Shell Stories - English

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The boss’s sudden horror having killed and disposed of the dead fly—and thereby accepting the harsh realities of his son’s death—brings about an almost intentional occurrence of amnesia. The boss distracts himself from grief as he issues Macey with crisp directives, again likening his employee to a submissive dog. Immediately afterwards, “for the life of him” the boss cannot recall his previous anxieties, suggesting memory is intrinsically tied to human life and meaning. At the story’s conclusion, Mansfield likens the boss to Woodifield by describing the boss as nervously sweating at his own memory’s failures.

The boss disposes of the fly ’s body in a waste paper basket, upon which he experiences “such a grinding feeling of wretchedness” that he becomes frightened. Quickly ringing a bell for his clerk, the boss demands that Macey bring him fresh blotting paper and “look sharp about it.” When the “old dog pad[s] away,” the boss struggles to remember what he was thinking about prior to ringing for Macey, and anxiously mops at his collar with a handkerchief—"For the life of him he could not remember.”

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