Summary
Orestes and Electra steal through the throne-room, hiding from two sentry soldiers. One soldier comments on how bad the flies are and the other responds that it's because of the dead. They hear a creak and the first suggests it’s Agamemnon sitting on his old throne. The two talk about whether or not the dead actually come back, and the first soldier smacks the second’s face to kill flies. He also muses that if there were ghost flies there would be millions of them.
Aegistheus and Clytemnestra enter and order the soldiers to leave. Clytemnestra asks why Aegistheus is troubled, and he says the people were close to shaking off their remorse. He adds that he is sorry for rebuking Electra, but Clytemnestra had no problem with that.
Aegistheus sighs that he is tired and has been upholding the remorse of the entire city for fifteen years. He doesn’t even feel his own remorse and wishes he did. Clytemnestra tries to stroke his face but Aegistheus is shocked; they cannot do that before the specter of Agamemnon. Clytemnestra is puzzled and asks him if he doesn’t remember making that whole fable up.
Aegistheus nods but says he is still tired and feels like an empty shell. He would “give my kingdom to be able to shed a tear” (96). Clytemnestra exits.
Zeus enters and Aegistheus does not recognize him at first. Zeus walks up to his statue and chuckles at the hideous likeness. Aegistheus tells Zeus of his weariness and Zeus scoffs that he has not paid heavily enough. If he lets himself be killed, he will be King in eternity. Aegistheus asks if someone is planning on killing him and Zeus assents.
When Aegistheus realizes it is Orestes, he is resigned and says that he won’t do anything about it; he is tired and does not want to follow Zeus’ plans. Zeus laughs at this rebelliousness and tells him that of course he will obey in the end.
Miserable, Aegistheus asks if Agamemnon was warned. Zeus angrily retorts that he cares for Aegistheus more than Agamemnon, but Aegistheus replies that Zeus cares even more for Orestes. Zeus refutes this as well, and says all crimes do not displease him equally. He committed his own crime of making men free, but Aegistheus’ crime served his ends. He likes crimes that pay and people who do not defy him and wallow in regret.
Aegistheus says Orestes will not feel any remorse and Zeus agrees, but the god is frustrated that this will be a carefree crime. He does not want this humiliation, and orders Aegistheus to marshal his men. Aegistheus is reluctant but Zeus scolds him, saying he made the King in his image and they both share the bitter knowledge that men are actually free and that they’ve spent their time trying to convince such men otherwise.
Aegistheus mournfully comments that he’s come to see himself only as others see him. Zeus understands.
Zeus warns Aegistheus to remember that they both have a passion for order and they must stop Orestes, but Aegistheus argues that this will not be easy if Orestes already knows he is free, for “a free man in a city acts like a plague-spot” (102). Aegistheus suggests Zeus simply fell Orestes with a thunderbolt, but Zeus tells him the secret that the gods are powerless against a man who knows in his heart that he is free.
Zeus departs, and before Aegistheus can leave as well, Electra and Orestes spring forward. Aegistheus sees who Orestes is, and says calmly that he will not defend himself. Orestes strikes him down. Aegistheus staggers and asks Orestes if he has remorse. Orestes states that of course he does not because he is doing the right thing.
Electra marvels at how grotesque a dying man is. Orestes strikes him again even as he curses and falls. Aegistheus murmurs that Orestes must beware the flies. Orestes orders Electra to tell him where the Queen’s room is.
Electra is suddenly hesitant and says she does not think the Queen should be harmed. Orestes leaves his sister behind. Electra frets, wondering why she wanted this to happen but doesn’t seem to want it now. She tells herself she does want the King dead and for the Queen to die. She hears a scream and realizes it is done, but wonders why her heart seems to be a cold block of ice. More screams sound, and Electra is filled with glee and fear.
Orestes returns and Electra throws herself into his arms. She says she is not frightened but is drunk with joy. Orestes will not tell her exactly what happened, but says Clytemnestra died cursing them.
Orestes feels as if a new day is beginning for him. He is happy to have Electra and their tie of blood; they are both free and have life. Electra thinks he looks strange and comments that she doesn't truly feel free. Orestes replies that he knows he did his deed and will carry that burden as his freedom; he knows he has a path now.
Electra worries that the torches are not bright and she cannot see Orestes anymore. His voice cuts her. She begins to wail that she sees the flies; she hears their wings and soon they will cover her. Orestes asks why they matter and she cries that they are the Furies, the goddesses of remorse.
Orestes and Electra hear the voice of the people pounding on the door. Orestes tells Electra to take him to Apollo’s shrine to take shelter. Tomorrow, he says, he will address his people.
Analysis
In the second scene of Act II, Sartre provides more insight into all of the characters. There is Aegistheus, tired of maintaining his delusions and obeying Zeus; Clytemnestra, who lacks maternal impulses and revels in her guilt; Zeus, who rages that he cannot control Orestes or any other truly free man, and who laments crimes that do not serve his purposes; Electra, who quickly regrets her brother’s violent actions, clearly preferring to dream and talk rather than act; and Orestes, who commits two murders with zero remorse given his complete and utter embrace of the existentialist vision of freedom.
We will start with Aegistheus. Clearly, the man conspired with his lover to murder the King and usurp his throne, but as critic Charles D. Minahen wonders, “is it a blamable act and by what standards is it to be judged? [Zeus’s] apparent approval of it, since it served his own ends of enslavement, gives it divine sanction, and the failure of the people to intervene leaves it unopposed at the level of the society.” Something else to ponder is the idea that perhaps this action of Aegistheus would be similar to that of Orestes, especially as the former also tells Clytemnestra that he has no remorse. However, Aegistheus does not own the action and complies with Zeus’s plan to avoid responsibility for it. Interestingly, Aegistheus’ truly reprehensible act, it can be argued, is the hoax he plays on the people, “his exploitation of collective guilt by means of the cult of remorse he has hypocritically imposed upon Argos.”
Clytemnestra is a woman who conspired to kill her husband so her lover could take the throne, abandoned her son to mercenaries, treats her daughter like trash, and upholds the hoax played on the Argives. However, she is full of remorse; she indulges in “masochistic self-denunciation aimed at eliciting the contempt and pity of others.”
As for Electra, once Orestes does the deed her weakness is exposed. She rages and dreams and plans but cannot stomach the reality of revenge. For her, as Minahen says, the murders “[represent] the death of an illusion, not the birth of something new.” Electra wears a mantle of righteous indignation but is ultimately not authentic according to Existentialism (this is what Sartre deems “bad faith,” and we will discuss it in the final analysis). This is made abundantly clear when the flies begin to persecute Electra and leave Orestes alone.
Orestes embodies Sartre’s summation of his philosophy: “existence precedes essence.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy explains, “In contrast to other entities, whose essential properties are fixed by the kind of entities they are, what is essential to a human being—what makes her who she is—is not fixed by her type but by what she makes of herself, who she becomes. The fundamental contribution of existential thought lies in the idea that one's identity is constituted neither by nature nor by culture, since to 'exist' is precisely to constitute such an identity.” Now that Orestes has acted, he exists. He proclaims, “It is not night; a new day is dawning. We are free, Electra. I feel as if I’d brought you into life and I, too, had just been born” and “I am free, Electra. Freedom has crashed down on me like a thunderbolt” (105). He knows what he has done is just, and tells the dying Aegistheus, “Remorse? Why should I feel remorse? I am only doing what is right” (102). Orestes committed to his action and that is all that matters: “Commitment—or engagement—is thus ultimately the basis for an authentically meaningful life, that is, one that answers to the existential condition of being human and does not flee that condition by appeal to an abstract system of reason or divine will.”
