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Camus' philosophy and other works

It is a mistake, however, to limit Camus to that category. Camus's philosophy was, in fact, better known as "absurdity"; he did not view life as useless and without purpose, but rather felt that there was a lack of logic in the universe. Unlike existentialism, absurdism holds that there is meaning in life, because people are still in control of their destinies. As Camus wrote, "If something worth living for is worth dying for, what about something not worth dying for?" It is only when mankind tries to create logic out of an incomprehensible world that conflict will occur. This philosophy first begins to develop in Camus's earlier works, such as The Stranger, and is later formalized in "The Guest" and The Plague.

Camus's theory of existentialism had two phases: the first involved his widely-read novel The Stranger. Mersault, the hero of the story, is entangled in the accidental murder of an Arab: an event that later leads to his execution. He was not so much sentenced to death for killing the Arab, because they were discriminated against and were deemed to be of less importance (similar to the Arab prisoner in "The Guest"), but because he admits that he does not believe in God, and is indifferent to his mother's death. This event furthers Camus's notion of life's absurdity. Mersault begins to realize that the world is indifferent to him, as well as to everybody else; it does not matter whether he is sentenced to die or whether he goes on with his mundane life. Thus, this view, which was based on the events of Europe at that time, became the basis for Camus's later works.

Beginning in his late twenties, Camus began his second phase. His theory of existentialism held that life was still absurd, but "he believed that values could be constructed out of rebellion against the predicament" (Royal). His novel The Plague tells of a plague entering a city in Algeria and the events that occur during a quarantine of the city. Though this plot does not seem to relate to existentialism, Tarrou, one of the main characters of the story, sums up a major theme when he says, "I refuse everything which, for good reasons or bad, leads to death or putting someone to death." Tarrou's situation in the novel involves the execution of infected patients, which is similar to the conflict in "The Guest". Ironically, Tarrou dies at the end of the story, despite his efforts to make right in a harsh world - recalling how Daru is threatened by the Arabs.

The difference between Tarrou and Daru's situation and that experienced by Meursault is crucial to an understanding of these three works. Meursault does not care if he is executed or if there is a God; life is meaningless for him because the only rational thing he can expect is death. Camus's new idea of existentialism holds that life has meaning and is worth living, even if it is revealed as absurd in the end. Thus, both Tarrou and Daru live their lives and try to succeed to the best of their abilities, while Meursault has already given up on life at the very beginning.

In both of his phases, Camus includes his attachment to Algeria and his fervent belief that it should not be separated from France. The setting plays an even more important part than the characters themselves: both The Stranger and The Plague take place in his birthplace of Oran and describe the scenery as vividly as Camus remembers it. His works have a sense of attachment, a reverence for the conflicted land; Camus writes in "The Guest": "This is the way the region was, cruel to live in, even without men...But Daru had been born here. Everywhere else, he felt exiled." However, as John Erickson writes, "those same traits that made Camus a 'colonizer who refuses'... served as the model for the very problematic he explored - the state of the outsider" (Knatt).

Behind the setting lies the ubiquitous - if sometimes indirect - theme of war and conflict. Camus's life was heavily impacted by both world wars and conflicts between the French and the Arab populations. In "The Guest" and The Stranger, the persistent hatred between the Europeans and the non-Europeans is evident from the hostility between cultures. In The Plague, not only is the quarantine of the city meant to represent the Nazi occupation of France during World War II but, as Germaine Bree put it, "[It] takes us back directly to Camus's main preoccupation: his need to rethink the fundamental problems of life" (Hodgkin). Camus's works always contain events from his own life: disease in The Plague (his bouts with tuberculosis), the conflict with the Arabs in The Stranger (his involvement in a fight with Arabs in Oran), and his opposition to the Nazi occupation of France.

However, the most important idea in Camus's works will always be existentialism, a concept that is found in the works of numerous authors throughout history. For example, Franz Kafka's The Trial details an existentialist situation where a man is suddenly arrested for a crime that is never revealed to him, not even at his execution. He accepts his situation, and does not even plead innocent when he finally is offered a trial. Instead, he endures what others give him, regardless of how undesirable their offerings may be. A connection can be made between Kafka's work and Camus's "The Guest"; both stories take place in a world with an "absurd form of justice - a legal system without logic" (Wyatt). There is no reason for the man to be executed, and yet he accepts his fate just as the Arab prisoner accepts his. Like Kafka's character, Daru is punished for a crime that is not really his, and one that he has no control over. Kafka, however, uses a different form of existentialism than Camus: "Kafka arouses pity and affection on the part of his readers...but no modern writer that I can think of, except Camus, has aroused love" (Royal).

Post-Camus writers still value the notion of existentialism, though a different concept is used because of the horrific experiences that our world went through in the late 20th Century. In Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five, Billy Pilgrim goes through the horrendous firebombing of Dresden and survives, an indication of the absurdity of war in an illogical world. His cataclysmic description of a naïve soldier almost mirrors Daru's situation in "The Guest". Daru realizes in the end what Billy has known all along: life has no beginning, no end, no purpose; his response to any incident, bad or good, is "So it goes..." (Vonnegut).

Modern writers have been profoundly affected by Camus's writings, even forty years after he died in a car crash. Today, Camus is still highly praised for the works that he deemed "unworthy" of a Nobel Prize. Diana Festa-McCormick comments that "The Guest" "remains one of the most widely read and anthologized...a quarter of the century after the Algerian war and the fierce debates that it aroused in the French intelligentsia, it stands as one of the most deeply touching literary pieces on that war" (Knapp). Camus's legacy is admired by both Arabs and French, a goal he would have been overjoyed to see realized.

Yet another theme can be extracted from this short story, however: complete neutrality is unattainable. This is evidenced by Daru's attempt to avoid making a decision; in the end, the Arab makes the decision for him, and he loses his neutrality.