The Ambitious Guest

On the surface, “The Ambitious Guest” is a tragic short story about the death of a kind family and an aspiring young man who takes shelter with them one night. They are victims of a landslide, and their bodies are never found. The author uses irony and foreshadowing to underscore the characters’ dismal end. However, an allegorical reading of the text delves deeper to explore human beings’ hubristic and ultimately doomed efforts to triumph over nature. In this context, the mountain setting becomes a symbol of fate; it is an apathetic and powerful entity that dooms the characters at the end of the story. Hawthorne’s use of personification further emphasizes the mountain as a powerful figure and gives nature a sense of agency. Ultimately, the titular character’s pride is no match for nature’s might. The story emphasizes the age-old conflicts of Ambition Versus Fate and Human Beings Versus Nature.

On another level, “The Ambitious Guest” can be read as a story that highlights the struggle of accepting death as the final, common destiny of all human beings.