At A Glance

At a glance:
First Published: 1835 Type of Plot: Domestic realism Time of Work: The early 1800s Setting: Notch of the White Hills, Massachusetts Characters: The Ambitious Guest, Mother, Father, Eldest daughter, Aged grandmother, Younger children
Genres: Short fiction, Domestic realism Subjects: Family or family life, Death or dying, Storms, Ambition,Disasters, Natural disasters Locales: United States, Massachusetts, North America
The Story
The plot of The Ambitious Guest is deceptively simple. A family of farmers living in a mountain pass, the Notch of the White Hills, is sitting at dinner. From the outset, the reader is told that this is a dangerous place to live due to the risk of landslides. The family is the picture of happiness, but the howling of the wind holds a note of foreboding. Just then, a stranger enters the house. He is an aloof young man who has traveled much on his own. The warm reception he receives from the family inspires him to remove the barriers he had put up and to confide in them. He tells them about his dream: to do something memorable for which he will be famous after his death. His enthusiasm is contagious, and soon the entire family is confessing their dreams for the future. Just as they have finished speaking, they hear the roar of an approaching landslide and everyone flees the house, trying to reach the shelter they had built. However, they are too late: all perish in the landslide, including the young man. Strangely enough, the house is left untouched as the landslide separates into two streams and goes around it. athaniel Hawthorne is best known for his historical novels such as The Scarlet Letter, which is set in a puritan colony. The Ambitious Guest, published in 1835, does not have that historical distance. It was based on a true story that happened in Hawthornes time: a landslide really did kill an entire family on August 28, 1826. As John F. Sears writes in his article "Hawthorne's 'The Ambitious Guest' and the Significance of the Willey Disaster," Hawthorne transformed the incident into an American legend. Many critics have said that this story lacks Hawthornes usual subtlety. It is true that the irony and foreshadowing are far from understated: members of the family intermittently feel a sense of foreboding throughout the course of the story. The way in which they grow despondent and then cheerful again in their domestic bliss is almost comical. Moreover, immediately before the landslide begins, the young man says: I wonder how mariners feel when the ship is
sinking, and they, unknown and undistinguished, are to be buried together in the ocean that wide and nameless sepulchre? Definitely not subtle. That being said, perhaps subtlety in foreshadowing was not the authors intention. The story is not mean to be suspenseful. Readers are not meant to think: will they die? Will some of them survive? The heavy foreshadowing lets us know that all are doomed, and readers from Hawthornes time would have known that because they would recognize this as a retelling of the real-life tragedy. What makes the story interesting is the interaction between the young man and the family in their final moments, and the questions posed by their various aspirations and their untimely demise. The family, as a group, represent the young mans character foil. While they are (almost) perfectly happy within their domestic unit and the community at large, the young man seems gloomy, with the melancholy expression, almost despondency, of one who travels a wild and bleak road, at nightfall and alone. That description seems as if it was intended to sum up his entire existence, not just his present situation. Unlike the family, he is unhappy because his lofty dreams are as yet unfulfilled. (Of course, the irony is that the family does become famous after death, whereas he remains unknown. One would think that the traveler and the family would have nothing in common, but he quickly confesses all his fantastic desires to them, and they in turn confess their own, though their dreams are more practical and down-toearth. He even forms a mutual attraction with the older daughter. This scene is all the more touching because the reader knows they are all about to die. Just as in the real-life incident, the house, being the only character that survives, remains completely untouched by the natural disaster. It is a monument to perfect familial harmony and to the humble but happy individuals who inhabited it. Knowing Hawthornes tendency to deal with themes such as religion and morality, the reader is lead to ask: what was Gods part in this? Was it God who decided to punish them by causing the landslide, or did God cause the miracle of the house being untouched? From a Christian point of view, it is easy to see why the young man deserves punishment: he is guilty of the deadly sin of pride. He talks of the future as if it is in his own hands, not Gods: I cannot die till I have achieved my destiny. Then, let Death come! I shall have built my monument!' This is a very presumptuous statement, which ends up being ironically proven wrong. The family, however, does not seem guilty of any sins. Should one think that the stranger infected them with his sinful ways, and therefore they too had to be destroyed? Or did their death have a reason beyond human understanding? There are many possibilities, and that is what makes the story so appealing. It haunts its readers, leading them to contemplate the ways of coincidence, God, and fate.

At A Glance

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