Jean-Paul Sartre’s The Flies 1943 Les Mouches 3 acts retelling of the Orestes, Elektra, Clytemnestra myths

o Aeschylus’ The Libation Bearers, Sophocles’ Electra, Euripides’ Elektra Queen Clytemnestra & her lover Aegistheus kill King Agamemnon the People knew BUT did/said nothing Orestes = taken away at 3 years old, tutored, travels the world

o QUEST : for personal identity for self-determination for purpose

CLASSICAL DRAMA: o Tragic Hero (see below)o RECOGNITION :

this play has an arc the self-discovery of Orestes’ freedom his self-determination his realization of his freedom, self-determination, existential existence

o CONFLICT between Protagonist (Orestes) & Antagonist (Zeus)o CONFLICT within Orestes to come to terms with his freedomo CRISIS = Act 3 showdown between Zeus & Orestes at Apollo’s templeo Catharsis: fear & guilty consciences of the people, reinforced by rituals (plays)

NAZIS: o the Nazi occupation of France, Vichy governmento Clytemnestra = Vichy government, willingly in line w/occupierso Aegistheus = Nazi occupation, killed rightful rulero (Zeus?)o Argos = occupied France under control of wrongful ruler (Aeg.)o quarantine – to prevent others from catching the plague/diseaseo play = opposition movement, French Resistance, anti-fascism

(fascism = repression of opposition, dictatorial rulers, extreme nationalism)o message to French people: you are free, to stand up for right/rights, rise up against oppressorso For Sartre, the people of Argos represent "the old collective power that is enslaved and

propagandized" ("Jean-Paul Sartre"). o Although Aegistheus, who with his lover the Queen Clytemnestra murdered her husband

Agamemnon fifteen years earlier when the latter returned home from the Trojan War, is ultimately responsible for creating pseudo-religious rituals that keep the populace focused on their abject sinfulness instead of recognizing their own freedom and power, the people themselves willingly cower within this miserable "comfort" zone (53, 54).

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BAD FAITH: o Sartre’s notion of choosing to be slave than freeo People of Argos: willingly accept the lies, willingly avoid the truth, willingly abdicate their freedom

& powero “What may possibly be called the psychology of Sartre is his study of the various means by which

man tries to evade the necessity of choosing and creating his existence. Man's dream is to become placidly immobile like a stone, insensitive. This is his fundamental cowardice, his desire to play the social comedy of conformity, to appear before all other men as one of them.” ("Jean-Paul Sartre")

FREEDOM: o (+)o no superstitions, prejudiceso no family tieso no religiono no destiny, calling, fate

free mind free to choose to do whatever you want (Orestes = afraid – wishes he had a path, a destiny…until Act 3)

o (-)o no commitment (b/c no destiny)o no emotional attachmento no childhood

CULTURE, EDUCATION: o frees the mind

from superstition from superstitious religion

no gods “smiling skepticism”

o (-)o culture, knowledge = “stones” acc. to Orestes (useless information, trivia)o the head & not the heart

ACTING: o 69, 71, 80, 81, 98, 103o 85 (literature)

SCAPEGOAT: o 94o Julius Caesaro Tragic Hero

no dead : o 82, 98 o only their own consciences

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– self-imprisonment, self-torture see Act 3

o Elektra: “…there’s nothing but your own shadows” (82)o Clyt. to Aeg.: control, all a “fable to impress your people” (98)

DESPAIR: o Orestes: “What they choose. They’re free; and human life begins on the far side of despair.” (123)o arises from the loneliness of existence

no gods only self

self-determination master of own fate

desert of the realo despair = the start of freedom

the birth pains to true existence SELF-DETERMINATION:

o Orestes: “….but I must blaze my own trail. For I, Zeus, a man, and every man must find out his own way.” (122)

o non-conformityo find own way, make own path

(Browning’s “The Road not Taken”) EXISTENTIAL HERO:

o alone, isolated (like Byron’s Promethean hero) -- http://emp.byui.edu/BruggerW/Byronic%20Hero.pdf Nietzsche’s Superman, challenging the status quo, ingrained values/beliefs, givens --

https://www.msu.edu/user/bradle45/nietzsche.htm o beyond the laws of gods, god, men, nature

no remorse no right or wrong

o (?) Is this freedom OR antisocial psycho

SC: o Mirror World : (122)

Isolation, loneliness = good being the disease, plague = good being the outcast = good (non-conformity)

o BC : the flies themselves the plague Orestes brings a different kind of plague, the plague of freedom from slavery/control, of self-

determination

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o 2 in 1 : Argos = a “dead-and-alive city” people are alive but dead on the inside, existing but not living, dead on the inside no fun, no laughter, no joy

o Purifying Sacrifice, scapegoat “guilt-stealer” role an insider who became an outsider (at 3), stranger now, takes on role

THE MATRIX: o 123, 124o Orestes : “The folks of Argos are my folk. I must open their eyes.o Zeus : “Poor people! Your gift to them will be a sad one; of loneliness and shame. You will tear from

their eyes the veils I had laid on them, and they will see their lives as they are, foul and futile, a barren boon.”

o Orestes : “Why, since it is their lot, should I deny them the despair I have in me?”o Zeus : “What will they make of it?”o Orestes : “What they choose. They’re free; and human life begins on the far side of despair.”o Zeus : “Well, Orestes, all this was foreknown. In the fullness of time a man was to come, to

announce my decline. And you’re that man, it seems….” The Matrix’s “desert of the real” the prophecy, The One and Neo’s struggle to come to terms with his destiny Orestes : “Could I myself have believed it? The words I speak are too big for my mouth, they

tear it; the load of destiny I bear is too heavy for my youth and has shattered it.”o Orestes : “Yes, my beloved, it’s true, I have taken all from you, and I have nothing to offer in return;

nothing but my crime. But think how vast a gift that is!” (124) (leave footprints in the world) Morpheus to Neo: no guarantees, nothing but The Truth

Orestes = Morpheus/Neo Zeus = Architect/Agent Smith

ZEUS vs. JUPITER: o Zeus = Greek, god of divine justice, arbiter of good vs. evilo Jupiter = Roman, here a departure from Greek goodnesso Sartre writes that he is the “god of flies and death”o Jupiter’s silly incantations w/flies (fly charming)o Electra @ statue, just wood & painto farce

undermines our respect for religious authority & the moral pronouncements passed down o ZeusJupiterGod/Christ = changes in man’s values that TUTOR mentions

FLIES: o = symbol

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o reminder to Argives’ of their sin/crimeo of their need for repentanceo bite: physical suffering along with mental suffering for atonemento bigger than normal flieso getting bigger, feeding on filth, death of city for 15 years

anti-RELIGION, Judaism, Catholicism: o farceo religion = repressive, repressive moralityo religion = superstitionso against concept of Original Sin, collective guilt/shame for crime didn’t commit

guilt = control guilt makes pious, repentant fear & repentance keep them from enjoying life fear & repentance keep them from challenging established order

o Orestes = Christ : removal of guilt from Original Sin takes all sins onto himself Messiah not as Electra (Jews, Judas) imagined, but as suffering Messiah

Sartre: Orestes replaces Christ, human action, no divinity necessary all of us can be our own saviors, self-determination

o The structure of the play mirrors Sartre's conception of the structure of freedom .

o In order to recognize one's freedom, one must let go of the past make a choice act on it then take responsibility for that decision

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PLOTACT I

15 years after the regicide of Agamemnon by Clytemnestra & Aegistheus Tutor complaining = 5 senses:

o sight, sound, smell, taste, touch vivid description sets scene brings in audience (beyond sight & sound- imagination) audience = revolted too, identifies w/Orestes’ decision

Women offering up gifts to Zeus’ statue Orestes = (18) traveling with his tutor, in disguise (Philebus), purpose = to return “home”

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o no one will give them directions, run away screaming, slamming doorso Idiot Boy talks to them, but he’s an idiot

Zeus = in disguise (Demetrios, fellow traveler) comes across as “a sardonic bully (like Q in Star Trek: The Next Generation)”

o thrives on the people’s repentance, self-loathing, needs to be neededo tells the background of the Flies

15 years ago Agamemnon’s return from Trojan War all Argives knew of their plan

said/did nothing were turned on by the violence

o (sex & violence intertwined in horror movies) “drawn by the stench of carrion” FLIES =

punishment by the gods to the Argives not to punish Aegistheus, but to teach the people a lesson “to point a moral” for their complicity in the crimes morality through fear their perpetual suffering = pleasing to the gods

o (Edmund Burke: “All evil needs to succeed is for good men to do nothing.”) uses old woman to illustrate

sshh, don’t talk about it (denial) makes excuses for not doing anything Catholic guilt :

o grandson (7) behaves, “never plays or laughs” b/c of “his original sin”o “the good old piety of yore, rooted in terror”o “working out their atonement”

blames Agamemnon : his “one great mistake” put a ban on public executions the need for people to see violence – bloodlust

o (rituals to tame it—executions, plays, sports, TV)o (civilization = bad idea; can’t civilize humans?)

Dead Man’s Day: each year, a man is chosen to scream in the palace to remind the people of the murder & their guilt (perpetual atonement/repentance)

o = like a play (DRAMA)o yearly reminder, reenactment, in the great hall of the palace

Argos state-of-the-union :

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o blood-smeared walls, swarms of flies, reek of shambles, stifling heat, empty streets, shrieks o Argives = half-human creatures,” creeping, beating their breasts in continual repentanceo “dead-and-alive city”o “a carrion city plagued by flies”

Zeus knows Philebus = Orestes, but doesn’t let on o hopes Orestes doesn’t come back to Argoso if he does, he’d leave these people to the atonement, won’t interfereo tells Philebus to get out of the cityo prophecy : if Philebus interferes = doom for the city

catharsis :o Zeus: “They have guilty consciences, they’re afraid—and fear and guilty consciences have a good

savor in the nostrils of the gods. Yes, the gods take pleasure in such poor souls.” (59) SARTRE satirizing gods, religion, Nazis, fascism

this & Zeus’ later “fly-charming” chant that sounds like child’s play “Abraxis, gala, gala…”

EXISTENTIALISM :o Zeus continues: “What, moreover, could you give them in exchange? Good digestions, the gray

monotony of provincial life, and the boredom—ah, the soul-destroying boredom—of long days of mild content.” (59)

IRONY :o Verbal : Zeus in his prophecy, his warnings, talks @ Orestes with Orestes; Orestes w/Electra,

Orestes with Clytemnestrao Dramatic : we know Zeus = Demetrios , Orestes = Philebus; Orestes w/Electra, Orestes with

Clytemnestra Orestes :

o no attachment, no “roots” no pasto no connection to this placeso feeling nostalgic, romanticized notions of “home”

Tutor’s philosophy :o human morals = arbitrary, relative, variable no commitment to such rules

no laws, religionso freedom

free of responsibility, commitment, duty EDUCATION:

o “smiling skepticism” – there’s nothing else but mankind, no godso Tutor has spent 10 years teaching Orestes @ the palaces, shrines, & temples of Greece

filling his head w/memories – philosophy, archeology (not of childhood, which Orestes misses, but of the world)

o (-) Orestes: “Palaces, statues, pillars—stones, stones, stones! Why, with all those stones in my head, am I not heavier?”

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o (+) Tutor: “culture” – human morality/values = arbitrary: “to make clear to you the infinite diversity of men’s opinions? And did I not remind you…how variable are human creeds and customs?” 61

o = WISDOM, FREEDOM wisdom of old age in young body mind = free

free from prejudice and superstition free from duty: from family ties, religion, calling/fate/destiny “you are free to turn your hand to anything”

Orestes = missing exactly these: family ties, religion, calling/fate/destiny (childhood)o EXISTENTIALISM :

the innate part of humans that wishes to be trapped the longing for ties that bind from freedom spaking as a child, illogical, immature

Orestes:o wishes he has a childhoodo an emotional attachment to Argos, the palace, the peopleo a destinyo EPOCH: 2 distinct lives, would have been a different persono left a “VOID” (63) within him, loneliness, emptiness

Orestes:o b/c he has no emotional attachmento plans to leave Argos, not avenge his fathero intellectualizes on the structure of the palace building (types of columns)

foreshadowing:o Orestes = is, has been planning “some wild scheme to oust Aeg.”o wants to share Argives’ memories, feelings, even if he has to kill his mother

Electra : o rebel, talking at Zeus’ statue (“old bugaboo”)o childish: talk, school-girl dreamo Rite #2o anti-Religion

Zeus’ statue = just wooden, hollow, coat of painto anti-Feminist ?

claims to be too weak to tear down Zeus’ statue, to do anything b/c she’s a woman waiting for her hero (MESSIANIC yearnings)

this = her FLAW: o waiting for a man, a hero, a Messiaho claiming to be too weak =

just excuses to delay commitment to the movement

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o these ashes, little rebellions = childisho stop waiting for Godot & go do somethingo (meetings of French Resistance, those members who just talk or spray paint

on Hitler’s poster face) (-) has MESSIANIC expectations of Orestes

o sees him as the big, strong hero to come & save her & avenge their fathero = one myth replacing anothero = Christianity, Judaism replacing Greek/Roman mythology

= still an avoidance of responsibility, of self-determination; an exchange of one master for another, one set of chains for another

= still deferring the making of a choice, of self-determination, of personal responsibility, accountability (no gods, just man – EXISTENTIALISM)

o princess reduced to laundress, of parents’ dirty linens & clothes shit, piss, cum, blood, puss stains

(Cinderella, Rapunzel, Juliet, Snow White)o cinders, beaten, shut up in tower, needs an old nurseo waiting for her Prince Charming, Romeo

o seems to be the opposition, resistanceo a force of reason in unreasonable cityo won’t buy in to Aegistheus’ lies, rituals, perpetual atonemento without guilt …. seems FREEo motivated by HATE not fear (like a Fury)

Electra & Orestes :o brother & sistero Orestes in disguise as Philebuso she tells of her Cinderella-existenceo he tells her of Corinth: get pretty, dances, do what want & no regrets, no conscience

(vacuous existence, meaningless, empty) See vs. Perceive :

o 60, 68o sight: physical senseo perception: mental, discern

Rose for Emily: o Clytemnestra = Emilyo “…really see it, drawn and haggard under the rosy mask of paint. But I hadn’t counted on those dead

eyes.” (68) ORIGINAL SIN :

o tied to the remorse, repentance

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o “Yes-if I let myself be tainted by your remorse; if I beg the gods’ forgiveness for a crime I never committed.” (69)

Sartre’s attack on Catholic guilt, concept of OS, paying for a crime we didn’t commit Electra = HAMLET

o mother remarriedo to father’s killero regicideo her role to avengeo her annoyance to him, role of agitator

BC: Argos = under quarantine o plague of repentance

repentance = plague ??? not from the heart no action taken just words, just empty rituals don’t confess their own sins, not all of their sins (keep some to themselves) living in the PAST, trapped in the PAST

o NO EXIT Clytemnestra: no regret

o for the murder & their sexual excitement from it o NO EXIT

o for enslaving Electrao for loss of beauty, youth

STUDENTS READING LITERATURE: o Clytemnestra: “You are young, Electra. It is easy for young people, who have not yet had the

chance of sinning to condemn. But wait, my girl; one day you will be trailing after you an inexpiable crime…..a dead weight holding you back….and nothing remains but to drag your crime after you until you die.” (72)

Electra = MIRROR for Clytemnestrao of her youth, innocence, pasto NO EXIT

The PAST come to life :o dead literally come back to life (1 day)

figuratively with regret (364 days)o hell NO EXIT

RITES:

o Dead Man’s Day: screaming throughout the palace great hallo old women pouring choice wines at statues feet, blood smeared on his face, the odors of their bodies

(no bathing)

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o at prayerso Electra’s offering: ashes, peelings, orts, moldy bread (she = bathed & perfumed)o public confession = sports, “national pastime”o Halloween/Day of the Dead: cavern blocked by a stone, leads to hell, dead roam town

Orestes = Garcin in NO EXIT:o given several opportunities to leaveo BUTo opts to stay in hell

self-imprisonment SHAKESPEAREAN TRAGEDY:

o Zeus ends Act 1 w/ reference to story of Telemachus (who met a god in disguise—IRONY)o old myths = lessons, instructive, warnings

(literature = edifying) Greek theater = spiritual, moral instruction (modern theater = not instructive)

o which makes our own crimes WORSE o b/c we should have known better, we’ve been warned

(BUT would Sartre feel this way? OR would he see it as propaganda?)------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ACT II(scene 1)

Aegistheus’ pseudo-religious rituals that keep the populace focused on their abject sinfulness instead of recognizing their own freedom and power

o people = gullible, self-blinding, abandoned their reasono institutionalized religion as a system of CONTROL, a slaveryo an act, a PLAY each with his/her own roles to playo perpetuates a culture of FEARo religion = SPORTS “national pastime”

“indulging in our national pastime, the game of public confession. Here everyone cries his sins on the housetops....” from Act 1

today’s Twitter, Facebook, daytime TV talk shows self-imprisonment :

o Act 2 begins w/Argives waiting for the start of the ceremony, don’t want it to be lateo don’t want to delay the start of a ritual that imprisons them, their minds, their soulso beggars to their own demise

“The stone is not yet rolled aside, but each of us is shut up with his dead, and lonely as a raindrop.” –young woman adulterer (like Estelle in NO EXIT)

religion of fear (child) no regret for sins/crimes

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o adultery, murdero NO EXIT

NO EXIT: o lonely in a crowdo trappedo chained to the pasto self-imprisonedo no regret for sinso no real repentanceo being-for-otherso the waiting (=worse than the actual torture—psychological torture)o the Gaze, judgmental

ignorance vs. wisdom :o Zeus accuses Tutor of being ignorant of his own stench, in his condescension of the Argivess, who

are “perishing in fear” exhibiting the “effects of superstition”o “These folk, at least, are wise in their generation; they know how bad they smell.” (77)o ignorance, pride –– not knowing flaws, blindness, limitations, false freedomo contrasted to “Man” who knows how bad he stinks

+/-: is it good to know your sins OR is it bad to be lost in the past????? Electra = Dead :

o both live for revengeo revenge = linked to death, past…not life, present/future

PLAY ACTING (-): o 69, 71, 80, 84,…o Electra, in Act 1, referred to this as “mummery”o Rite = PLAY:

script parts to play (“play your parts, you wretched mummers”)

audience = dead (watching, judging “faces and gestures”) actors = alive

o DRAMA : play @ plays audience = the dead, judging, the Gaze

times in life in which we are in a play, situations that are play-like, dramatico ritualso role-playing

we reduce ourselves to mere characters not fully developed people, less than human stock characters

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not thinkingo

THE GAZE :o judgmental watchingo The Otherso others define who we are, not us defining who we are

Electra:o tries to undermine the ritual (“sacrilege”)

late in white happy dances

Argives = PURITANS :o Electra: “Is it impious to be gay?”o (Maypole, YGBrown)

NO GHOSTS :o no Dead walking around towno just their own imaginations

guilty consciences self-imprisonment

o Electra: “But what is it you’re so frightened of? I can see all around you and there’s nothing but your own shadows.” (82)

“The Lottery” o other towns are doing something different – no regret for living life

Argives = fickle, mercurial o start to go over to Electra’s side, think it’s all a lie, “Aegistheus, you have lied.”o BUTo after Zeus’ trick of moving the stone back, they change back, “Drown the witch.”

Electra = banished LITERATURE = instructive #2

o to teach Zeus to Orestes: “Well, young master, were you duly edified? For, unless I’m much

mistaken, the tale has a moral. The wicked have been punished and the good rewarded. ”(85)o (-) dogma, propaganda

abused by those in power interpreted by those in power to further their own gains, their own control

Electra:o blames Orestes, deceived by is eyes (forget her hatred)o committed??

committed to an action

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refuses to leave, refuses “to run away” wants nothing but revenge

Electra = HAMLET Orestes = Ophelia

Revenge/Self-Imprisoning/Religion: o Electra: “You lured me into thinking one could cure the people here by words. Well, you saw what

happened. They nurse their disease; they’ve got to like their sores so much that they scratch them with their dirty nails to keep them festering. Words are no use for such as they. An evil thing is conquered only by another evil thing, and only violence can save them.” (87)

Electra’s Messianic Dream:o waiting for Orestes of her dreams to come

(so scene is filled w/dramatic irony – we know she’s talking to her brother)o Projection :

she wants revenge, so she pictures him as a hero selfish

Electra: limited herself o by defining herself by a lieo felt less lonely before knowing the trutho after Orestes revealed himselfo “I felt less lonely when I didn’t know you. Waiting for the Orestes of my dream; always thinking of

his strength and of my weakness.” Electra = Argives :

both = selfish both = define self by a lie

o (EXISTENTIALISM) Weight :

o Orestes sees himself as a GHOSTo not lover or hater (both require “self-surrender”)

Maslow’s needs: belongingo “I’m a mere shadow of a man” b/c he has not done anything

no identity no EXISTENCE no past, no future – just present

KNOW THYSELF: Orestes doesn’t “Nobody is waiting for me anywhere. I wander from city to city, a stranger to all

others and to myself…” (90) stranger = outsider, no rights, no identity, no person

*Orestes’ change : (92)o commitment to a causeo before = no identity, no substanceo after = fulfilled, purpose

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not fooled by Zeus’ light show (lightening) “from now on I’ll take no one’s orders, neither man’s not god’s.” now sees emptiness of the world, “endless emptiness, as far as the eye can reach!” others = “For you are living, all of you, at the bottom of a pit.”

though he’s “still too light” & has to take on some guilt/burden of such weight “guilt-stealer” (94)

o “Listen! All these people quaking with fear in their dark rooms, with their dear departed round them – supposing I take over all their crimes. Supposing I set out to win the name of “guilt-stealer,” and heap upon myself all their remorse; …surely then I shall have earned the freedom of your city….”

o not for selfo liberation of otherso Christ-figure…but humano Purifying Sacrifice, scapegoat

not to do atonement for them Orestes

o determines his own “road,” his own path that he will choose to take not the path of others

o chooses to kill Aegistheus & Clytemnestra an act of vengeance, justice – but an act of his own doing, thinking, choosing

Electra has her “Orestes” calls him rather than Philebus----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ACT II(scene 2)

sun set, throne room w/blood smeared image of Zeus comic relief scene w/soldiers & their superstitions CONTROL :

o Aegistheus: “You saw what happened? Had I not played upon their fear, they’d have shaken off their remorse in the twinkling of an eye.”

o Clytemnestra: “Is that all? Then be assured. You will always find a way to freeze their courage when the need arises.”

o Aegistheus: “I know. Oh, I’m only too skillful in the art of false pretense.” (98) ad misericordiam

o Aeg.: “For fifteen years I have been dressing a part, playing the scaremonger…” NO DEAD :

o Cly.: “Have you forgotten it was you yourself who invented that fable to impress your people?”o 98, 82

Living = Dead : 2 in 1o Aeg. Feels more dead than Agamemnon

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o empty inside – playing a part for so long, no identity see Orestes earlier

the TYRANNY of the GODS :o the gods = feared, not lovedo fear = controlo Aeg.: “They fear you.”o Zeus: “Excellent! I’ve no use for love.”

Machiavelli: better to be feared than lovedo stubbornness = “will add spice to your surrender”o “I love nobody.” – from a god!

Zeus = NAZIS Aegistheus = VICHY, Germans

o obeyed o no conscience, no moralityo did what he bid

Milgram Experimento “I like crimes that pay” – “For one dead man, twenty thousand living men wallowing in patience.”

wants to stop Orestes no profit in it for him no regret – Orestes = beyond regret now Aeg. acted in fit of passion of fear & rage, then it passed & he regretted it, has been

regretting it for the last 15 yrs. But not Orestes

gods = emotional vampires gods feed on fear, anger, regret

the DARK SECRET :o in the hearts of gods & kingso bitter knowledge that men = free

EXISTENTIALISM Aeg.: “For 15 years I’ve been playing a part to mask their power from them.”

CLINICAL GAZE : (103)o judgmental o accusatoryo criticalo Aeg.: “…my eyes are on him, severely judging his most private thoughts”o Zeus: “Their eyes are so intent on me that they forget to look into themselves.”

self-sufficiency, freedom, self-determination The Flies NO EXIT

BC: Orestes = plague (b/c he knows he’s free)

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FREEDOM :o Zeus: “Once freedom lights its beacon in a man’s heart, the gods are powerless against him.”

religion = superstition religion = excuse, avoidance, obstacle, way of denying our own freedom

o Orestes: “…Justice is a matter between men, and I need no god to teach me it. It’s right to stamp you out, like the foul brute you are, and to free the people of Argos from your evil influence. It’s right to restore them to their sense of human dignity.”

Freedom Human Dignity : no superstitions no religions no gods just mankind (existence) “restore” = back to their INNATE essence born w/dignity, freedom

Orestes kills A&C Electra turns on him after staring at Aegistheus’ corpse & regretting the fruition of one of her life-long

dreams o (dreams are better as dreams & not deeds, as objectives & not ends, better to dream an idea than to

act on it – fantasy-land)o thought revenge would feel different

Orestes won’t gloat, brag about slaying of Clyt. Orestes feels like Electra’s father & brother & lover:

o brother & lover - obviouslyo father: brought her into a new world, taught her about freedom

*Orestes’ RECOGNITION #2 :o complete ownership of the deed, his actions, the murderso “my deed”o weight – heavier the better (“that burden is my freedom”)o “other men’s roads …..my path”

FURIES = the flies :o Electrao the goddesses of remorse, regret, shame, guilt, conscience

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ACT III FLIES = The FURIES

o goddesses of remorse, guilt, shame, conscienceo self-imprisonment, -torture, -punishmento “human carrion”:

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o gods feed on mankind self-defeating foolishness of regret/conscience Furies swarm around Electra & Orestes sleeping in protection at Apollo’s temple

o Furies can’t hurt them while they’re there Zeus enters

o wedges between E&O, works on Electra’s conscience, fear effects of regret, Depression =

isolation self-loathing

o word battle between Zeus & Orestes FREEDOM :

o “I am free. Beyond anguish, beyond remorse. Free. And at one with myself.” (115) Physical Suffering & Mental Suffering :

o Furies: “Only the suffering of your body can take your mind off your suffering soul.” (115) Others’ roads:

o accepting Zeus’ offer to replace Aeg. as king = trapo like SATAN’s last temptation of Christ (worldly power)

O: outcast Z: the Creator

o BC: “…I am Goodness. But you, Orestes, you have done evil, the very rocks and stones cry out against you.”

o Nature = another order, another system of Control (MATRIX) EXISTENTIALISM :

o 2 different beings king of inanimate objects (Nature) king of man (man)

Birth:o yesterday O. = blindness/deafness: veil over eyes, wax in earso today = free

religion = opiate :o “TO lull me into gentleness, the fierce light mellowed and grew tender ….And, to teach me the

forgiveness of offenses, the sky grew bland…” Free :

o no right, no wrongo no one to give him orderso exile, disease, lonelinesso “remedy I find within myself”o “doomed to have no other law than mine”o “….but I must blaze my own trail. For I, Zeus, a man, and every man must find out his own way.”

(122)o “despair” of freedom

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Electra : repents, returns to Matrix (Cypher) Orestes wins

o Zeus has no power over a FREE mano no guilt, regret, shame

Orestes “saves” the city o accepts total responsibility for his “crime”o takes all the FLIES with him

takes their guilt, crime (guilt-eater, sin-eater) Pied-Piper story (rats of Scyros)

O=Z : uses LITERATURE to teach, instructo leaves Argos, a king w/o kingdom

they must rule themselves they = FREE, self-determination__________________________________________________________________________________________

MOTIFS WEIGHT:

o lightness, heavinesso light: no memories, no childhoodo light: no life of substance, no great deedso light: no commitment, no connections – detachment

lightness = not really human, no substance, no existenceo heavy: stones, stones of knowledge

PAST: o no past

Orestes no childhood memories no connections no revenge

o revenge = lost in the pasto trying to fix something that has already happened & cannot be changed

(futile)o lost in past

Argives 15-yr.old sin Repentance, guilt, shame

Electra revenge for father’s murder

PSYCHOLOGICAL ENSLAVEMENT: o not physicalo by others, by oneself

others: repentance & fear, guilt, shame

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self: blindness, denial, repression, avoidance...fear, guilt only liberation = psychological, ideological not physical not revenge (personal)

EYES: o watching of godso flies eyeso seeing vs. perceivingo Electra’s speecheso dead eyes of Clytemnestrao rotten eyes of Argiveso blindnesso only look to the pasto can see the futureo eyes to judgeo the other:

“In Being and Nothingness, Sartre insists that to recognize their freedom human beings must avoid the mode of being that he calls "being-for-others." In being-for-others, human beings give up the ability to judge themselves and simply rely on others' evaluations of them for guidance. When they do this, they give up the ability to act freely. Freedom, for Sartre, requires that we judge ourselves and create our own morals rather than letting others impose their morals on us.”

http://public.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/20th/sartre.flies.html

http://www.sparknotes.com/drama/theflies/section3.rhtml