The article deals with three aspects of literary and artistic representations of flies and their connection to questions of violence and power. The first part analyses the changes in the perception of flies which added a completely new dimension to painterly techniques through technical enlarging devices and photography. A monumentalisation of the fly went hand in hand with its increasing individualisation. In the second section, relevant texts by Elias Canetti and Robert Musil are used to show that huge catastrophes such as war and genocide can be depicted through the imagery of the fly. The insect proves to be a diversion through which it is possible to speak analogically of the most terrible things. In the third part, an anti-chronological extension of the analysis of political power constellations takes place, specifically with regard to the Tse-Tse fly and its significance for Europe's colonial claim to power.
