Mansfield's "The Fly" has many ways to be interpreted. My own personal interpretation is...
Woodfield is Mansfield in the story. She wants the world to remember what happend during WWI. She feels like the people have forgotten about the lost generation already. The Fly in this case is the lost generation. They lost there lives after surviving battle after battle until the end when that bullet with their name on it finally gets them. This is represented by The Boss (The War) dropping ink on the fly over and over again until fate finally catches up with it.
This story focuses on death and loss of life. I also feel that it is really wants people to focus on remembrance. Remember the loved ones that we have lost. Life can be short and you never know when that ink drop will find you.
I agree that Mansfield wrote certain things into the story so that we would remember the people who died in the war. However, I don't feel so much that Woodfield is Mansfield. I think that he is just a character she wrote in to bring up the dead son. While she wants us to remember the one's that were lost, I think what she wants us to see more is the suffering that they went through. This can be seen with the ink and the Boss. The soldiers who fought were just beaten down until finally they couldn't take it anymore and died. They may not have understood what they were fighting for just like the fly didn't know where the ink was coming from or why the Boss was dripping it on top of him.
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