Sartre and the Flies

Power over Zeus.


Dreaming of her future hero and encouraging Orestes to take up arms.


Zeus making his deal.


As time is flying by, I realized that I didn't reflect a bit on Sartre, but there was not a lot of time between jumping from the presentations and discussions to our next endeavor with Ionesco.

With our discussions of Sartre and existentialism, I began to think about who I want to be.
Sartre was imprisoned during World War II. It was here that he began to expand on his ideas regarding existentialism. I played Electra in his play, "Les Mouches" (staged by Tesa). Electra awaits for a hero to save her. Her brother Orestes returns and after much goading --I mean encouragement--from Electra, he kills his mother who remained queen when she accepted her husband's killer as consort. Anyway, as I've said before, I play Electra, and let me tell you, I developed an incredible dislike for her. She's all talk and no action. And when she is tormented by the horrible Flies (flies is the translation of "mouches"), she sells out her brother and returns to serve Zeus, after completely disrespecting this god in the first Act of the play. As a result, based on Sartre's vision of a hero, she is the anti-hero and therefore ceases to exist. By the end of our performance, my Electra is completely covered by her black shawl, and she sits unmoving on the stage.

But Orestes is the true Sartrean hero. As far as I understand existentialism, we ARE not until we BECOME. We do not EXIST until we have ACTED. In this definitive action, we become free. This notion of becoming is tied with the idea of liberty. I say idea because one might achieve a sense of freedom, even while trapped, enslaved or imprisoned. This is what I understood after a colleague's presentation of Sartre, France and the Resistance. In the theatrical sense, the action tends to be definitive, glaring and repulsive to society. I'm not prepared to say that the ACTION must always be dramatic. However, I am in Avignon studying theater soooo...bear with me!

Orestes is a handsome young man from Corinth, who, in search of his family, returns to Argos. There he finds Electra and the past from which he had been protected. The king, his father, had been killed, and the people of Argos accepted the killer as their new king. Now, I am not familiar with the Greek stories which include Electra's dad, and I have no idea if he was a good leader or a poor one, but it's understandable that his children feel that justice was not served. The people of Argos are unkind, frightened and in constant remorse. They provide Zeus with libations, and accept their fate as it is. The people of Argos are kept in check by Zeus' flies. And so, after reviewing all this, Orestes agrees with Electra, and he kills the current king and queen (Orestes' mother). It is Orestes who acts. And when Zeus confronts him, he demands remorse from Orestes. Orestes explains quite calmly that he does not believe what he did was wrong, regardless of the consequences (an eternity of torment by the flies). From the youthful, insouciant young man of Corinth that he was, he BECOMES a man who takes full responsibility for his belief and his actions.

What will the people of Argos do now? Well, Orestes will not become king, despite being guaranteed the throne by Zeus in return for remorse. Instead, Orestes leaves, taking the flies with him (his punishment and sacrifice), and he asks nothing but that the people of Argos take this opportunity to choose their own path to liberty. Can you see the real-life connections we may have made here in our seminar discussions?

My last French class with Isabel Roche at Bennington College was a year discussion on the relationship between the individual and society and the way it was portrayed in French drama. It just floors me how much the same themes over centuries are constantly addressed.

Who is the individual? What are their needs, skills, likes, dislikes, desires? In what ways do these needs, skills, likes, dislikes, desires affect society?
What is the role of society? In what ways does society affect the individual?

What is liberty?
Clearly, each person defines this for themselves. For Sartre, he saw it through his existential lens. But ultimately, what I take from Sartre is that each of us must walk our own path, live our lives the way we must for ourselves. To me, the role of society is to protect the rights of the individual, not to demand that the individual live their life a specific way. The individual's mandate is to not infringe on the right of another individual to live their life. Well, that's always how I read the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. And if an individual CHOOSES to live in a society, then they have signed up to follow the fair and just laws of that society.

Attention! Careful! Sartre believes to truly become, the individual must be engaged, the individual must act and not let oneself be acted upon. This means that I must choose, know why I make the choices I make (and not follow blindly), then accept my decisions. Leave remorse to the flies.