The Unseen Protectors

            In The Guest, by Albert Camus, a schoolmaster named Daru is given custody of a prisoner and told to deliver him to police headquarters, but Daru allows the prisoner to choose between freedom and jail. The prisoner, simply known as the Arab, chose to walk towards the jail; furthermore when Daru returned to the schoolhouse, some friends, or possibly siblings, of the Arab had written a threat on the blackboard. In this story, the group of watchers that wrote the message on the blackboard will either save the Arab, or kill Daru. Using the known actions of the watchers and textual evidence, it can be inferred that the watchers wrote the threat on the blackboard as Daru and the Arab left the schoolhouse, and that when Daru set the Arab free the watchers decided to allow Daru to live in favor of stopping the Arab from turning himself in.

            The first indication that anybody is following the Arab occurs during the night when Daru hears “furtive steps around the schoolhouse” (200). In the story, it seems like these footsteps could be the Arab attempting to escape; however, the Arab has ignored several previous opportunities to escape, and Daru seems to accept that the Arab is not planning on running away when the Arab returns from getting water during the night. Therefore, the footsteps heard during the night are most likely people from the Arab’s village. Furthermore, the villagers most likely did not use force to free the Arab during the night because they, like the policeman Balducci, expected Daru to be armed. It is assumed that there is more than one person from the village because they use the pronoun “our” in the note written to Daru, and it is also assumed that they are from the same village as the Arab, if not his siblings, because they call him “brother” (202). Balducci gives further evidence that people from the Arab’s village were searching for the Arab when he says that “[the Arab’s] village was beginning to stir, they wanted to take him back” (196). This sentence demonstrates how important that the Arab is to his village, and that his village is willing to go to great lengths to save him.

            The Arab’s village has united and followed the Arab up a mountain to save him, so it is apparent that they will not quit easily. As is suggested from the noises heard in the night, the group of watchers was most likely hidden inside trying to stay warm, and the “slight sound” that Daru heard as he walked away from the house was the door being unlocked, or possibly even a window being broken, so that the watchers could continue to follow Daru and the Arab. However, Daru heard the noise and turned around, trapping the watchers in the house. This is the most likely moment for one of the watchers to have written a message on the board. Since the message accused Daru of handing the Arab over, it is clear that the message was written before Daru allowed the Arab to choose his fate. Furthermore, from the perspective of the watchers Daru is a “husky fellow” (196) who is most likely armed for the potential upcoming war. In their mind, if Daru were to attack, then many of the villagers would have been injured. Therefore, since it appears that Daru may have heard the watchers, they wrote one last message on the board as a promise of vengeance. Luckily for the villagers, Daru chooses to ignore the noise and turns around to lead the Arab onward.

            Finally, after Daru begins walking away, the villagers are free to continue watching from a cautious distance until the point when Daru frees the Arab. After Daru returns to the schoolhouse, the story is open for interpretation. If the villagers continued to follow the Arab after he began his walk towards prison, then the villagers could have persuaded the Arab to return to the village. If this is the case, then Daru would be left alone for he only behaved honorably in the eyes of the watchers, and it seemed that the Arab genuinely liked him since the Arab asked Daru to accompany him and Balducci the rest of the way to the prison (199).

            In conclusion, the ending of The Guest is mostly left open, but the author does set some clues for those that wish to have a closed ending. One of these highly alluded to possible endings is that the noises that Daru heard at a few different times in the story were actually people from the Arab’s village that were attempting to rescue the Arab. Furthermore, since these villages would have seen Daru free the Arab, they would not attempt to injure Daru because he is clearly a man doing what he thinks is best.