Commentary on The Guest

Authors Avatar by hambling (student)

Morgan Gose        

Andrew Plattner

September 19, 2012

A Little Insight on “The Guest”

        A book that is set in a secluded French colony, near Algeria, has given me much to think about. The scenery is bland and the characters are even more so. The absolute measure of the stories intrigue is something to be lacking. Of course, that is what I took from it when I first ventured into the pages. As I encountered more of the plot, I felt myself being pulled into the underlying symbolism that eventually made this story gratifying. There were many examples of symbolism in this story that gave me the opportunity to think, in comparison to the main character Daru, as to why he is living as he is and what he would do about it.

        As the story opens, I was given a tour of the landscapes surrounding the schoolhouse, which Daru lived in. This setting plays its role throughout the story as it is depicted through the main character’s eyes. Daru lives in a small schoolhouse where he is accompanied by a few chickens that live out by the shed. He can see, on a clear day, the peaks of the mountains off in the distance. On this particular day, there was a residual amount of snow covering the ground as far as he could see. The temperature must have been warming because the narrator described the melting snow as a dirty white color. As Daru anticipated the arrival of two men, who could be seen at a distance walking his direction, I was guided by the narrator into what the terrain is like during the normal dry seasons of the desert they are in. It was described as a “Plateau burned to a cinder month after month, the earth shriveled up little by little, literally scorched, every stone bursting into dust under one’s foot.” Both the land and the people were starved and in poor quality. It was a particularly bad time of the year for the people because there was a drought that caused many to rely on the administrative authority, which was responsible for leaving bags of grain at the schoolhouse to be distributed among the local families. Daru was left with the stock of grains that he usually rationed out to his “pupils,” yet they had not received their rations because of the “bad days” of weather. Since the blizzard had lifted and the weather was warming up, he was expecting the family members to come and collect the much needed grains from him, instead the two men showed up.

Join now!

        Daru had known the first man, Balducci, for a long time as an old gendarme, or military police. The second man, the Arab, was introduced to Daru but Daru was caught up in thought at that moment as to why the Arab was tied up and why had he been brought to him. I couldn’t help but have some compassion for Daru as he was brought out his familiar lifestyle, and into a conflicting situation. When Daru asked why Balducci had brought the Arab to him, Balducci told him that the Arab had been accused of killing his cousin in ...

This is a preview of the whole essay