The Guest is a short story written by Albert Camus in 1957. The story was first published as part of a collection of short stories titled Exile and the Kingdom . The story is one of Albert Camus' best-known works and is familiar to many students today. The story mainly revolves around Daru, the Arab prisoner and Balducci. The protagonist of the story is Daru, who is a French schoolmaster and civil servant. Daru is instructed by Balducci, the gendarme, that is to say a police officer, to take the Arab prisoner to prison. Albert Camus skillfully uses verbal, situational and dramatic irony to show Daru's inner conflicts. From the beginning, Albert Camus uses irony. The short story is called The Guest even though the story is clearly about a prisoner. The reader is misled from the start, from the title. The title itself is an example of verbal irony. Another example occurs during the exchange between Daru, Balducci and the prisoner. Daru calls Balducci and the Arabs “strange students” since they are in a school and he is a school...