SOURCE: “The Death of the Boss: Another Look at Katherine Mansfield's ‘The Fly,’” in Modern Fiction Studies, Vol. 11, No. 2, Summer, 1965, pp. 183-85.

In the following essay, Boyle claims that the symbolism in “The Fly” is intended to emphasize the spiritual death of the boss.

John V. Hagopian's recent article on “The Fly” indeed seems a more reasoned and logical explication than those made by earlier critics.¹ Professor Hagopian's assertion, however, that the boss is an almost wholly sympathetic character and that the story concerns the boss's imperfect realization of the inescapable fact of death elicits some argument. It is also questionable that the text of “The Fly” supports Hagopian's interpreting the fly as a symbol of “the boss's son in his grave.” Rather, a realization of the exact parallels between old Woodifield and the boss, and the exact parallels between the struggles of the fly and those of...