"The Fly" is a short story that falls within the genre of Realism. Realism was an artistic movement that first began in France in the mid-1800s as a response to the heightened, sentimental stylings of Romanticism. Realist fiction tends to focus on the ins and outs of everyday life, often examining seemingly ordinary experiences as a way of conveying the nature of life in the 19th century and beyond.
"The Fly" is a good example of Realism, as it uses a brief glimpse into a successful businessman's life to illustrate the broader experience of living in London in the aftermath of World War I. More specifically, the story doesn't necessarily emphasize the boss's thoughts about his son's death in the war—rather, it mainly focuses on describing his surroundings and the way he and his former coworker, Woodifield, interact with each other. In this way, the boss's feelings about his son's death are all refracted through the story's observations of his immediate life. And yet, by the end of the story, everything around the boss seems imbued with the memory of his dead son and his desperate desire to run from the sorrow of losing him. The story thus investigates the small but brutal ways that war impacts everyday life.
