27 pages • 54 minutes read
Albert CamusThe Guest
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1957A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Human Isolation in an Indifferent Universe
From the story’s first paragraph onwards, isolation looms large as Daru, a solitary, unwed teacher in a sparsely populated area of Algeria, watches two men cross the snow-covered plateau that meets the hill on which the schoolhouse doubling as his residence lies. Given the unexpected onset of an unseasonal blizzard after eight months of brutal drought, Daru’s students have been absent; as he makes note of the travelers’ progress from his “empty, frigid classroom” (65), it becomes increasingly clear that, already alone in the vast, harsh terrain of his birth, Daru hasn’t seen a soul in at least a handful of days, when the last government food drop-off transpired.
The brutality of the terrain the protagonist calls home is mirrored in the sky above; while the travelers’ visit has been accompanied by a slight glimmer of light—a notable change from the darkness brought about by the snowstorm—Daru knows that, in keeping with its customary pattern, the melting snow will give way to scorching sun that will once again blaze the region’s stone-covered fields, the unchanging sky shedding “its dry light on the solitary expanse where nothing had any connection with man” (68).
The schoolmaster’s oxymoronic tête-à-tête with the omnipresent silence enveloping his existence occurs after his having resolutely defied Balducci’s order to deliver the prisoner to French authorities. Having wounded his longtime father figure, Daru is left in a sterile, indifferent realm, fully cognizant that: “No one in this desert, neither he nor his guest, mattered. And yet, outside this desert neither of them […] could have really lived” (70). His situation represents a classic example of the absurd, an element of Camus’s philosophy.
Trapped in this vacuum, Camus’s protagonist must confront his own moral code as it relates to the decision at hand—what to do with the Arab prisoner left with him—as well as to his own status vis-à-vis the colonial government. As a French citizen born in Algeria, Daru is the proverbial stranger in a strange land; inhospitable as it is, this wretched landscape is his home, and yet, imminent uprisings among indigenous Algerians suggest that French presence in—and control of—the country will not last long. Daru’s ethical predicament demands choice and action on his part.
Free Will, Existentialism, and the Absurd
Daru’s dilemma stems from Camus’s stance towards human existence and individual responsibility. As a novelist, essayist, and philosopher living in Paris during and after World War II, Camus became part of—though later repudiated—the postwar existentialist cultural and philosophical movement, which places utmost significance in the freedom at the core of human existence. Deeming this individual freedom foundational in all other values, existentialism addresses facets of modern life that humans face, such as angst, boredom, isolation, nothingness, terror, and the absurd. With each person forced to confront these components of life—itself intrinsically absurd—the only option for the existentialist is to act at all costs.
In “The Guest,” all three characters must come to grips with tough decisions and their consequences. When Balducci delivers the Arab to Daru’s remote schoolhouse with orders that Daru house him for the night before handing him over to French authorities, Daru is confronted with his conscience, as well as with his role in society as a French citizen born in colonial Algeria, where his people have ruled for over a century. French law would dictate that he promptly transport the Arab to Tinguit, where “justice”—in the form of prison—awaits him. Despite this command, the schoolmaster, albeit thoroughly disgusted with the man’s purported crime, does not find it ethical to comply with an order whose automatic outcome would be incarceration. Instead, he would prefer that the Arab choose for himself, thereby exercising his own free will. Meanwhile, Balducci, having been commanded from above to leave the prisoner in Daru’s hands with orders that Daru take over the next step of the mission, finds himself confronted with the latter’s outright refusal to follow through beyond housing the Arab for the night. Upon hesitation, rather than turn in Daru, the gendarme forces him to sign a form certifying that he has delivered the Arab to the schoolhouse, thereby certifying that his step of the process has been fulfilled. Similarly, the prisoner, led by Daru to a crossroads and offered the freedom of electing one of two paths—one to certain imprisonment in Tinguit and the other to shelter among the region’s nomadic Berbers—chooses the road leading to apprehension by the French legal system.
All three characters butt heads with the absurd. Living in a hostile climate over which they have no control and among men “who didn’t help matters either” (66)—namely each other, all of whose choices will determine the Arab’s fate—they remain powerless in determining anything other than their own choices, which they must make. Despite the futility of their reality, however, they must choose and act, even with an indifferent sky looming above and parched, infertile land below.
Hospitality Viewed Within the Colonial Framework
Rooted in the Latin term hospitalitis—itself derived from the word hospes, the word for “host” as well as “guest” or “stranger”—hospitality denotes welcoming visitors known and unknown and typically involves offering them food and shelter as well as anticipating their needs. As much today as in ancient times, attending to itinerant visitors’ comfort and well-being also implies providing them a safe temporary dwelling space with the potential benefit of turning enemies into friends.
For as long as human interaction has been documented, hospitality has figured as a salient element of society. Looking back as far as 15,000 BCE, Lascaux cave drawings in France display scenes of tribes hosting each other. Within the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition, Genesis 18’s tale of Abraham and Sarah providing generous hospitality to three visitors exemplifies this basic tenet of proper interpersonal conduct, which strengthens bonds among individuals, communities, and nations.
Within the context of Camus’s “The Guest,” the hospitality theme is announced by the story’s title, whose ambiguity stems from Latin source word of the French word “hôte.” In its most evident sense, the story’s protagonist, Daru, initially extends a warm welcome to both visitors—the gendarme, a longtime acquaintance, and the unknown Arab prisoner—who have trudged through harsh terrain and weather conditions to reach his schoolhouse. Although the schoolteacher resents the gendarme for commanding him to deliver the prisoner to French justice—which he refuses to do—as well as for forcing the latter’s presence on him, he nevertheless accepts the Arab’s visit, fashioning comfortable sleeping arrangements for his guest in his humble abode and offering him a meal.
Contrary to local practice, Daru even eats alongside the Arab, an act that the latter—a man of few words—remarks and questions. Daru’s simple but declarative act of human solidarity brings to the fore an element of his moral code, which, despite his superior status as part of the French colonial power in the region, prohibits him from handing over the Arab to justice under a legal system that’s not his own and, furthermore, that will consider him guilty until proven innocent.
With unrest rampant among indigenous peoples of the region, Daru senses that, though he, too, was born on Algerian soil, he is fundamentally a guest in a realm where he may not belong, given that his people have usurped and benefited from it by repressing its people for well over a century. Rather than serve as the voice of the Arab’s fate, Daru feels compelled to offer him individual freedom of choice, perhaps as a micro-gesture of the right to self-determination he senses France owes Algerians. Within the scope of the story’s larger context—three men whose lives are determined by their hostile setting, the vicissitudes of which remain out of their control—resonates the notion that, irrespective of their nationality, political alliance, race, and social station, all humans are temporary guests on a planet whose existence remains independent from and indifferent to theirs.
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