about loss is conveyed to us in very minimalistic ways and
there is hardly any characters hardly any action except the fly episode which is deeply
psychological and we find how streams of consciousness, epiphany this entire embodied
engagement with time always become very important markers of masculinity in the
stories.
So, in one sense it is very modernist, it is always engaging with consciousness in other
sense it is also very-very, it is a deep feminist critique of a certain kind of masculinity
which had historically created the wars for example, expansionist kind of masculinity
which the boss embodied.
So, with that we come to an end of The Fly’s deeply psychological and complex story.
So, do read it again and again and like I said I have an article on it which was published
in a Katherine Mansfield and psychology collection published by Edinburgh University
press, which I am happy to upload in the forum for your perusal.
So, from this we will move on to our next text, which we will announce in due course of
time. So, do reread the fly and write to me in the forum, if you have any more questions
or comments on this text.

Thank you for your attention.