The Fly - Rohit

The author seems to say that if you are continuously immersed in a painful predicament, it is inevitable that you will not move in a better direction. This is because the fly (representing the Boss) is continuously being drowned in ink (which represents the Boss's emotions towards his son). At first the fly tries fighting back and succeeds, but as the ink keeps on coming, the fly inevitably loses and dies. This represents the fact that the Boss's emotions are holding him hostage in a depression which is getting more and more difficult to escape. The Boss, playing God with the fly, is subconsciously trying to find a solution to his problems by observing the fly's mechanism of coping with stressful situations. It is said in the story that the Boss admires the fly's perseverance, but the specific application of this perseverance is the fly's ultimate demise. The author is saying that you cannot simply wipe your problems off, but the Boss thinks otherwise: " 'Come on,' said the boss. ' Look sharp ! ' And he stirred it with his pen—in vain.
Nothing happened or was likely to happen. The fly was dead."

This may be a stretch but the author may also be trying to express her feelings towards what she sees as the unjust patriotism and nationalism associated with war. In this time, World War One, nationalism was quite rampant in the western world. As a result, men would blindly and proudly send their sons off to war in the name of their country. They did so, in large part, with indifference towards the actual outcomes and consequences of war (death, pain,etc.). In the short story, the Boss is suffering the loss of his son who he recalls to have been a joyful and happy boy. This is juxtaposed with a picture of his son which " wasn't a favorite
photograph of his; the expression was unnatural. It was cold, even stern-looking". The Boss then says that "The boy had never looked like that". The Boss is in denial here as he simply brushes this off as a bad picture, whereas the picture likely expresses demoralization and pain. It is likely that the boss subconsciously recognizes this reality. This would explain his gruesome mechanisms of coping with emotion (ex: torturing a fly).

Many Similies. Ex:

"...as a baby peers out of
its pram"

"...we cling to our
last pleasures as the tree clings to its last leaves."

"... dodged in and out of his cubby hole like a dog
that expects to be taken for a run."

Many uses of strategic pausing. For example dashes, ellipses, and actually using the word "pause". Ex:

"The pause came again."

"Old Woodifield paused..."

" Since he had retired, since his... stroke..."

"they supposed ... Well, perhaps so."

A few uses of hyperboles or figures of speech. Ex:

"the wife and the girls kept him boxed
up in the house every day"

"And he had left the
office a broken man..."

"... It was exactly as though the earth had opened and he
had seen the boy lying there with Woodifield's girls staring down at him."