English Literature

In his short work of existential fiction, The Guest,  Albert Camus explores the notion of what it means to be both the guest and the host.  Primarily, the symbiotic relationship between these concepts deals with the idea of the difference between being a guest mentally and being a guest physically.  Daru, physically, is obviously the hosthe provides shelter, provides tea, and provides safety.  However, the presence of the Arabic gentleman provides something Daru is clearly lackingcompanionship.  It throws into stark relief the irony of Darus emotions during the blizzard even as he sits on a veritable mountain of food, secure in the knowledge that he will physically survive, it drives home the concept of his solitude.  His prosperity is others misery his surplus is their deficit.

Hence, the fortuitous arrival of the Arab allows Daru to simultaneously be a guestnot only in the sense of deference and respect that he shows the man, but a guest to his way of thinking.  Daru, in treating the man as a kind of emotional host, overcomes man-made notions of duty, such as orders to turn the man in rather, the guesthostguest relationship reinforces the difference between mans law and natural law.  The Arab must be freed, or otherwise the hospitality paradigman essential function of Western thought since the time of the ancient Greeksbreaks down.  Ironically, the cause of thisnotions of duty to the state, for instanceultimately threaten us with anarchy, because it overlooks ones duties to humanity.  To be both guest and host is to fully experience the spectrum of humanityas Jung would say, it is to remove the persona one operates under (the mask we show the world) and instead to be a fully self-actualized being.