In "The Guest," the prisoner is an arab who is accused of
murder. The French gendarme Balducci says:
We had been looking for him for a month, but they
were hiding him. He killed his
cousin.
Daru's charge, then,
is to harbor the prisoner for one night and then deliver him to the prison the next day.
Rather than condemn the arab, who has done him no harm, Daru feels obligated to leave
him at the crossroads between prison and
freedom.
Ironically, the prisoner chooses prison. Does he
feel guilt for his crime and, therefore, punish himself by going to prison. Does he
fear freedom? Does he honor his host Daru by carrying out the mission Daru could not?
In the end, the prisoner is just that: a prisoner to his lack of freedom. He chooses
death instead of freedom, which Camus believes is what he believes of most
humans.
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