If the Epical story has, according to critic Eileen Baldeshwiler, ‘a decisive ending that sometimes affords universal insight,’ the Lyrical short story, by contrast, ‘relies for the most part on the open ending.’ Instead of focusing on plot, the Lyrical story is distinguished by its emphasis on a central recurring image or symbol, around which the narrative revolves, and from which it acquires an open and flexible meaning. An obvious example of this open or flexible meaning can be found in Mansfield’s short masterpiece, ‘The Fly’. Here, the image of the fly being tortured by the old man (‘the boss’) can be interpreted in various contradictory ways (symbolising the boss’s previous relationship with his son; allowing a form of revenge on the world; demonstrating the boss’s lack of grief; betraying the boss’s repression of grief). By being ‘open’, the symbol doesn’t insist on one reading, or meaning, but allows for many. It remains unexplained, and unresolved. And once established – usually early on in the story – the image, though returned to and re-interpreted several times, remains externally static.