"The Ambitious Guest" is a short story by

Nathaniel Hawthorne Nathaniel Hawthorne (July 4, 1804 – May 19, 1864) was an American novelist and short story writer. His works often focus on history, morality, and religion. He was born in 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, from a family long associated with that t ...

. First published in ''

The New-England Magazine ''The New-England Magazine'' was a monthly literary magazine published in Boston, Massachusetts, from 1831 to 1835. Overview The magazine was published by Joseph T. Buckingham and his son Edwin. The first edition was published in July 1831, a ...

'' in June 1835, it was republished in the second volume of ''

Twice-Told Tales ''Twice-Told Tales'' is a short story collection in two volumes by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The first volume was published in the spring of 1837 and the second in 1842. The stories had all been previously published in magazines and annuals, hence th ...

'' in 1841.

Plot

A young traveler stops for the night with a family that lives in a " notch" next to a mountain. They make friendly conversation, interrupted once by the sound of a wagon carrying other travelers, and then by the sound of rocks falling from the slope. The father reassures the visitor that rockfalls happen regularly without causing harm, but that the family has a "safe place" to go in the event of a serious collapse. The group carries on with their friendly conversation. The visitor acknowledges that he is young and has no accomplishments of note, but hopes he will have "achieved my destiny" before he dies and then "I shall have built my monument!" The father expresses the wish for a more humble legacy. Suddenly, they hear the sound of a much larger avalanche. They scream in fear of "The Slide!" and bolt outside for their safe place. But they are all caught up in the rock slide and killed, while the house is completely undamaged. Their bodies are swept away and never found. Locals mourn the loss of the family but are unaware of their ambitious guest.

Composition and publication history

The basis of the story is the Willey tragedy of

Crawford Notch Crawford Notch is a major pass through the White Mountains of New Hampshire, located in Hart's Location. Roughly half of that town is contained in Crawford Notch State Park. The high point of the notch, at approximately above sea level, is at ...

New Hampshire New Hampshire is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...

. On August 28, 1826, a family living in the Notch of the White Mountains was killed by an avalanche as they rushed from their home attempting to seek safety. The home they fled, however, was unharmed. Hawthorne visited the area four years later. He was also inspired by a trip beginning in September 1832 that took him through New Hampshire and

Vermont Vermont () is a state in the northeast New England region of the United States. Vermont is bordered by the states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, and New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to ...

. "The Ambitious Guest" was published as the first of a series of travel pieces he titled "Sketches from Memory, By a Pedestrian", in the November 1835 issue of ''

''. The second in the series, "

The Great Carbuncle "The Great Carbuncle" is a short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne. It first appeared in December 1835 before being included in the collection '' Twice-Told Tales'' in 1837. Plot synopsis In the White Mountains, a band of eight adventurers gathers to ...

", was published a month later before the series was discontinued. In addition to those two stories, Hawthorne also used the backdrop of the White Mountains in his story "The Great Stone Face" and in a nonfiction essay "Our Evening Party Among the Mountains".Johnson, Christopher. ''This Grand & Magnificent Place: The Wilderness Heritage of the White Mountains''. Durham, New Hampshire: University of New Hampshire Press, 2006 Hawthorne biographer

Brenda Wineapple Brenda Wineapple is an American nonfiction writer, literary critic, and essayist who has written several books on nineteenth-century American writers. Biography Born in Boston, Massachusetts, she graduated from Brandeis University. In 2014, Win ...

suggests that "The Ambitious Guest" expresses Hawthorne's own desire for fame and uncertainty of the future at the early stage in his career when it was written.Wineapple, Brenda. ''Hawthorne: A Life''. Random House: New York, 2003: 66. . Christopher Johnson argues that the real protagonist of the story is nature itself, as evidenced by the personification of the mountain. Hawthorne is showing, then, that man's attempts to dominate nature are hubris and impossible.

References

External links

* 1835 short stories Short stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne Works originally published in The New-England Magazine {{story-stub