Comparative Essay of The Guest and The Wall

To introduce, characters in any story play crucial purposes and roles, and all of them are directed by the style and intent of the writer. In a story the protagonist is the main character, he or she is always a character that the audience or reader highlights with, and cheers for, whether it is rooting of that person`s demise or success. Protagonist acts as a catalyst to a story by causing or making an action that transports things along, and without this main character, literally, nothing takes place. The reader experiences the tale through the eyes of a protagonist as the protagonist moral fiber and nature can also vary, and it should not be confused with another antagonist who is the important lead character in a story and who opposes the protagonist. The paper tries to compare and contrast the protagonist experiences in two works which are The Guest and The Wall. In the Guest, the protagonist is Daru which the story is about his emotions, actions, and feelings. Daru is known for his anti-violence, and he wanted peace and a caring person too. In The Wall, the protagonist is Pablo Ibbietta who due to his anarchist activities on behalf of Spain`s Republicans was condemned to death (Dutta 95). In dealing with impending death, Pablo detaches himself from life and feels alienated from his body, from his past, and the other condemned men.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

In summarizing the two texts, The Guest deals with the story of Daru who is a schoolteacher in a region which is remote but recently there has been a blizzard that left the area with snow that kept Daru`s pupils away. The story starts as Daru looks at two men approaching schoolhouse and looks them as they climb the hill. He knows very well one of the men called Balducci. Balducci was leading an Arab prisoner accused of murdering his cousin, and he brought the prisoner to Daru and was directed to take to police headquarters. Daru considered the task dishonorable and refused which makes Balducci leave in anger (Shurgot 79). Daru feeds the Arab and sleep together and during the night the Arab gets up to drink water which makes Daru think he has escaped. Daru leads the Arab the next day to a point on the same plateau and gave him food and money and shows him two ways, one leading to imprisonment and other away from police headquarters for the Arab to choose, then the prisoner decided to follow the route to prison.

In The Wall, it narrates the predicament of three men who were imprisoned without any explanation or warning. Falangist forces arrested the men under General Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War of 1936 to 1939. Pablo, a political activist, narrates the story. The three men are sentenced to death by firing squad after a summary interrogation. At the start of their fate, Pablo is preoccupied with fellow prisoners' reactions as they implicitly compare their behavior to Pablo`s behavior (Dutta 95). Prisoner Tom talks too much which betrays his nervousness and the other one called Juan protests his innocence as he claims that he has been mistaken for an anarchist brother. Throughout the night, as they wait for the execution on the next day, a Belgian doctor was sent to record their behavior and comfort them where Pablo looks at the doctor, and he understood that he belongs to a different order of being as he is sensitive to hunger and cold. Then, Pablo recalled his political career and small pleasures of his life but realized his death does not utterly lessen such instants as feeling the end waiting for him has disenchanted everything and thinks that when someone has lost illusion, several hours or years are same. At down, Juan and Tom are led to be shot, and Pablo is detained for further investigation about the activities of anarchist Ramon Gris of which previously denied. Pablo refuses to divulge what he knows about Ramon and decided to tell an elaborate lie that Gris is at Cemetery (Haddour 86). Later an officer came and ordered for the release of Pablo as Gris has been shot at Cemetery by the Falangists and after hearing the death of Gris Pablo collapses.

In comparison both the protagonists experienced mental agony. Pablo in The Wall experienced a sense of frustration, as while in prison he tried not thinking about death but something else and started thinking about his life in the past but none was essential to him anymore. The doctor wanted to tell them about their loved ones but still felt utterly alone and started disconnecting from the real world as he prepares for his death. In The Guest, Daru suffered internal conflict as he felt relaxed to be involved in the situation and issues that are about Arabs and French. The case was worse after Balducci brought Arab prisoner to him to spent night together and escort him the next day to prison and later was unable to decide the fate of the prisoner and leaves him along the way as he is conflicted whether to set the Arab prisoner to freedom or escort to authorities (Kim 252). He is disturbed on what is expected to him as an individual and by the French authorities.

In both works, the protagonists' experience of anguish came from the lack of a comfortable environment or thoughts from their normal life. In The Guest, Daru is uncomfortable during the night as he is used to loneliness and cannot sleep at night as he has to take care of the prisoner, as evidenced by how he thought when the prisoner wakes up to drink water but Daru thought he wants to escape. In The Wall, Pablo has a lot of fear and start recalling his experience and political career. He feels lonely, and at his current state at the prison, even the wild fantasy of amnesty leaves him strangely cold. He is further detained to refill the whereabouts of Gris which makes him uncomfortable and scared.

The two protagonists experienced the anguish of abandonment as they were faced with a lack of contact with their beloved one. In The Guest, Daru is alone in the mountain which is rocky and steep, no communication, transportation, and far from society. He lacks important contact with friends, family, and colleagues. He is just near a military that has no spiritual identity with like Balducci. Thus, Daru is in an exile in his homeland; he is with an Arab prisoner who killed his cousin and cannot speak the same language together. In the Wall, Pablo during the time they were in cell felt alone as they were not in the same mood with the other two prisoners (Sweeney 15). The three of them in the night to their execution were responding to different manners. Also, Pablo felt he has missed his mistress Concha and was the only one being asked about fellow partner Gris

Protagonist Daru in The Guest experienced threat as he found a message at the schoolhouse threatening him for handing over the Arab Prisoner to the prison and yet he knows very well that he told the prisoner to choose either to go to jail or away from the police headquarters (Shurgot 80). Pablo too in The Wall got threatened as he did not want to disclose whereabouts of his fellow anarchist and he had a lot of fear concerning his fate as they were imprisoned to death without being explained the reason for the imprisonment and warning.

In contrast, in The Guest, the protagonist Daru faces an experience of anguish through isolation and lonely he has experienced in his school in a remote area. He was given a responsibility of taking care of an Arab prisoner accused of murder, and in the process, Daru denied the responsibility as he doesn't understand why the prisoner is brought to him to keep overnight and take him the next day to police headquarters, and yet Balducci who brought the Arab is a gendarme. In The Wall, Pablo`s experience is as a result of his actions of becoming an anarchist, and he was condemned to death, and through that, he felt alienated from other condemned men in the same cell together, divided from this own body, and his past.

In The Wall, Pablo decision not to disclose the location of fellow anarchist Ramon Gris lands him in a critical situation as he collapsed. At first, Pablo thought he had made fools of the officers by telling them Gris is at the Cemetery thinking Gris is at a different place, but Gris was found at the Cemetery and was killed which surprised Pablo and later collapsed on the ground (Baker 176). In The Guest, Daru did not want to take the Arab prisoner to the police headquarters. But instead decided to show him two ways, one that goes to imprisonment and other away from police and he expected the prisoner to follow the route that goes away from police headquarters to save himself from jail, but to Daru`s surprise the Arab prisoner followed the path to imprisonment and became upset.

Furthermore, in The Wall, Pablo during the night before the day for there execution, he reviewed his life in the past and found it strange wanting. He thought how his life in front of him is closed, and yet everything in his life is unfinished, he senses his plans will die with him without any performance in his commitment to the liberal cause (Haddour 84). In The Guest, Daru faces an impossible moral decision as there was a conflict between his respect on authority and feelings of brotherhood. He was weighing between taking the prisoner to prison to be jailed for the death of his cousin or setting the prisoner free, at last, he decided not to decide the fate of the Arab prisoner himself but left the prisoner to choose his destiny.

Experience of anguish by the two protagonists in both The Guest and The Wall had importance in both of them. In The Guest, Daru got awareness of one`s freedom of choice and will, the effect of Daru`s decision to leave the prisoner to decide for himself will likely cost him in future as the prisoner went to prison alone. The internal conflicts experienced by Daru is the illustration of the struggle for one`s free will (Kim 256). Also, Daru is being forced by Balducci to take the prisoner meaning the existence of a force that overpowers one to be free. In The Wall, Pablo experience of anguish changed his feelings about his colleague Ramon Gris during his time in a cell. Knowing that his death is inevitable, he slowly changed how he feels about his life, life in general, and about Gris. The anguish made Pablo to quickly respond unreflectively and quickly to external stimulus like heat, cold, and darkness. Pablo learned that life just all about the whole completed acts at the time of death and aspirations count for nothing.

Conclusion

In conclusion, experiences of anguish by the protagonists in the story are the issues that accompany the burden of freedom. From the two works the protagonists went to mental agony in seeking for their freedom; they were isolated and felt lonely. In The Guest, it communicates the isolation that humans go through at heart, the sense of moral distress, and the idea of absurdity as shown through the story`s environment and the main character Danu. In The Wall it indicates the presence of a wall that separates life and death, living from condemned and individuals from one another. There is a sense of loneliness in it, a matter of decision exist too as Pablo was weighing his life to Gris life.

Works Cited

Baker, Geoffrey A. "Pressing Engagement: Jean-Paul Sartre and the Aesthetic Problem of the Political." The Aesthetics of Clarity and Confusion. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2016. 163-190.

Dutta, Amrita. "Some Aspects of Alienation and Existence in Literary Works of Tagore and Sartre." The Journal of Social Science and Humanity Research (2014): 95.

Haddour, Azzedine. "The Camus-Sartre debate and the colonial question in Algeria." Francophone Postcolonial Studies. Routledge, 2014. 80-90.

Kim, Jungah. "Rooted and Rootless, Exiled and Belonging: Aporetic Moments of Justice as Law in Camus's "The Guest." Law & Literature 25.2 (2013): 244-267.

Shurgot, Michael W. "Tracks in the Snow: Irony and Betrayal in Camus's...