The Fly Poem

The Fly Vile, repulsive, and yet ultimately benign; this is the life of a fly. In the Poem “The Fly” Karl Shapiro defines the operations of a mundane housefly in exorbitant detail. From searching for a mate to burying maggots in the dermis of a corpse to the fly’s demise, Shapiro holds no stray detail of the fly’s being from the reader. Karl Shapiro utilizes imagery and figurative language to express the underlying beauty and repulsion of an otherwise benign fly. First, Shapiro utilizes imagery to express the intricacies of the fly’s life. At one point, the author notes, “The smoking mountain of my food” as from the perception of the fly. The very nature of the object, a dish of food, becomes a grand and intimidating device in the eyes of the fly. To scale such as structure would be no great feat for the fly, though mounting it would remain an element of status and grace from which to observe the world; the desire to seek out this beauty instills a degree of empathy within the reader for the fly. Likewise, the author describes the aftermath of a chemical insecticide directed toward the fly, noting “The corpses strewn like raisins in the dust.” referring to the dead flies. This passage seeks to simultaneously undermine and underline the act of the flies’ victimizer (the narrator). From this …show more content…
The development of mountains in mounds and battlefields on the bathroom floor, from a kiss of settlement to a mundane fester of utter terror, the author shows how even the most benign of operations hold a certain degree of intrigue, given the right perspective. This idea encourages all people to slow down and bask in aww at the world’s many intricacies. From the setting of a watch to the tossing of a coin, all actions hold some deeper mechanics and luster. All things are beautiful and horrifying in their own mundane sort of