SOURCE: Griem, Eberhard. “Albert Camus's ‘The Guest’: A New Look at the Prisoner.” Studies in Short Fiction 30, no. 1 (winter 1993): 95-8.

In the following essay, Griem addresses the existentialist dilemma faced by both Daru and the Arab prisoner in “The Guest.”

Interpretations of Albert Camus's short story “The Guest” so far have had a tendency to make rather little of the prisoner, typically treating him as a primitive, brutalized, somewhat dull or even dim-witted character. In an influential early reading, Laurence Perrine helped establish this view, claiming that “his incomprehension … is emphasized” (“Camus' ‘The Guest’” 57). His comments in the Instructor's Manual accompanying his widely used textbook Story and Structure reinforce the view: “From the beginning the Arab is pictured as passive, uncomprehending, a little stupid” (24). Nor does John K. Simon's reply to the original article in SSF contradict this general view when he states, for example, “Having always lived...