Student Question
What happened to the boss's son in Katherine Mansfield's "The Fly" and how did it affect the boss?
Quick answer:
In "The Fly," the boss is deeply affected by his son's death in the war, leaving him emotionally devastated and grieving. His son was meant to inherit the company, and the boss had invested much effort into building it for him. Despite the passage of years, the loss remains profound, highlighting the boss's inability to recover from this personal tragedy, which underscores the story's themes of grief and the impact of war.
In "The Fly," the boss is depicted as emotionally devastated, still grieving the death of his son.
As Katherine Mansfield states, in her short story, the boss's son had been killed during his time as a soldier in the war. (This is something that the boss and Woodifield have in common: both lost children to the war.) The boss still grieves his son, and he has been emotionally devastated by the loss.
As the story goes on to detail, the boss's son had been his only son, and he had been intending to leave the company to him. In fact, as his reminiscing makes clear, it had been for his son that he had poured so much time and effort into the company in the first place, as an inheritance and legacy to pass on. Furthermore, he recalls the young man's promise (one which, as the boss recalls, "had been so near being fulfilled"). As the story makes clear, even after years have passed, the boss still feels the loss intensely, and has never recovered from it.
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