to Arab to escape—and yet the man refuses to take advantage of his opportunities. This forces Daru to do what he doesn't want to do—both because he wants to be left alone and because he rightly fears reprisals from the prisoner's Arab comrades—and deliver the man up to the authorities.

In a final twist of irony, the aloneness Daru has so treasured makes him vulnerable to revenge, for it means there is no one to protect him from the Arabs. He comes back to his schoolroom to find scrawled on his blackboard:

"You handed over our brother. You will pay for this." Daru looked at the sky, the plateau and beyond the invisible lands stretching all the way to the sea. In this vast landscape he had loved so much, he was alone.

All of these are examples of situational irony, which occurs when events work out the opposite from the way a character plans or wishes they would.

Albert Camus wrote “The Guest” on the eve of the French-Algerian Revolution in the 1950s.  This story is based on an actual incident. The setting of the story is an isolated school house in the early 1950s. Camus uses omniscient third-person point of view to reveal the thoughts of the main character, Daru; however, the thoughts of the other characters are obscured.

The protagonist is Daru, a Frenchman born in Algeria, who has been assigned to this isolated area at the base of the Atlas Mountains in Algeria.  The two other characters are Balducci, a gendarme or policeman, and an Arab or Algerian criminal. 

The times are changing.  The government and the local Algerians are unhappy with the status quo.  Daru loved both France and Algeria and abhorred the conflict that arose between them.

Summary

Daru watches as Balducci brings a man tied to the back of his horse through the snowy mountain.   When the men arrive, the French policeman tells Daru that he is to take the Arab to another town to be tried for his crime.  The man is charged with killing his cousin over a grain dispute

‘There's the way to Tinguit,’ he tells him. ‘You have a two-hour walk. At Tinguit are the administration and the police. They are expecting you.’

The story’s conflict arises from the school master refusing to take the man because he believes that it is not his job. He thinks that the policeman should take the man.  Balducci argues that the government needs him and has ordered Daru to do the job. As a citizen of France, he is expected to cooperate with the colonial authorities in Algeria.  

Once again, the school master tells him that he will not do it. This predicament isolates him as much as the barren landscape where he lives. The policeman leaves the Arab with Daru.

It is unclear how much the Arab understands of what is going on.  Daru does everything he can to make the man comfortable.  He provides a meal for him and a blanket for warmth. Then, at bedtime he provides him a bed.  In actuality, Daru hopes the man will escape which will take care of the problem for him.

The next morning the man is still there.  Daru fixes breakfast; then, he prepares provisions for the man.  They walk toward the town, but about an hour from the school, Daru tells the Arab that he can do whatever he wants to do.  He gives the man the provisions and turns back toward the school.  When he looks back, the man is still standing there looking confused.  A little later, he looks again and the man is gone.

When he returns to the school house, there is writing on the blackboard.  It is a threat to the school teacher that because he turned on his own people, he will die.

You have turned in our brother. You will pay.

 Of course, Daru is scared and alone. 

The Title

The French title of the story is “L'hote," which translated into English is "The Guest.” Thus, the title refers to the Arab, who is left with Daru.  The man had been tied up.  Daru treats him as a guest.  He provides him with all of the accoutrements of someone who is there to stay.  Food, a blanket, freedom, respect, conversation—all of these things that anyone would expect if he had been asked to spend the night.

The irony of the title comes from the meaning of the word guest. A guest is usually someone who has usually been invited to stay and his presence is desired. This is not the case for the Arab. Daru would be happy if the Arab were to disappear because he does not want to deal with this problem. Yet,the school master is a gentleman and will treat the "unwanted guest" with courtesy.

The irony of Camus' "The Guest" is that while Daru the teacher is an honest and fair-minded man, and his "guest," the Arab prisoner is a murderer, both men find themselves facing similar fates.

When Balducci (the policeman) arrives at Daru's home, he tells Daru that he must assume the responsibility of the Arab prisoner, taking him on to the jail as Balducci has too much to do. Daru refuses, but Balducci leaves the Arab prisoner with him anyway.

In a short time, Daru becomes convinced that he cannot do as he has been asked. He takes the Arab prisoner part of the way to the jail, but stops at a point in the road where they must choose to go toward the jail or away from it. Making this clear to the Arab, Daru turns and starts his journey home. At a short distance away, Daru turns around and sees, amazingly, that the Arab man is walking in the direction of the jail. The man has seen the inevitability of facing the crime he has committed and goes, knowing he will punished for taking another man's life.

Daru is as much a prisoner as the Arab. He is told he must take the Arab to jail. He believes that he has a choice: to do so, or to let the Arab decide. By refusing to decide the Arab's fate one way or another, Daru has still made a choice. However, when he returns home, he finds that he, too, will be punished for what he has done. However, it will not be for a crime he has committed, though those who threaten his life believe he has; because they are certain Daru has taken the Arab to jail, the Arab's friends promise to return and kill him.

...on the blackboard...sprawled the clumsily chalked-up words..."You handed over our brother. You will pay for this."

The irony is that the Arab is being punished because he actually did something wrong. Daru will be punished though he has done nothing wrong. In truth, as soon as Balducci brings the Arab to him, unless Daru lets the man go while they are still at his home, he will be blamed for anything that happens to him after they leave Daru's house.

Albert Camus was familiar with the setting of the story "The Guest." This was his birth place. The time of the story is October in the 1950s on the eve on the French/Algerian War.  The specific setting is a school house built at the base of the Atlas Mountains. It is an isolated region. 

Summary-

The main character/protagonist Daru is the French born Algerian local school master.  The title of the story comes from life altering event for the teacher.  A local policeman brings an Arab prisoner to stay the night with the teacher. This is the teacher's guest.   The teacher has been ordered to take the prisoner to a town several miles away to hand him over to the authorities. 

Daru refuses to accept this responsibility.  It is not is job. He does not like how the prisoner has been treated despite the fact that he has killed his cousin over a petty quarrel. 

And he cursed at one and the same time his own people who had sent him this Arab and the Arab too who had dared to kill and not managed to get away.

After the policeman leaves, Daru gives the Arab many opportunities to escape.  None of which he takes.  Daru treats him like a guest, providing meals for him, bedding, and warmer clothes. 

In the morning, Daru decides to take the Arab part of the way, provide him with rations, and leave him to go on wherever he chooses.  After leaving the Arab on the road and when the school master returns to the school, he finds a threatening note written on the blackboard because of his part in holding the criminal. 

Irony-

Ironically, Daru has provided the means for the Arab to escape.  He has done everything in his power to help the man.  Feeling alone and betrayed, it is likely that Daru will lose his life because of this incident.

Another exanple of irony, comes from the control that the government has had on the life of Daru.  He has been forced to take a job that he does not like in a place he does not want to be.  The irony comes when he is forced to do something against his conscience; then,  Daru stands against the government.  Understanding that his life has meaning only if he stands against the officials, he decides to  treat the Arab humanely and allow him to choose his own destiny.

Conflicts-

Two conflicts come to light for Daru.  The first is his stance against society. The government has ordered him to follow their rules despite the fact that Daru does not believe in them.  He chooses to go against the orders and stand alone in an hostile environment.

'But you can't let them have their way.'
'I won't hand him over,' Daru said again.
'It's an order, son, and I repeat it.'
'That's right. Repeat to them what l've said to you: I won't hand him over.'

Secondly, Daru does struggle with his distaste in what the Arab has done.  Of course, he does not agree with the murder.  However, he believes that this should be taken care of by the locals and their customs.  Again, he chooses to take his own path to solve the problem.

In this story as in much of his writings, Albert Camus explores the moral and ethical quandaries of human existence. The police officer Balducci and the unnamed “Arab” both appear as flat representatives of types. Although each of them makes significant choices, it is Daru’s decisive action or lack thereof that best expresses Camus’ attitudes toward human responsibility.

Camus understood the world as fundamentally absurd: because human beings cannot know the meaning of any event, their possibilities for action are extremely limited. Just to continue to live is the most significant choice, but those who do not choose physical suicide are left with what he called “philosophical suicide,” or the necessity to continue living in a morally vacant universe.

The best example of irony is the story itself. Camus uses situational irony to structure the story. Daru is not at all interested in being an agent of state repression, but Balducci coerces him into that position. At every subsequent stage of the story, Daru’s limited choices are set in motion by his Balducci’s actions of bringing the Arab to him and leaving him there.

Daru attempts to alleviate his sense of guilt by giving the Arab food and money and by putting the decision in his hands. The two ironies that result are the Arab’s choice to head toward the prison and the unseen “brothers” interpretation that Daru has taken him to jail—as he had flatly stated he would not do—for which they will exact their revenge.

Camus is interested in the existential choices of his principal characters.  "Guest," translated from French to English, can mean "guest" or "host."  In this way, each character is both a "guest" and a "host" of the others, just as each character in Camus' most famous novel is a "Stranger."  The Arabs are guests in the French-controlled country of Algeria.  The Colonial French are guests of the native Arabs.  Daru and Balducci are both unwilling hosts of the Arab (neither want him).

The principal irony comes at the end.  Daru has left the Arab at the crossroads: one way leads to freedom (the nomads); the other way leads to death (the prison).  Daru refuses to deliver the Arab to either place; he tries to make a choice by not making a choice, which Camus says is, by default, choosing death.  So, ironically to Daru and the reader, the Arab chooses death.  Is it because he was honoring his host, Daru?  Is it because he was afraid of a nomadic life of freedom?

Camus says that most people are afraid of freedom; therefore, most people--at the crossroads--choose death.  They refuse to acknowledge the absurdity of the universe and give up their freedom of choice to external forces (the French gov't; the gendarme; a host, etc...)  Philosophical, absurdist irony.