The Flies is the first play of Jean-Paul Sartre that presented to the public, was well received when it is presented in Paris. The play is concerned with the problem of freedom. The Flies is still popular and frequently staged.
Jean-Paul Sartre his philosophical writings are difficult to understand. The Flies struggles, through the hero’s own discoveries, that reality and freedom. Freedom is something worth fighting for and that freedom provides us with the means to fight. Weapons are the tools of those who control, but they are also the tools of those who liberate. The former use violence because they lust for power. They do not believe that their violent actions are right only because they do not believe that the results of their actions are right. When Aegistheus kills Agamemnon with an axe, he does not do this because he dislikes Agamemnon or because he feels that there is some positive value to killing him. He acts out of a desire for power.
The liberators, on the other hand, realize their freedom in their actions. Electra speaks of Orestes cutting Jupiter in half with his sword, and later Orestes does use a sword to kill Aegistheus and Clytemnestra. He is willing to use violence because violence is only wrong when it is not used for the right reasons.
Aegistheus nor his subjects can realize their freedom under his repressive reign. His subjects are afraid to act and afraid to speak out because they have been taught that everyone is always judging their actions. The people remain quiet in their repentance, always wondering what Aegistheus would do if he knew they had committed a sin. When Aegistheus attempts to understand who he is, he sees himself only as his subjects see him. So long as he continues to rule, Aegistheus can never live for himself but must always live for others, both in the sense that he devotes his existence to his subjects and gains nothing for himself and in the sense that his existence is defined entirely through others.
Finally, through freedom human beings become foreign to themselves. Most human beings, like the Argives, define themselves through their past. The Argives select sins from their past and spend their lives atoning for them. Their lives have no meaning other than the meaning of those sins. Orestes, having recognized his freedom, is not bound by his past. He can act as he chooses and he can act for the purpose of transforming the future. Orestes is also free to understand his past however he wishes in the same way that he can understand nature. Electra, realizing that Orestes was not a warrior, decides that he cannot kill Aegistheus and Clytemnestra. Orestes realize that he can do what he feels to be right regardless of whether his past has prepared him for it in any way.
It means that The Flies symbolizes a moment of crisis and decision, since the central conflict consists of different ethical positions. In this view try to offer to an individuals the opportunity to make choices that will determine the problem is not merely the problem of what happens and why it happens, but the problem is choosing of a decision.
