Revolver and Silence
---analyze the setting in The Guest
Setting can reveal what the characters feel and also what the author wanted the readers to feel. In the novel The Guest, the author used two ways, both an object and the surrounding to lead the readers into the story, and while into the depth of Daru’s heart.
In this novel, there is one thing that has become the clue of the feeling, the revolver. It is given to Daru from Balducci as a weapon to protect himself on the way to Tinguit, Daru takes it unwillingly and put it in his pocket for safety, then he put it in his desk drawer and doesn’t take it out ever since.
The writer make the revolver as the symbol of Daru’s thought and emotion toward the Arab. After all, a gun is a gun, it means hostility and alert. The changing of place where Daru keeps the revolver shows his changing of emotion.
Firstly, it is in Daru’s pocket, it is easy to understand, for Daru has to spend a night with this totally strange person, who is also a murderer. But then the hostility begins to melt, because the Arab doesn’t tend to escape even though Daru believes and wishes he would do so. Daru put it away from his room, as if he has totally trust this man, even during the sleepless night, Daru tries to convince himself not to think bad of the Arab, not to think of the revolver. When they takes off finally, Daru doesn’t take the revolver with him, since he has decided to free this man, the nature of humanity and brotherhood has defeated the so called justice.
The writer doesn’t describe the revolver itself in any detail; however, it leads readers to trace the heart of Daru, which is the exact foundation of the story’s action. On the other hand, the setting has successfully build up an attractive atmosphere and also reveals what the characters really feels.
All the living things that appear in the novel are just three men and a horse. The heavy snow and the tension during wartime have stopped other people to come...