The Guest by Albert Camus

“The Guest,” because of its artistic virtuosity, is a landmark which forces comparisons for English-speaking readers with such pinnacles of the adventure story with moral and epistemological overtones as Jack London's “To Build a Fire” and Stephen Crane's “The Blue Hotel.” Apropos of this analysis, however, “The Guest” is an excellent and mercifully succinct distillation of Camus's outlook and provides a take-off point for an important criticism of it in line with the previous discussion of “The Adulterous Woman.”

It is ironic that Daru, who has chosen to cut himself off from society, is representative of the best sense of humanity that any society can offer. He is both Everyman and Christ figure, suffering as a citizen of the world and suffering for the world, providing sustenance and comfort and promoting tolerance and understanding (Jackson, 63). A measure of his tolerance is that he reserves ultimate judgments and generously sees more than one side of any question. His charitable reasonableness does not suffice, though, to counter the cruelties and unreasonableness in the Algerian situation.

Daru has little physical fear of the obviously spent murderer but knows full well that he is caught in an impossible situation: Delivering his charge will assure the probably lethal (in view of his isolated circumstances) enmity of the local Arab population; releasing him will make him a rebel and a traitor to his European countrymen. In the first case, his life would be in jeopardy, in the second his career and perhaps his freedom. Daru also feels morally affronted by the repugnant nature of his imposed task. The next day Daru escorts the felon to a trail juncture where he hands him a food package and a thousand francs. He gives him the choice of walking east for two hours to Tinguit and the ...