They Would Never Hurt A Fly Analysis

To dive into the psyche of a killer is a daunting task, and to understand it is near impossible. A human desensitized to the point where the killing of another living being is easily justified; or worse, an act that brings them joy. In the novel They Would Never Hurt a fly, Slavenka Drakulić speculates how placing an ordinary person in the role of power and influence can create a recipe for moral disaster.
Goran Jelisić was born into a working class Serbian family in the small town of Bijeljina, Bosnia. Generally liked by his community, Jelisić was calm fisherman described as “a nice and quiet man, somebody who for sure would never hurt a fly, let alone people”(Drakulić 72) by a fellow fisherman. In May of 1992, Jelisić was convicted of the

brutal executions of thirteen prisoners. He himself admitted to thirty-one counts of murder (although the real number of those he had killed was closer to a hundred) all within an eighteen-day span. Drakulić ventures deep into the idea that he was byproduct of situational circumstances. Being exposed to the horrors of war, the position of power, and the freedom of unaccountability created a pathological monster out Goran. A soul with no sense of purpose finally finds a sense of belonging, although in the form of dehumanizing prisoners. The less human that the prisoners seem to him, the more justified he feels in executing them in cold blood. Slavenka alludes to this idea early in the chapter, “…it never occurred to him that he could feel anything for the fish. It is the law of nature that rules, and fish are lower beings, he told her. If not, they would be catching us.”( Drakulić 71)
Jelisić is a sad soul, a victim of circumstances not under his control. Would any other human willingly commit heinous crimes much like him? Most likely not, but evidence suggests under authoritative order and newfound power that one is easily coerced into torturing another human physically and psychologically. The infamous “Stanford Prison Experiment”, in which young adults were split into roles of ‘guards’ and ‘prisoners’, is a perfect example of how power can be used to exemplify cognitive dissonance. In less than a week, the ‘guards’ had turned into sadistic creatures, stripping the ‘prisoners’ of their names to dehumanize them. The experiment was shut down in 6 days, but provided meaningful insight to the impressionability that power and institutional backing has on behavior. This all directly correlates with Goran Jelisić, who felt a sense of belonging through the acts of sickening war crimes.
The internal conflict of power was one that Jelisić unfortunately succumbed to; leaving a merciless killer in place of what was once a well-respected fisherman. While he must be held accountable for his disgusting conduct, we must investigate the situational factors(social patterns, outside influences, etc.) that transformed Jelisić into the delusional monster he is.