Summary
The scene is the city square in Argos. A huge statute of Zeus with white eyes and smears of blood on his cheeks stands in the center. A procession of black-clad old women enters and makes libations to the statue.
Orestes and his tutor enter. The tutor is annoyed because he is trying to ask the women about directions and all they do is spit at him. He complains of the heat, the emptiness, and the people who seem panicked and terrified and scurry away. Orestes simply says he was born here.
The tutor grimly laughs that he ought to not brag about it, and that everyone is so inhospitable. He tries another door and receives a rude response, then turns to an idiot boy and asks where Aegistheus the King is. The boy scampers off.
The tutor points out an old, bearded man who has been following them. Orestes does not believe him but the tutor says he’s never seen a beard like that before except on a statue of Zeus. Orestes responds that the man is probably just a traveler like them. Unconvinced, the tutor begins to recount where he saw the man, but interrupts himself to complain about the flies. He comments bitterly about how disgusting they are – how big like locusts, how persistent, how grotesque.
The old man, whom the audience knows to be Zeus, approaches the travelers. He comments amiably that these flies are only a trifle bigger than normal ones, and that they came fifteen years ago due to the stench of carrion.
The tutor asks who he is, and Zeus replies that he is Demetrios from Athens. As they talk, screams emanate from the palace. The tutor tells Orestes that they ought to go, but Orestes shushes him. Zeus explains it is Dead Man’s Day today. Orestes muses that he seems familiar with the customs of the city and Zeus replies that he was there the day the victorious Agamemnon sailed home. Argos had no flies then; it was a happy, sunlit town. Agamemnon’s queen, Clytemnestra, came out to meet him with Aegistheus, her lover. Agamemnon was a worthy man but he had irritated the people by banning public executions. They could have stepped in when they heard the king screaming in agony the next day, but all they did was listen, roll their eyes in a sort of ecstasy, and act as if they were in heat.
Orestes replies that now the murderer is on the throne and that he thought the gods were just. Zeus responds that he cannot blame the gods; besides, they sent the flies as a symbol. Also, as he calls over an old woman, he says they did something else as well.
The old woman explains she is not in mourning but everyone wears black in Argos. Zeus asks what she did when the king was being murdered, and she shudders and says her husband was in the field and she bolted her doors. Zeus needles her and says that she must have peeped through the curtains and felt a little tingle in her loins; that night she must have had a grand time with her old man. The old woman begs him to stop and asks if he is one of the Dead.
Zeus laughs and says she shouldn’t trouble herself as to who he is; rather, she should repent. She replies that she and all of her family repent all the time. He sneers that she indeed has a “bitchy odor of repentance” (54) about her.
After she runs away, Zeus tells the travelers, “we have there the real thing, the good old piety of yore, rooted in terror” (54). Orestes asks what kind of man he is, and Zeus replies that he ought not to care, as they are talking about the gods. He asks if Orestes thinks Aegistheus should have been struck down.
Orestes begins to say he should have been, then corrects himself and says why should he care since he is a stranger? He does ask Zeus if Aegistheus feels contrition, and Zeus replies that he’d be surprised, but the whole city is repenting. Every year on the day of the king’s murder, they keep the festival of death.
Orestes is confused and asks “Demetrios” why Zeus and the gods seem to delight in this reeking, blood-smeared, empty place with creeping citizens hiding in dark rooms and issuing bloodcurdling screams. Zeus replies that the gods have their secrets and their sorrows.
Orestes then inquires about Electra, Agamemnon’s daughter, and what she thinks of this. Zeus says she is only a child and that there was a son too, but he is dead. He adds that some think the boy is still alive but that he wishes he were dead because it would be problematic if he appeared in this city. Zeus pauses and asks for Orestes’s name.
Orestes introduces himself as Philebus of Corinth, traveling to improve his mind. Zeus smiles and says that if Orestes ever did show up, he’d tell him to let these sinners be; they need to repent and he ought to tiptoe away. They need their hardened sins and their guilty consciences. Besides, what could Orestes give them? Only “the gray monotony of provincial life, and the boredom – ah, the soul-destroying boredom – of long days of mild content” (57).
Orestes starts to respond, then stops. The men eye each other. Zeus bids them farewell, but before he goes he explains that he knows a parlor trick to make the flies leave him alone. He recites a few nonsense words and they fall down. Orestes is amazed.
After Zeus departs, the tutor warns Orestes that the man knows who he is. Orestes asks if he really is a man. The tutor scoffs that Orestes has forgotten his teachings; there are only men, not gods. He then asks what Orestes’ plans are here.
Orestes solemnly recounts his father’s murder and how he was taken away as a baby and has no memories of this place. When he says he has no memories, the tutor is indignant and reminds Orestes of all the memories he’s given him – memories of their travels, of the palaces and temples and shrines.
Orestes bitterly acknowledges them but says that a mangy dog has more memories of home than he does. Annoyed, the tutor responds with all the learning he’s provided for Orestes, how Orestes has good looks and youth as well as “no family ties, no religion, and no calling; you are free to turn your hand to anything. But you know better than to commit yourself – and there lies your strength” (59).
Orestes knows that he is favored and appreciates it; he knows he is free and his mind is his own. Yes, he has no memories, which are luxuries for others, but that is his lot.
This is not his city, he sighs, and there seems to be nothing to detain them here. The tutor approves of this and says all he would do is wallow in repentance. Orestes understands, but it would be his repentance. After a moment, he decides they ought to go and stop luxuriating in others’ heat. The tutor is relieved and begins to say he was afraid of something, but stops. Orestes presses him to continue. The tutor admits he thought Orestes might want to oust Aegistheus and take his place.
Orestes muses on this and replies that the time for that has past, and that it would serve no purpose. These people are of no concern to him; he does not know them, he does not share their remorse. However, if he could – even by a crime – have their memories, hopes, and fears, he might do it. The tutor, frightened, hushes him.
Electra, carrying an ashcan, appears. She does not see them and walks up to the statue of Zeus. Electra sneers at the statue and claims it can’t frighten her. She mocks the old women who praise him and rubs her body on the marble. She laughs that she is young and clean and smells alive; he must hate that. She knows she isn’t strong enough to pull him down and that all she can do is spit at him, but someday her brother will return and slice the statue in half. Inside everyone will see he is just cheap wood; he won’t even bleed.
Suddenly Electra espies Orestes and he tells her not to be alarmed. She states that she isn’t, and introduces herself. He says he is Philebus, and tells his tutor to leave. He looks at Electra and comments that she is beautiful, but she scoffs that she is only a servant. He is surprised.
Electra sighs that she has to wash the stained and smelly undergarments of the King and Queen; she points out her chapped hands. Orestes asks what else she has to do and she replies that she has to empty the ashcan. She brags about throwing the trash at the feet of the statue but then begs Orestes not to say anything. He promises not to.
Electra comments that she is beaten enough already. Orestes asks if she would run away and she sighs that she doesn't have the courage and cannot face the road. She has no friends to help her here. However, she whispers, she is waiting for someone. Before saying more, though, she asks Orestes about Corinth.
Orestes talks about how pretty it is and Electra marvels at this. She cannot picture a life where people are happy and walk around the streets together. The girls of Corinth have friends and go to dances, the people are not consumed by remorse. Electra wonders if a young man from Corinth whose father was killed by his mother and her lover and whose sister was treated like a slave would do anything about it.
The two hear a sound and Clytemnestra comes in. Electra is surprised that Orestes pulls back. The Queen tells Electra that the King has ordered her to get ready for the ceremony; today she is a princess, not a scullion maid. Electra scoffs at this and retorts that the King will put his arm around her and whisper threats in her ear like he always does. It sickens her to kiss his hand and call him father.
Clytemnestra is unperturbed by her daughter’s anger but tells her she will not tell her what to do if Electra is determined to bring ruin on herself. She even sees herself in Electra’s smoldering eyes.
Electra gags at this and asks Orestes/Philebus if that is true. The Queen asks who he is, and seems visibly relieved when he says his name is Philebus. She asks about his parents and he says he is on his way to enlist in the army.
The Queen asks why he stopped here, as most travelers avoid their pestilential city. She asks if he knows of the great crime and how she, the Queen, bears a load of guilt. Electra interjects and tells him not to mind her mother, as “the Queen is indulging in our national pastime, the game of public confession” (68). Everyone knows each other’s sins, and everyone has lost interest in them.
Clytemnestra rebukes her daughter, saying only she can speak ill of her own remorse. Electra laughs and tells Philebus to judge people only on the sins they cop to, not the ones they don’t. The Queen merely remembers how she felt the day Agamemnon was killed, and how she had a son who would be about Philebus’s age now.
Electra adds that she has a daughter as well, and Clytemnestra sighs that one day Elecrta will have her own inexpiable crime and it will always be a dead weight holding her back.
After a moment more of squabbling with her daughter, Clytemnestra looks at Orestes/Philebus and says his presence seems to bode ill and she wishes he were gone. She turns to her daughter and admits she has no love for her, but she ought not to provoke Aegistheus.
Electra announces she will not attend the rite. She tells Orestes/Philebus what happens on the anniversary of Agamemnon’s death: the people gather at the tomb, the stone is rolled away, and the dead flood into the city and return to their homes. The people are at their mercy. Electra states that these are not her dead.
Clytemnestra threatens that the King will bring Electra to the rite by force, so the young woman agrees to go, and departs to get ready. Before Clytemnestra departs, she tells Philebus to leave Argos.
Zeus sidles up to Orestes and tells him he can procure two horses for him to leave, but after Orestes says he has decided to stay, Zeus offers to be his guide in the city. He says he will be like a father to him, and he must tell him of his woes. He leads Orestes away.
Analysis
The Flies is a fascinating, albeit strange, play. It is a contemporary retelling of a classic Greek tale, a rebuke to Vichy France, and a study in the basic principles of Existentialism. It has been described as more of a “thesis statement” rather than a work of art, but its themes do resonate and its tone and mood are delightfully grotesque. In regards to the play’s historical context, it is unclear just how pointed a commentary the play was intended to be about the German occupation and Vichy regime, but it is clear that Sartre knew what he was doing. The guise of the Greek drama allowed him to stage this play in the first place, something which would undoubtedly have been forbidden if the play with its corrupt leaders and oppressed people was rooted in contemporary times.
The foundation of The Flies is the Greek myth about Orestes murdering his mother Clytemnestra and her lover, a narrative which for many centuries was a favorite subject of many literary tragedies. In Sartre's play, the old story is filled with a new philosophical meaning. The French existentialist uses the ancient heroic image of Orestes to analyze contemporary problems of existence.
The Flies is a drama in three acts. The composition of the play is simple and straightforward. In the first act, the main actors appear on the stage (Orestes, Zeus, Electra, and Clytemnestra), the background is given, and a problem is indicated (possible revenge by Orestes for the murder of his father, Agamemnon). The second act is full of action: Aegistheus intimidates the people with the dead; Electra tries to tell the inhabitants of Argos that one can live in happiness and joy; Zeus helps Aegistheus rile the crowd into fear; Electra is expelled from the city and sentenced to death; and Orestes opens up to his sister and decides to kill his mother and the King. The events in the second act escalate and end with the deaths of Clytemnestra and Aegistheus. After accomplishing this just revenge, the siblings consider their past and future, the desired and real, and the world around them and their own lives. The third act is a chain of philosophical arguments devoted to the problem of human freedom; freedom in The Flies is embodied in the main character, Orestes.
Looking at the first act specifically, it consists of Orestes’ arrival in Argos disguised as “Philebus of Corinth,” his dialogue with the mysterious figure who the audience knows to be Zeus, and his first meeting with his sister, Electra. It also provides the history of Argos over the last fifteen years: Orestes’ and Electra’s mother, Queen Clytemnestra, along with her lover Aegistheus, arranged to kill her husband King Agamemnon on his return from war; Orestes was to be killed but benevolent Athenians rescued him and no one has heard anything of him since; Electra is treated horribly by her mother and Aegistheus and dreams of revenge; and Argos is beset by a plague of flies and has an annual celebration of the day of Agamemnon’s death where, putatively, all of the spirits of the dead arise and haunt the living. Orestes is now returning to Argos due primarily to curiosity, but eventually decides that he will stay to seek his revenge.
One of Sartre’s strengths in this work is his unsettling depiction of the city of Argos. It is blazingly, unrelentingly hot and empty, its citizens wear only black, and the sounds of “shrieks... hideous, blood-curdling shrieks” (55) echo down the avenues. The flies, massive and ceaselessly buzzing, are disgusting persecutors of the “creeping, half-human creatures beating their breasts in darkened rooms” (55). The tutor describes it as a “nightmare city” (49); Zeus calls it “a dead-and-alive city, a carrion city plagued by flies” (56). The critic Robert Willard Artinian writes, “Argos itself and even [Zeus] are portrayed in derogatory terms making reference to garbage, disease, and rottenness... The very presence of the flies alludes to the putrescence of the town.” The people within are inert and slovenly because they have a “common culpability” in the death of Agamemnon. The “gross and base images used by Sartre in Les Mouches fit in with other metaphorical structures designed to communicate the horror of the present world, particularly in the eyes of one who has made the commitment to engagement.”
Before this engagement, though, Orestes is reluctant to claim Argos as his own, and tells Electra of how other places are light and lovely and filled with happy people. This is the place he was born, he says, but he struggles to feel a connection to it.
Indeed, Orestes struggles to feel a connection with anything or anyone. He rues the fact that a dog has a deeper connection to its master than he does with anyone. He acknowledges that he has been lucky in his travels and learning, but that he is ultimately alone. He feels the want of memories, but begins to see how they are not altogether important: “For memories are luxuries reserved for people who own houses, cattle, fields, and servants. Whereas I -! I’m as free as air, thank God. My mind’s my own, gloriously aloof” (59). As critic Pierre Horn notes, “Existentialism... posits that one’s past has no influence on one’s future because there is no cosmic time. The present is important since it is a time of anguish and of choice…” Orestes has not yet taken his decisive action to proclaim his freedom, but he is nearer to doing so.
