"Irony and Betrayal in Camus's 'The Guest'"

What is it about?

Camus deftly includes references to the unusual snowfall on the high plateau of the North African desert where the French school teacher Daru is isolated. The tracks in the snow made by the gendarme bringing his Arab prisoner to Daru's school will lead the Arab's colleagues to believe, mistakenly, that Daru has turned their colleague over to French authorities who will try him for murder. They will never know that Daru treated the prisoner humanely and gave him a chance to seek freedom.

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Why is it important?

The unusual snow is a perfect example of Camus's definition of the absurd in The Myth of Sisyphus: "the divorce between man and his setting." The snow is a central structural element of the story, and crystalizes the irony of the narrator's writing that Daru, who only wanted to be left alone, knew that the desert is the only place where he could live. Yet at the end he is, ironically, terribly alone and vulnerable, because the tracks in the snow are part of the harsh desert which is completely indifferent to man and his fate.

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