Analysis of the David Ignatow poem I Killed A Fly

I Killed A Fly by David Ignatow

I killed a fly

and laid my weapon next to it

as one lays the weapon of a dead hero

beside his body—the fly

that tried to mount the window

to its top; that was born out of a swamp

to die in a bold effort beyond itself,

and I am the one who brought it to an end.

Tired of the day and with night coming on

I lay my body down beside the fly.

The poem begins with a trivial act. Perhaps to a Dalai Lama type, killing a fly might give one a pause, but for most of us killing a fly is an act of hygiene. The flies begin life as maggots nourished and thriving in the purification of rotting flesh or defecation. There is just not much to grieve over when such a disease carrying pest is killed.

THE FLY

God in his wisdom made the fly

And then forgot to tell us why.

By Ogden Nash

I remember back in the 1950’s going to my grandfather’s café, a little place where he sold gasoline, comic books, loaves of bread, and had a short counter where he served hamburgers, coffee, and Coca-Cola. There was no air conditioning then. At this time in our history, people tolerated flies, but keeping them to a minimum was still considered a plus. I was 7 years old and given the joyful job of taking a fly swatter and killing as many as possible.

“Kill ‘em,” my grandfather would shout. “Murder ‘em!”

Now when I read this Ignatow poem I am reminded of those joyful days when I whacked and slapped at these flying

In this poem the speaker equates this trivial act of swinging the fly swatter and killing the Musca domestic. When he places the swatter next to the fly’s crushed remains it reminds him of a conquering hero laying his weapon down after defeating his enemy.

The speaker in the poem has some admiration for his defeated foe. The fly made a gallant effort to escape. The speaker, the killer notes that this fly “tried to mount the window to its top. . .”

The speaker, and killer takes little pride in his victory, noting that the fly died because of a “. . . bold effort beyond itself, /and I am the one who brought it to an end.”

The fly was brave, and seemed to follow the advice of Dylan Thomas about not going gentle into that good night, but instead raging against the dying of the light.

Maybe the speaker in the poem is hypersensitive. Perhaps the speaker in this poem is a drama queen, seeing significance in this trivial act. Then again, it is possible the speaker in this poem sees that all life is amazing, and to cut life short, even the life of a nasty fly, is still a petite crime. Life is too short when it is long, and death is forever.

It is obvious that in this poem the speaker is weighing the significance of life and death. The taking of the life of this nasty fly reminds him of his own eventual demise. The killing of the fly reminds the speaker that his own life is temporary.

Notice the speaker’s line 9: “Tired of the day and with night coming on.” What might he mean by being "tired of the day?” I don’t know, but what I think is that he is tired of life, wearied by life.

I remember once my friend Father Jim Taylor asked me to visit weekly with a parishioner who was dying from colon cancer. The lady was very afraid to die. She had even cut herself off from people she loved because she was afraid of catching some cold or something and, in her weakened state, having that common illness put her in the grave. The lady asked me about death and explained her fear.

I told her that I had known several people who were going through the dying process and everyone one of them had, eventually, been ready to die, and actually expressed a wish that death would come quickly.

Ms. Georgiana did not believe me, but, in the end, she too reached the point where she was ready to die and was looking forward to death. I don’t know if the speaker in the poem was eager to die, or just resigned to death, but for whatever reason, the speaker in the poem identifies with the death of this fly, and he too is ready: “I lay my body down beside the fly.”

Soon, or late, it is the end for us all. Death is our end, and death is the fact that focuses us on life. Yes, some waste life. Perhaps all of us waste at least part of our life. But even the fly had a will to live, a determination that is to be admired. And even the death of the fly is, in its way a sad, inevitable, tragic event.