The Flies -- Jean-Paul Sartre

The Flies is a play by Jean-Paul Sartre, produced in 1943.

It is an adaptation of the Electra-Orestes play produced by the Greek playwrights Sophocles and Euripides around 410 BC. Sartre uses the Electra-Orestes myth as a way to talk about the freedom of the individual as opposed to being trapped into highly dysfunctional relationships with the people around us.

The play recounts the story of Orestes and his sister Electra in their quest to avenge the death of their father Agamemnon, king of Argos, by killing their mother Clytemnestra and her husband Aegisthus, who had deposed and killed him. (Yes, Greek tragedy was the Netflix mini-series of its day, with all the requisite over-the-top betrayal, sex and murder.)

In Sartre's adaption of this age old story, he incorporates an existentialist twist into the plot, having Electra and Orestes engaged in a battle with Zeus and his Furies. This is opposition of the fear and a lack of autonomy of Zeus's worshippers, who live in constant shame of their humanity.