The Guest,” written by Albert Camus is a story that depicts a conflict between moral obligation to society and brotherhood. The main character in the story is an Algerian Born French school teacher by the name of Daru. He lives alone in his school house where he provides certain necessities to the poor families of the village near by. This story takes place in the winter because the snow is falling.
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In the beginning of the story, Daru stands all alone in his school house and sees two men coming down off the hill towards him. He recognized the one that rode on horseback as “Balducci,” whom he had known for a long time and the other he did not know, but he was an Arab who, with hands bound, walked behind the horse with his head down. When the men reached Daru, Daru invited them inside and made them tea. They talked about the Arab prisoner and he finds out that he has murdered a man, which distances him from the Arab prisoner immediately. “Daru felt a sudden wrath against the man, against all men with their rotten spite, their tireless hates, their blood lust” (Pg. 2256). You can already tell by this phrase that Daru has a good heart and cares about people’s well being.
Balducci lays a heavy burden on Daru as he leaves the Arab prisoner at the school house for Daru to turn into the police. Daru does not like this plan. He said, “Every bit of this disgusts me, and first of all your fellow here. But I won’t hand him over. Fight, yes, if I have to. But not that” (pg. 2257). They bickered over it for a while until finally Balducci left by himself and put the burden of a decision on Daru’s shoulders. Daru hated to turn someone in for something he knew nothing about.
The loneliness and isolation that Daru had felt for so long was somewhat disappearing with the arrival of the Arab prisoner. He fed the Arab and gave him a bed as they became much closer. “He listened to that breath so close to him and mused without being able to go to sleep. In this room where he had been sleeping alone for a year, this presence bothered him” (2259). “But it bothered him also by imposing on him a sort of brotherhood he knew well but refused to accept in the present circumstances” (pg. 2259).
“Men who share the same rooms, soldiers or prisoners, develop a strange alliance as if, having cast off their armor with their clothing, they fraternized every evening, over and above their differences, in the ancient community of dream and fatigue” (Pg. 2259).
The conflict in Daru’s mind was whether or not he should let him go on the grounds of their new found brotherhood. Philosophy plays a big part in this because questions like, “Are individuals’ decisions affected by what society demands or expects?” and “How does social and moral obligation affect a decision like this?”
Daru was in isolation for so long with no real human contact because of the winter snow, that he was faced with loneliness. He began to see a man with a life and common characteristics as himself as he looked at the Arab and thought about letting him go free or hoping he would escape when he was “asleep”, but he did not want to be ruled out by society by neglecting this responsibility to turn him into the police.
Philosophy is the main attributor to this story because the sense of existentialism that is shown in Daru’s thoughts. Daru, like anyone else, was faced with a decision that made him reevaluate his current circumstances.
Albert Camus sought to emphasize the thoughts on which we do things, make choices for ourselves, and think on our own through acts of good will and thoughtfulness for some else’s well being. He used Daru to depict a character that was faced with a decision that would affect not only his life but the Arab prisoners life and society as a whole to show how the philosophical theory of man shines through.
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Daru contemplated what to do for a while until the only thing he could do would to let the Arab prisoner choose for himself based on free will of mankind. Daru gave him dates, bread, sugar, and a thousand francs to get him by for at least two days then Daru first pointed east and said, “There’s the way to Tinguit. You have a two hour walk. At Tinguit you’ll find the administration and the police. They are expecting you.” Daru then turned toward the south and said, “That’s the trail across the plateau. In a day’s walk from here you’ll find pasturelands and the first nomads” (Pg. 2261). Daru left the Arab prisoner standing on the edge of the hill to make the decision for himself on which way he should go. After Daru turned around to look back for the second time, the prisoner was finally gone. He was then seen walking slowly to the prison and Daru watched with a “heavy heart.” When Daru got back to the school and walked back inside he looked at the chalk board and saw, “You handed over our brother. You will pay for this” (2262). This, of course, did not help Daru’s already torn heart.
For Daru, it was a task that he never wanted to be involved in. He was persuaded to do it and it put a heavy burden on him. Balducci was a coward and wanted to put the prisoner in the hands of someone else for fear of him escaping under his own supervision. As Daru spent some time with the Arab prisoner, he began to feel a sense of life that he had not known in some time.
Daru thought it would be best if he neither let the prisoner escape nor take him to jail and to let it be his own decision. He could not handle the pressure and guilt if he turned the man in and obviously the Arab prisoner could not go south toward the nomads because he too would have felt the guilt of going free when he had murdered someone.
Brotherhood was important to Daru but so was his respect for authority and doing the right thing.
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