SOURCE: “Flies and Violets in Katherine Mansfield,” in Women's Fiction and the Great War, edited by Suzanne Raitt and Trudi Tate, Clarendon Press, 1997, pp. 197-218.

In the following essay, Coroneos discusses elements of sadism and ambiguity in “The Fly,” and concludes that this is a war story that encourages the reader to “participate in the spectacle of suffering without the anxiety of guilt.”

In Mansfield's second war story, “The Fly” … old Woodifield has been visiting the boss, a successful businessman running an unspecified business.¹ The boss is the older man but, unlike Woodifield, blooming with health and success. Where mirabelle in “An Indiscreet Journey” helps forgetfulness, whisky in “The Fly” stirs the memory. Mr Woodifield, suitably primed, remembers a piece of news; he has been to France, and seen the war graves, nicely tended, of both his own son and the son of the boss. The boss just...