“The Guest”
Albert Camus
Journal:
• Is the Arab even guilty?
• Who writes the words on the blackboard?
• Are Daru and the Arab being watched by his
brothers, and if so, why do they decide not to
save him?
• Why does the Arab choose imprisonment?
Camus’ philosophy
• the world is an illogical place
• people find meaning through their freedom
to choose despite the absurdity that
surrounds them.
• The Guest: the struggle to choose in morally
ambiguous conditions
• - Daru's fails to choose whether to turn the Arab over
to authorities or let him go, and this failure results in
moral despair and total isolation.
The Algerian War
• Algeria was an independent state in the Ottoman Empire up until 1830.
• 1834 France took control of Algeria as a French colony - colonial government
permitted only French citizens to hold skilled jobs
• The events in The Guest take place on the eve of the Algerian War (1954 - 1962).
• multiple small insurrections
• became more heated after World War II.
• 1954 rebellion led by the National Liberation Front (FLN). They used guerilla warfare
tactics, destroying government buildings, communication centers, and military posts.
• The French government called in 400,000 troops
• series of atrocities began: French soldiers massacred whole villages of natives,
the FLN using terrorism as a weapon against white civilians.
• Fighting stopped In 1962
• At least 100,000 French soldiers and civilians were killed,
• approximately 1 million Algerian natives and geurillas were dead
• 2 million Algerians were forced to from their homes.
• In July of 1962 Algeria achieved independence.
• Written at the onset of the Algerian uprising
against the French, the tension between the
Arab culture and the ruling French creates
much distress.
• European Algerians and Arabs share the same
harsh climate, but the political and cultural
tension between them prevents any feelings
of camaraderie.
Camus’ view of the human condition
• Despair is not an act, but a human state
• This state of despair resulting from isolation
from the rest of the world.
Daru’s Isolation
• He views two stranger’s approaching dispassionately
from his distance atop the plateau
• Daru has been alone for days; not lonely.
• Grateful for his situation compared with the poverty
and hunger of the natives
• His state of isolation is thus a state of self-sufficiency seems capable of carrying on indefinitely, as long as his
basic needs of shelter, food and warmth are met.
• the story examines each of these needs -- the bags of grain
in the classroom, the warmth of Daru's small lodgings
Setting
•
•
inhospitable terrain dominates the plateau
Camus's notion of the absurd: the universe is completely silent and indifferent
towards humanity - the land is not giving or forgiving; it is simply cruel
– Ie. "This is the way the region was, cruel to live in, even without men...”
•
Repetition of natural harshness
– the two men are forced to navigate the hill without the guide of a path
– nature's ice and snow makes an already difficult trek all the more treacherous.
•
Nature also behaves very irrationally.
– After an eight-month draught, nature finally supplies water in the absurd form of snow.
– By itself, these weather conditions are simply a fact of nature, but combined with human
need, the extremity represents Camus's idea of the absurd.
•
He creates a representation of the absurd by joining extreme physical conditions
with basic human survival needs
–
Daru's recollection of the starving people wandering the plateau during the draught. The
plateau will not help them.
Indeterminate knowledge
• The Arab's motivations
• his past actions
• his guilt or innocence
– Daru will never have enough knowledge about the
Arab to pass judgment on him
– The reader is also allowed only partial knowledge
of the Arab – shares Daru's ensuing moral
quandary
Theme of Freedom
• integral part of Camus's 'absurdist' philosophy
• Camus sees an individual's freedom to choose
as something that gives value to life. Through
freedom of action an individual can find
meaning in an otherwise meaningless and
indifferent world.
Point of View
• The narrator's descriptions mingle with Daru's
thoughts, at times appearing inseparable.
• ambiguity keeps the reader from certain
knowledge.
• the problem of partial knowledge that
pervades the story
Freedom
• the freedom to choose and an individual's
experience give meaning to life
– Daru finds meaning in his life through his decision
to live in this cruel landscape, and in this way he
has come to terms with the pervasive silence.
Moral dilemma
• Daru's fear of making a decision represents his
inability to acknowledge the absurd
• although there is no good choice, Camus feels
that the act of making a choice and standing
by that choice is the most important thing a
human being can do.
Is someone watching?
• Evidence creeps up now and then that Daru and the Arab are not
alone
• Daru hears a rustling around the house during the night and again when he
and the Arab set out in the morning.
• Camus suggests that the Arab's friends are circling the schoolhouse to see
what Daru plans on doing with the prisoner.
•
No way to prove this hypothesis with certainty;
• the sounds Daru hears may be those of animals, or simply the result of his
paranoia.
•
The feeling that a hidden society is waiting to pass judgement on
Daru haunts the story.
• Those judges, whoever they may be, do not know the whole story
of Daru's moral struggle, just as Daru does not know the Arab's
story, yet (unlike Daru) they will pass judgement anyway.
Failure
• Daru fails to choose, instead trying to pass his
choice along to the prisoner.
• The Arab's choice does not provide any
answers
– It's ambiguous whether the Arab even
understood Daru's explanation of the difference
between going east and going south.
The Writing on the Blackboard
• Daru's alientation from the plateau region becomes all
the more concrete, and all the more dangerous, with
the writing on the blackboard.
– Camus leaves it unclear who wrote the note.
– Perhaps Daru himself wrote it as an expression of his
morally complex state of despair.
– the note may have been written by Daru's friends.
• Though the people who wrote it have no access to
Daru's moral struggle, they are in a position to pass
judgement upon him for it.
• We assume that they will not be as wishy-washy as
Daru was.
Morality
Daru faces a moral dilemma when he is ordered to turn in the Arab.
• Daru's course of action leads him into moral trouble: he does not
know whether the Arab deserves to be punished or let go, and he
allows this uncertainty to overwhelm him.
• He fails to choose at all, instead allowing the Arab to choose either
freedom or trial.
• Daru's ensuing moral despair is a reflection of Camus’ philosophy:
(1) once a decision was reached, it should be stuck to
(2)the freedom to choose one's action gives meaning to human
life.
• Daru certainly believes that turning in the Arab was wrong, yet he
fails to simply release the prisoner. He fails to make a decision, and as
a result he is left in complete moral solitude.
Solitude
• Two kinds of solitude
1. Daru faces physical isolation on the remote plateau
– not a negative state; Daru has accepted his living conditions and feels at home within them.
– Though the landscape itself is unfeeling and unforgiving, Daru makes himself comfortable
within it.
2.
At the end Daru occupies a state of moral solitude.
-
His failure to act with regard to the Arab's fate has left him disconnected from himself.
He looks at the harsh landscape and sees only his failure to choose.
Moral solitude is clearly symbolized by the mysterious writing on the blackboard.
-
If he wrote it himself, it represents his despair and his alienation from himself -- he has
betrayed his own principles in allowing the Arab to choose punishment.
If someone else wrote it, it represents a clear threat. Daru, who failed to use judgement, will
now be judged by others who do not understand him.
Thus his situation is one of extreme isolation from human understanding.
Freedom
• Freedom is connected with the human right to choose a
course of action
• Freedom gives life meaning
• Camus believed that through independent action one finds
value in life.
–
Daru's choice to live in the plateau region is a choice motivated out of what Camus would call
an understanding of the "absurd." Any human needs to belong to a place, and the cruel
plateau region embodies a type of home for him despite its desolate climate.
– Just so, Camus feels, we all need to make a home for ourselves within an essentially uncaring
universe.
– The way we make this home is through individual choice.
• freedom to choose is also paradoxically an obligation.
–
When we decide not to choose we fall victim to the essential cruelty and ambiguity of the
universe - we cannot decide not to choose -- we must choose in order to retain freedom.
– Daru attempts to pass along his obligation to choose to the Arab. However, when the Arab
decides to turn himself in, Daru suffers for it. Daru should have made a decision, one way or
the other, and stuck with it. Instead, he finds himself in a state of desperate moral ambiguity.
Limits of Human Knowledge
•
Everyone has limited knowledge of the happenings of the story.
– Balducci doesn't know why the Arab killed his cousin, or why Daru must take the Arab to the
police; he simply has his orders and follows them.
– Daru doesn't know whether the Arab should be released or punished, though he constantly
tries to glean information about why the Arab committed murder -- if he even did.
– Meanwhile, the Arab displays confusion when Daru asks him difficult questions and when
Daru explains his choice to either escape to the south or turn himself into the police.
•
The reader, too, occupies a limited vantage point.
– We never learn whether the Arab deserves punishment or freedom.
– We never learn who wrote the message on the blackboard at the end of the story.
•
Camus denies us crucial knowledge, thus putting us in a similar position to Daru -or to any individual who must make choices despite his or her limited perspective.
•
Because human knowledge is always subjectively situated -- that is, it always
happens from a particular individual's point-of-view -- it's always going to be
limited
The Absurd
Camus envisions the universe as silent and
indifferent. Despite this indifference, human beings
must survive. They continue to build meaning and
pursue certainty, even though such aims are
impossible. This combination of a godless, uncaring
world and human striving leads to a condition that
Camus dubs "the absurd”
One must continue striving, choosing and pursuing
freedom, even though the universe does not care
whether we live or die.