[In the following essay, Jacobs maintains that the fly is a symbol for Mansfield, who at the time of the story's writing was a woman slowly dying of tuberculosis.]

The interpretation of Katherine Mansfield's “The Fly” in EXP. III, Apr., 1945, 49, is at once ingenious and recherché. That the surface theme of the story is the conquest of time over grief—that in time even a slight distraction can banish the truest emotion from the mind—is certain enough. But in its explanation of the fly itself that previous account violates a wise rule known as Morgan's Canon. Of a number of possibilities, declares this maxim of psychology, first choose the simplest. Once introduced into the story, the fly may well have become a symbol. But a symbol of what? EXP., III, 49 rapidly affirms that the fly equates seriatim with the Boss, Woodifield, Macey, the dead son, and even the new-furnished office of the Boss; indeed with everything at all handy. Here indeed is God's plenty. The result surely is that the symbolism cancels itself out. At the end moreover we are told summarily that, after all, the fly is not the Boss. Well, then, just what is the fly?

The answer, I believe, is both different from such whirling alternatives and at once more significant and poignant. When the fly entered the story, it began to represent to Katherine Mansfield a true image of her own fate. The fly is Katherine Mansfield herself. During her last years of life K. M. struggled constantly, bravely, and vainly (like the fly) against the tuberculosis which was beating her, blow by blow, into the grave. In “The Fly” the Boss becomes a heavy-handed, unmeaning instrument which destroys the fly, fight for life as it may; he becomes, on K. M.'s level, the inexorable and equally unmeaning illness which is destroying her, fight for life as she may. Like the Boss, the tuberculosis which killed her is blind, callous, and persistent. As the Boss slays the fly, without malice, so does her illness slay her. Both fly and K. M. fight painfully for life. Both lose.

This explication is not visionary. It is supported by two witnesses. First is the evidence of Mrs. Thomas Moult, friend and confidante of K. M. (For the warmth of their friendship, see as an example The Letters of Katherine Mansfield, 1929, 11, 428). On the basis of Mrs. Moult's contemporary correspondence and conversation with K. M., Mrs. Moult has stated to the undersigned that she considers “The Fly” a completely personal story. For K. M. herself, Mrs. Moult said, it had two facets: (1) K. M. is the fly, beaten in her struggle with tuberculosis by a careless, blind fate; (2) K. M. realized, as she wrote, that she too would soon be forgotten, slain by her disease.

Another witness establishes reasonable certainty of this view. That is the very circumstances surrounding the writing of “The Fly” They are as follows: In the words of Frank Swinnerton, K. M. “had always been delicate … in 1917 she caught a chill which led to tuberculosis … the two constant features of her pilgrimages were increasing illness and unfailing bravery” (The Georgian Scene, 1934, p. 249). In late 1921 and early 1922 the disease became rapacious. On February 1, 1922, K. M. confided to her Journal: “Here I try and fail, and the fact of consciousness makes each separate failure very important.” Two weeks later, on February 13, she added: “Felt ill all day. Feeling of violent confusion in my body and head. I feel more ill now than ever, so it seems. … The worst of it is I have again lost hope. I don't, I can't believe this will change.” (Journal, II, 229; 234.)

On February 14, K. M. wrote to Dorothy Brett: “I can do nothing but get up and lie down … I must begin work. Seven stories sit on the doorstep. One has a foot inside. It is called “The Fly” (Letters, 1929, II, 446). Under such circumstance was this story written, for as she wrote to Miss Brett twelve days later: “I have just finished a queer story called ‘The Fly.’ About a fly that falls into an inkpot and a Bank Manager” (Letters, II, 459). Significantly “The Fly” is the only one of those projected seven stories she wrote, and her writing career came to a complete halt within a few months. The fly struggled, but was killed; so too the spirit of K. M. She died in 1923.

These parallels are too immediate to be disregarded. So too is another. Lover of Shakespeare as she was, in this story of a fly K. M. must surely have had in mind his strikingly similar image. As flies to wanton boys—she is repeating with special meaning to herself—are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport.