The Ambitious Guest

“The faces of the father and mother had a sober gladness; the children laughed; the eldest daughter was the image of Happiness at seventeen; and the aged grandmother, who sat knitting in the warmest place, was the image of Happiness grown old.”

The beginning of the story describes the family members in a very idealistic manner. This makes the ending of the story and their deaths even more startling for the reader because in this story, the good people do not have a happy ending.

“Though they dwelt in such a solitude, these people held daily converse with the world. The romantic pass of the Notch is a great artery, through which the life-blood of internal commerce is continually throbbing between Maine, on one side, and the Green Mountains and the shores of the St. Lawrence, on the other.”

The metaphor of the Notch as a “great artery” establishes the importance of this part of the White Mountains. Furthermore, it anthropomorphizes the Notch, giving it a sense of agency and power. Throughout the story, Hawthorne’s personification of the mountain and the elements emphasizes humans’ vulnerability against nature’s might.

“When the footsteps were heard, therefore, between the outer door and the inner one, the whole family rose up, grandmother, children, and all, as if about to welcome someone who belonged to them, and whose fate was linked with theirs.”

This excerpt demonstrates the narrator’s omniscience and Hawthorne’s use of irony. While the phrase “whose fate was linked with theirs” sounds warm and inviting in the beginning, the words take on a different, darker meaning in light of the ending, where the family and the guest die together.