Themes
1. Loss & Forgetting
2. Suffering Until a Breaking Point - Frailty
- The Boss - anger and sadness from the death of his son
- The Son - hardships of war lead to his death
- The Fly - kept trying to come out of the ink but eventually could no longer
- Mansfield - written on her death bed, mentality of being taken from life
3. Power vs. Powerlessness - Perception of Power
- The Boss/The Fly - fly cannot set himself free from the overbearing ink
- The Boss/Death of his son - emotions are overtaking his everyday life
- War/Government - losing support of the people, destroying the nation, losing money, losing men to
fight
- War/Son - hardships of war lead to his death
**Power isn't always so powerful!
Symbols
1. The Boss & The Fly
- Fly symbolizes the things that lead up to his son's death therefore he wants to destroy it
- Fly symbolizes the lost generation and the Boss represents the mistaken war
- The Fly symbolizes the boss struggling with the pressures (ink) associated with his son's death
2. Nameless Characters - all of the deaths in the war that weren't on a personal level; death doesn't have a
name in war
3. Boss' Inability to Cry
- Angry and Bitter
- Lost dream of son running the business, death of son = death of business (his life's work)
4. The "Boss"
- Decider of all fates but no role in the actions
- Different power levels, no control at the bottom and all of the control at the top
- Someone who can't be gotten in trouble
5. Whiskey
- Windsor Castle - represents the government involvement - home of the Queen
- Sympathy for the Woodifield?
6. 4 Drop of Ink - 4 years of war that got progressively worse to recover from - lead to the eventual total
destruction of Europe
7. Woodifield
- Reminder of what's been lost - bringing up the losses to the boss
- Reflects society's insensitivity towards the deaths that resulted from the war
8. Death
- Death touches everyone during war time in different ways
"For the life of him, he could not remember" - Final Sentence
- No life left within the boss to remember the life of his son
- Loss of memory = refusal to admit the mistake
- Gov. doesn't acknowledge that the war was a mistake
- Represents the war and the numbness everyone felt towards it
- Boss forgets thought = Europe forgets why they're fighting the war
Effect of War on Literature of the time period
Connected people because people no longer wanted to talk about such a depressing topic so it brought them all together on their common emotions and experiences without individuals having to talk about their personal feeling (too vulnerable)
Compare and Contrast Woodifield and The Boss.
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ReplyDeleteIt's interesting how so many of the themes dealt with the loss of something, whether it have been phsyical or emotional.. I feel as though Mansfield did this to portray the large sense of disallusionment and frustration that everyone was feeling due to the hostility and darkness that the war brought to so many families, such as hers. Since people were in such pain and horror during and even after the war, I definitely agree that literature was a huge outlet for people to release their emotions and frustrations after the war, as well as a way to heal. I agree that she used it as a way not only to tell her story, but like you said, to unite people after a time of so much conflict and separation.
ReplyDeleteWow Laine - You're doing a great job and really using the blog as a resource for you. Impressive! Prof S
ReplyDelete