Spectrality in the Short Story ‘The Fly’ by Katherine Mansfield

Abstract

Spectrality is a central aspect of the short story ‘The Fly’ by Katherine Mansfield. The notion of spectrality refers to phantoms and forbidding apparitions, all things that unhinges the mind. Spectrality is analysed in relation to Sigmund Freud’s essay, ‘Mourning and Melancholia’ to make sense of the phenomenology of mourning evoked in the short-story. Jacques Derrida’s analysis of the ontologization of remains provides elements to comment on the characterisation of the protagonist. Katherine Mansfield’s autobiographical writings are quoted to connect her brother’s death during WWI and the difficult mourning that ensued with the killing of the fly described in the short-story. A sadistic sacrificial economy is depicted in the text as mourning becomes an impossible task.

Keywords

• K. Mansfield
• J. Derrida
• S. Freud
• “The Fly”
• autobiographie
• mourning