Reading Order
The Flies Reading Order
The Flies (1943) by Jean-Paul Sartre is the companion to No Exit in the Sartrean existentialist repertoire — and one of the most politically charged plays of the Second World War. Sartre set his existentialist rewriting of the Oresteia in occupied Argos, where King Agamemnon has been murdered by Aegisthus and Clytemnestra, and where the townspeople have spent fifteen years performing rituals of guilt and atonement under the rule of the plague of flies that Jupiter has sent as punishment. Orestes returns, meets his sister Electra, kills Aegisthus and Clytemnestra — and then, crucially, refuses to accept the burden of guilt. His radical act of freedom is the play's philosophical core: unlike his mother and Aegisthus, who are enslaved to their remorse and to Jupiter's system of punishment and submission, Orestes claims his action and walks free. Sartre performed the play under Nazi censorship in occupied Paris; the censors, reading it as a Greek mythology, missed the political allegory.
Where to start
The Flies (1943) — the complete text. Best Sartre reading order: No Exit → The Flies → Being and Nothingness → Nausea → The Words.
Complete The Flies Book List
- 1Buy
The Flies
Jean-Paul Sartre·1943·The complete play — Orestes, Electra, Aegisthus, Clytemnestra, and Jupiter in Argos. The first production was directed by Charles Dullin at the Théâtre de la Cité in Paris in June 1943, under German occupation; the censors failed to recognize the political allegory - 2Buy
No Exit
Jean-Paul Sartre·1944·The companion Sartre play — Garcin, Inès, and Estelle in Hell. The companion in Sartre's existentialist theater: where The Flies investigates the possibility of freedom through radical action, No Exit investigates the Hell of being-for-others and the impossibility of escaping the Other's judgment - 3Buy
The Oresteia
Aeschylus·-458·The source — Agamemnon, the Choephori, and the Eumenides. Sartre rewrites Aeschylus's conclusion: where Aeschylus resolves the cycle of revenge through Athena's institution of the jury trial (the birth of justice), Sartre resolves it through Orestes's radical existentialist refusal of guilt - 4Buy
Electra
Sophocles·-410·Sophocles's companion version of the same story — Electra's obsession with vengeance. The companion ancient version of the same myth, organized around Electra rather than Orestes; Sartre's Electra is weaker than Sophocles's, and her collapse under the weight of guilt after the murders is one of the play's most interesting departures from the source - 5Buy
Nausea
Jean-Paul Sartre·1938·Sartre's companion novel — Roquentin's discovery of the absurdity of existence. The companion investigation of the existentialist subject from a different formal angle: The Flies dramatizes the moment of authentic choice; Nausea dramatizes the discovery that there is no inherent meaning that precedes the choice - 6Buy
Being and Nothingness
Jean-Paul Sartre·1943·Sartre's companion philosophical masterwork. The Flies is the theatrical demonstration of the philosophical arguments about freedom, bad faith, and the radical possibility of authentic action: Orestes's refusal of guilt is the theatrical enactment of what Sartre calls authentic existence - 7Buy
The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui
Bertolt Brecht·1941·Brecht's companion political allegory — a gangster rises to power in the Chicago cauliflower trade. The companion political allegory to The Flies: both are plays written under or in the shadow of totalitarianism that use historical or mythological distancing to make a political argument about complicity, resistance, and freedom - 8Buy
Antigone
Jean Anouilh·1944·Anouilh's companion rewriting of Sophocles — Antigone versus Creon under the Occupation. The companion French drama of the same year and the same political context: both The Flies and Anouilh's Antigone are rewrites of Greek tragedy produced in occupied Paris that use the myth to investigate the relationship between individual freedom and political authority
The Flies — Frequently Asked Questions
What is The Flies about?
The Flies is Sartre's existentialist rewriting of the Oresteia. Orestes returns to Argos after years of wandering; the city is ruled by his mother Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus, who have killed his father Agamemnon; the city is plagued by flies (Jupiter's punishment for the crime) and the townspeople perform rituals of guilt and atonement. Orestes kills Aegisthus and Clytemnestra; but unlike in the ancient version, the play's philosophical core is not the act of revenge but Orestes's refusal, after the murders, to accept the burden of guilt. He claims his action as freely chosen, refuses Jupiter's system of punishment and submission, and walks free — taking the plague of flies with him. The play is an argument for what Sartre calls authentic existence: the radical acceptance of freedom and responsibility without the bad faith of guilt, remorse, or the need for divine sanction.
What is the political meaning of The Flies?
The Flies was produced in occupied Paris in June 1943 under Nazi censorship, and its political meaning was legible to French audiences in a way that the German censors (who read it as a Greek mythology play) missed. Argos under Aegisthus and Clytemnestra is occupied France under the Nazis and the Vichy collaborators; the plague of flies and the rituals of guilt and atonement are the collaborationist ideology of submission and expiation; Jupiter is the God who sanctions submission to authority. Orestes's refusal of guilt — his radical claim that his action was freely chosen and that he owes nothing to Jupiter's system — is an argument for the Resistance: that authentic existence requires the willingness to act against an unjust authority without waiting for divine permission or being burdened by the guilt that the occupiers and their collaborators use to keep the population in submission.
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