The Guest

In “The Guest,” how does the author use descriptions of landscape and weather to parallel Daru’s predicament?

The Guest by Alber Camus

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Camus paints a dreary isolating picture of Daru's existence. He lives in the mountains of Algeria where,

"Plateaus burnt to a cinder month after month, the earth shrivelled up little by little, literally scorched, every stone bursting under one's foot."

The people struggle to subsist on this landscape and Daru struggles to belong to the people. The barren landscape represents the empty barren dreams of Daru. He is a Frenchman desperately trying to be accepted by Arabs but his journey to this acceptance seems as futile as growing crops on the dusty mountainside.The weather changes drastically, often from one extreme to another. These changes represent the socio-political atmosphere of Algeria. Always there is a subdued peace with the threat of civil war and unspeakable violence.