The Importance of the Tutor in The Flies :: Lord Flies Essays

The Importance of the Tutor in The Flies In Jean -Paul Sarte's play, "The Flies", the main character Orestes manages to lift a curse that has plagued the dwellers of Argos for decades. Both the current king of Argos and Zeus himself are perpetuating this curse for as long as possible for the curse keeps the people subservient and in a state of mourning and terror of their own actions; two things that both the king and Zeus favor in their rule over people. Orestes was actually a resident of Argos and is the first child of the Queen Mother and the dead king. He returns to Argos with a traveling companion, the Tutor, who used to be the child's teacher in the ways of the world. Now the man is Orestes' slave and close advisor. Orestes' stance towards the Tutor and their past relationship essentially effects his ability to break the curse in Argos. In a completely literary sense he was both a counselor for Orestes and a sort of Narrator to fill in holes in dialogue and the story line. Orestes' background was the foundation for his decision-making in this play and Sartre had to find a way to let the audience know what this background was, not only for a linear and complete plot, but also as a testament to the thoughts themselves. The Tutor completed his role in both senses, tying the plot together at the beginning and the very end, and also moving the story along with gifts of advice and observations to Orestes. He almost in a sense doesn't belong in the play. He is a complete contrast to all of the other characters other than maybe Orestes himself. And yet he seems to be a part of Orestes, like his conscious, his voice of reason in this whole tribulation. As a character, the Tutor is much more complicated than one might assume upon first glance. The Tutor as a person was fairly simple in his wisdom and ideas. He had no delusions, no emotional or religious ties, and no 'truth' other than simple and deductive logic. As for personality traits, he was a skeptic, an atheist, and help a kind of detachment from the world and it's people. He is an admitted skeptic of the world, telling Orestes that he had "been trained in skeptic irony" (61).