The Fly

“The Fly” was included in the collection The Doves’ Nest and Other Stories, which was published posthumously by Mansfield’s husband in 1922. It is one of her most anthologized stories. In a republished review from July 5, 1922, New Republic author Robert Littell praises Mansfield’s anthology and her abilities:

She is a connoisseur of the ripples that mean so much more than waves, a collector of little emotions caught on the wing, never pinned or bottled in her pages, but kept alive there in all their fragile iridescent colours (Littell, Robert. “Katherine Mansfield’s ‘The Garden Party’ Proves She Was a Genuis.” The New Republic, 9 Jan. 2014).

“The Fly” contains examples of her signature style: subtle, indirect explorations of the psychology of people. Like many of the characters in Mansfield’s other short stories, the characters in “The Fly” are isolated and thwarted individuals. The endings of her stories are often abrupt, leaving the characters with unanswered questions or unexplored revelations. Her stories tend to focus on character development rather than on plot points, and the conflicts are mostly internal rather than external.

Mansfield draws on many personal experiences in “The Fly.” In 1915, Mansfield’s 21-year-old brother was killed in Belgium during World War I after working for his father’s business for a year, just like