Question

Describe the interior of the boss chamber in mansfields story the fly

Answer 1

The Boss in this story represents the irony of human life. Irony consists in the difference between appearance and reality. The existence of boss is a sort of caricature or parody of the actual reality. In fact his life is a deception with himself. The Boss has been dreaming of building up an empire for his son so that he could step into his shoes. But he is a victim of what Aristotle called “perepetia” or reversal of situation. He hoped that his son would replace him as his successor. But it changed with news of his son being killed in the battlefield. Mr. Woddifield had accepted his son’s death and could talk about it freely. While the boss, before the exit of the Woodifield from his chambers, is for an instance of a tragic father who has been trying hard to forget the bitter memory through material pre-occupation. That is why he is found to be quite complacent, confident and at ease with himself.


The tragedy of the boss’s life is of course a generalization of human existence. It gives an extra dimension to his character i.e. his realization of the futility and fragility of human endeavour. He has been endeavouring for the last six years to forget the memory of his dead son. But a casual remark by Woodifield brings him back to reality. What he has been successful so far has been destroyed by the whims of a moment. The boss surrenders to the inevitability of human fate. He develops a kind of pessimism and nihilism.
The Fly episode projects the Boss as the Caprious God who kills small fly not for sport but for negative pleasure. From this point onwards the Boss starts paralleling the plight of the fly with that of his son. Perhaps his son too had struggled like that on the battlefield.  But the killing of the Fly by the boss is a kind of self killing. The Boss negates possibilities and promises of new life. It is very simplistic to describe the boss as a tragic figure. He minimizes the tragic greatness by resulting to uncontrollable despair and depression. The final impression of boss character that emerges at the end of the story is that of insignificance, helplessness and denial of life. The boss thus has the streak of Dostoyevsky’s resignation of death.