The men eye each other. Orestes is quick to blame the gods for this crime, but Zeus admonishes him: The gods are aware of what has happened and are using this crime to "point to a moral." Find a summary of this and each chapter of The Flies! All rights reserved. I’m as free as air, thank God. Sartre indulges in a naturalistic, sordid description of the "yellow muck oozing out of" the idiot boy's eyes. For this reason, Zeus has sent the flies to them as punishment: They are a reminder of the citizens' sinful errors and will plague them until the conditions are reversed (until responsibility for Agamemnon's death is assumed). Clytemnestra is not pleased with Orestes' presence and requests that he leave Argos: "You are going to bring disaster on us." Queen Clytemnestra enters, and Orestes sees now what she looks like, after nights of imagining. Orestes tells her that she is beautiful, and she replies that she's only a servant, obliged to wash the dirty underwear of Aegistheus and Clytemnestra. He expresses his hope that if the brother, Orestes, is alive, he will not interfere with the lives of the Argives because they must work out their own repentance and live in the favor of the gods. She does not see them and walks up to the statue of Zeus. Zeus bids them farewell, but before he goes he explains that he knows a parlor trick to make the flies leave him alone. 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. Zeus points out Aegistheus' castle and says that Electra lives there too; her brother, Orestes, it seems, is dead. His Tutor declares that the two men have lost their way and need directions. Orestes is now returning to Argos due primarily to curiosity, but eventually decides that he will stay to seek his revenge. 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. Sartre does not like the Tutor although he feels a certain admiration for his intelligence, his sense of logic. Orestes enters, and the old women spit on the ground in front of him. Orestes starts to respond, then stops. The Flies is a fascinating, albeit strange, play. Previous Whereas I -! Millions of books are just a click away on BN.com and through our FREE NOOK reading apps. The old man, whom the audience knows to be Zeus, approaches the travelers. Unconvinced, the tutor begins to recount where he saw the man, but interrupts himself to complain about the flies. The Question and Answer section for The Flies is a great Not affiliated with Harvard College. She cannot picture a life where people are happy and walk around the streets together. Lord of the Flies: Chapter 1 Summary & Analysis Next. They opened their windows and peeked through their curtains out of anticipation, hoping to see blood and hear screams. Osborne-Bartucca, Kristen. Orestes knows that he is "favored," that his position in life is fortunate, but he regrets that he does not possess any memories; he is "free as air, thank God," yet he admires those men who have a purpose in life which they must accomplish, and he scorns the Tutor for not sharing this admiration: "I suppose that strikes you as vulgar-the joy of going somewhere definite." 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. Orestes then inquires about Electra, Agamemnon’s daughter, and what she thinks of this. The vivid descriptions serve to create an atmosphere for the audience that includes both what can be seen and heard on stage and what can only be imagined. Electra comments that she is beaten enough already. Jupiter further explains that this day is Dead Man's Day, when every year a man is chosen to scream in the palace to remind the Argives of Agamemnon's death. The flies, massive and ceaselessly buzzing, are disgusting persecutors of the “creeping, half-human creatures beating their breasts in darkened rooms” (55). Orestes asks what else she has to do and she replies that she has to empty the ashcan. Orestes retaliates and says that he also knows who he is, and he is in Argos as a descendant of his father. 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. The tutor grimly laughs that he ought to not brag about it, and that everyone is so inhospitable. As they talk, screams emanate from the palace. Human Nature. When Orestes arrives in Argos with the Tutor, he is a mild, uncompromising young man with intelligence, wealth, culture, and a sense of sophistication. . Themes and Colors Key LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Lord of the Flies, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work. He complains of the heat, the emptiness, and the people who seem panicked and terrified and scurry away. Zeus says he would tell Orestes to leave Argos if ever Orestes showed up there; this is Zeus' defense against having an outsider to the crime, one who is also a rightful heir to the throne, come into town and atone for the crime, and thus set the suffering citizens free. He describes Aegistheus as a hard, brutal man — one whom Sartre uses as a focal point of self-abasement and as the symbolic object against whom the entire people of Argos should make their appeal for divine grace (to Zeus). Sartre uses the device of this unsuspecting hero (Orestes) to lead us, the spectators, along with him in his journey toward engagement. 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. bookmarked pages associated with this title. He recites a few nonsense words and they fall down. The people are at their mercy. In Act III, he has already recognized that he is free and has created his own destiny through action. Aegistheus feels no repentance, but it doesn't matter: The city feels it for him. Old women come out and offer libations to a large statue of Jupiter in the square. Orestes mocks the education which the Tutor has provided him, and then, for the first time, he sees the palace where Aegistheus lives; it is no more than a gloomy, solemn, provincial building constructed in bad taste. Only Zeus, however, is able to drive the flies away since he is the god of flies and death; the two are inextricably related. The city of Argos emerges as a closed, inescapable forum of remorse, not unlike Oran in Camus' The Plague. The Tutor is quickly frustrated by the townspeople's refusal to aid them and by their cowering silence; he is prepared to leave things just as they are, not to rock the boat, not to seek information from them, even though Orestes insists. Also, as he calls over an old woman, he says they did something else as well. Learn exactly what happened in this chapter, scene, or section of The Flies and what it means. Already, Sartre prepares the reader/spectator for a stark, austere, and ugly drama; a procession of old women enters in black clothes, and an idiot boy squats in the background. They sent the flies as an accusatory symbol and reminder of the Argives's complicity in the murder. He uses the situation in Argos to debunk what he considers to be a pointless religion: Christianity. The conversation between Orestes and the Tutor touches on the unfriendly people, the buzzing flies, the Idiot Boy with puss leaking from his eyes, the smell of decrepitude, the screams in the background, and the scorching heat of the sun. Summary and Analysis Act I The action can be interpreted on three levels: (1) philosophical/moral, (2) political, and (3) the literal level of the Greek myth. resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel. Zeus then asks Orestes who he is, and the latter replies: Philebus from Corinth. 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. 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. Jupiter (as Demetrios) says that he did not interfere either, because he was a stranger and because this was not his concern. The flies were sent as a symbol of remorse, but the true punishment from the gods can be seen everywhere: human beings decrepit from disease, skulking in cowardice, crouching from the look of other people, and so on. Orestes bitterly acknowledges them but says that a mangy dog has more memories of home than he does. In Act I, Orestes struggles with what he feels is a false freedom—his freedom from attachment and commitment of any sort. The tutor describes it as a “nightmare city” (49); Zeus calls it “a dead-and-alive city, a carrion city plagued by flies” (56). This eventual assumption of their sins is foreshadowed in Zeus' stern, ominous words to Orestes: "Tamper with it and you bring disaster. A huge statute of Zeus with white eyes and smears of blood on his cheeks stands in the center. Electra, carrying an ashcan, appears. Orestes responds that the man is probably just a traveler like them. He says this pleases the gods. Every year on the day of the king’s murder, they keep the festival of death. Orestes thinks that Zeus is only a traveler like they are, but the Tutor says that this man has been following them on their trip. Orestes asks if he really is a man. He explains that the flies came to the city fifteen years ago. He is traveling to improve his mind, which is Sartre's way of announcing that all of us will be doing this if we follow the education awaiting Orestes. After all, he is the god of flies and death; without these people, what would he be? Electra laughs and tells Philebus to judge people only on the sins they cop to, not the ones they don’t. Orestes says that these are only dreams. The French existentialist uses the ancient heroic image of Orestes to analyze contemporary problems of existence. The events in the second act escalate and end with the deaths of Clytemnestra and Aegistheus. 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. Moreover, Sartre seizes the occasion to show how man must accept responsibility for his own life instead of passing it off on outside authorities: God is dead in Sartrean existentialism, and the state should be cast out of one's views; one must decide for oneself how to live, then follow up with appropriate responsibility.
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