The fly in the spare room.

Pollywannabe

Pollywannabe

New member
I know this is a random question. But while I was watching LWW today, I noticed when Lucy first walks into the spare room, she looks at one of the windows and sees a fly/bug die. Why would they add this into the movie? Haha random question but it's still been bothering me. Symbolism maybe?
 
Actually, the narration of the book menioens that,

"And shortly after that they looked into a room that was
quite empty except for one big wardrobe.... There was nothing
else in the room at all except a dead blue-bottle on the
window sill. (LWW, p. 11) "

The fly in question is a blue-bottle. It is confusing as it is a species native to England.
 
A fly has six legs, which is how many that Lucy, Peter and Susan had...combined. Think about it....yeah.... :D
 
Sven-El said:
Actually, the narration of the book menioens that,

"And shortly after that they looked into a room that was
quite empty except for one big wardrobe.... There was nothing
else in the room at all except a dead blue-bottle on the
window sill. (LWW, p. 11) "

The fly in question is a blue-bottle. It is confusing as it is a species native to England.
Click to expand...

Ahhhh thank you so much!!! Haha it's been so annoying!
 
I don't think there was much symbolism to it except to indicate that the room hadn't been cared for in some time. The house had a staff to sweep and tend it, and dusting dead fly carcasses off windowsills would have been one of the first things they took care of. The fact that the dead fly was there bespoke neglect - that room wasn't visited often, or at all, by the staff.
 
Others have answered this question far better than I could have done. However, I have an audio production of LWW, dramatised by Brian Sibley, in which Stephen Thorne plays Aslan, Maurice Denham Professor Kirke, Rosemary Martin is Jadis, Neil Jeffrey Peter, Abigail Docherty Susan, Henry and Camilla Power as Edmund and Lucy, Norman Bird Mr Tumnus, Stephen Harrold as the dwarf, David Goodland and Polly March as Mr and Mrs Beaver, Steve Hodson as Maugrim, and Michael Deacon as Father Christmas. In this version Edmund draws Susan and Lucy's attention to the dead bluebottle, much to their disgust! I only mention this in passing, as I am unsure whether this version is familiar to members of the Dancing Lawns.
 
I personally think it is included in the book and film in order to add a certain realism. I mean, in life some things around us happen and don't really signify anything... i just think its there to make the story realistic...

...orrr maybe the the blue-bottle being dead is symbolic for time. Time is different in Narnia and the real world and perhaps the dead fly is a little hint or link to this...

...or perhaps just that the room hadn't been used in a long time and not cleaned, as though Narnia had been forgotten and yet is still there... waiting...

just my musings... :rolleyes:
 
How can you all be so BLIND??? It was a talking fly that made it through the wardrobe into our world but died in a futile attempt to find someone to come defeat the White Witch, buzzing against the glass over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and......<cough> <cough> <gasp>.....

Alas, poor Buzzy, I knew him well.... :D
 
But the fly didn't *know* he was entering another world...

As a writer, Lewis was fond of putting in little realistic details like that. Very much a mark of modern writing - the classic legend form (including fairy tales, which are a variation on them) didn't include such minor things.
 
LOL! You guys are great! And yeah, I didn't know that it was a type of fly when I read the book. I just thought it was trying to describe the color of the bottle thing or whatever. So thanks!
 
Not likey a Narnia fly. Flys are not common in the winter time. And after a hundred years it would be very hard to find a fly in Naria.
 
Sven-El said:
Actually, the narration of the book menioens that,

"And shortly after that they looked into a room that was
quite empty except for one big wardrobe.... There was nothing
else in the room at all except a dead blue-bottle on the
window sill. (LWW, p. 11) "

The fly in question is a blue-bottle. It is confusing as it is a species native to England.
Click to expand...
That makes total sense!
 
Sven-El said:
Actually, the narration of the book menioens that,

"And shortly after that they looked into a room that was
quite empty except for one big wardrobe.... There was nothing
else in the room at all except a dead blue-bottle on the
window sill. (LWW, p. 11) "

The fly in question is a blue-bottle. It is confusing as it is a species native to England.
Click to expand...
Strange, today in September 2021, I was thinking abt that fly in the wardrobe room. possibly 'fly' is a reference to the Witch, 'Lord of Flies', Beelzebub? is it a foreshadowing of what is to come for Satan?
 
Interestingly, the book does not describe the wardrobe as dusty, which it would be if the room were rarely cleaned. In the movie, the cloth covering the wardrobe should have likewise been very dusty had no one been in it to clean it regularly.

However, the fly still seems to fit the description of how little used the room was, or rather, how little there was in the room. The other rooms described in the book were filled with other things. In this, it was just a wardrobe and a dead fly on the window sill--a room that was of no consequence to the children, except Lucy who was just curious about the wardrobe.

MrBob
 
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