The Ambitious Guest, Mortality and Fate - Essay Example

The Ambitious Guest Mortality and Fate. “The secret of the young mans character was a high and ed ambition. He could have borne to live anundistinguished life, but not to be forgotten in the grave. Yearning desire had been transformed to hope; and hope, long cherished, had become like certainty, that, obscurely as he journeyed now, a glory was to beam on all his pathway,--though not, perhaps, while he was treading it.” Name Instructor Course Date “The Ambitious Guest”: Mortality and Fate. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story, “The Ambitious Guest,” is a detailed decription of the tragic death of a family which keeps an inn situated on a dangerous mountain pass. The narrative is brief and simply told. The innkeeper’s family, made up of the grandmother, husband, wife and children, is gathered together one night before a fire. A stranger comes to spend the night. This young man is comfortable with the mountain folk and they share an intimate conversation in which each one expresses their various ambitions and desires. Suddenly, a huge landslide descends on them. They rush out of the house into an emergency shelter. However, the landslide spares the house and destroys the shelter. All the characters die in the disaster. Within this framework, Hawthorne relates a tale of certain death and the unavoidable workings of fate. He emphasizes that death comes unexpectedly to everyone, regardless of their status or character. The selected passage helps to show that the simple mountaineers and the educated youth share a common humanity and, in spite of their different dreams, are equally helpless against the workings of fate. The guest and his hosts share many characteristics. The speaker of the selected passage is the guest who comes to the inn for shelter. This stranger is a young man of very pleasing appearance and manners. It is clear that he is a man of refinement and culture. He is “frank-hearted” (8) and has a “natural felicity of manner” (10). He is above his hosts in social status and moves “among the rich and great” (10). At the same time, he is simple enough to interact with the poor without any pride and is able to make himself at home in the poor cottage. He is widely travelled and his character, with its “proud, yet gentle spirit” (10), has a reserve which keeps him apart from others. Hawthorne gives a detailed description of the young man’s character and contrasts “the refined and educated youth” with “the simple mountaineers” (10). The innkeeper and his family are simple, uneducated mountain folk. However, although they are isolated in a high mountain pass, they share the guest’s virtues of character. Visitors to the inn receive “a homely kindness beyond all price” (3) from this family. Although they are rough and uneducated, they have their own refinement of feeling: the guest finds in his hosts “warmth and simplicity of feeling, the pervading intelligence of New England, and a poetry of native growth” (10). They also share his reserve, with the family being a closely-knit unit, keeping itself apart from others, with a “unity among themselves, and separation from the world at large” (10).  It is this basic similarity of character which makes the innkeeper’s family and the young man feel comfortable in each other’s company. The family accepts him into its unit and the young man is able to pour out his heart to them. Although the family and the guest share a basic refinement and decency, they have different dreams. The guest and his hosts differ in their ambitions. The guest, as clearly stated in the selected passage, has “a high and abstracted ambition” (11). His lofty desire is to become famous and world-renowned, so that he is remembered by the world after his death. His ambition is to leave behind some achievement which will serve as a monument to his memory. It is in his “nature to desire a monument, be it slate or marble, or a pillar of granite, or a glorious memory in the universal heart of man” (19). His ambition is in marked contrast to the contentment of the simple mountaineers. These simple people have “found the “herb, hearts-ease,” in the bleakest spot of all New England” (1). They are contented in their little cottage and find joy in the intimacy of their family. When the guest tells them of his ambitions, the family in turn thinks about their own desires. The young girl declares that “It is better to sit here by this fire --- and be comfortable and contented, though nobody thinks about us” (15). The father dreams of a simple life as a gentleman farmer; the grandmother thinks about the appropriateness of her grave clothes; the little boy wants to take a night walk to a brook. In contrast to the strong ambitions of the guest, these simple dreams are more a reaction to his passion than true motives. The father admits that these are “things that are pretty certain never to come to pass” (16). The guest is determined to pursue his grand ambition for world renown, while the family is content as it is. As the guest and his hosts remain united in their basic similarity and share their contrasting dreams for the future, they share a common fate: the landslide comes down and destroys them all. The selected passage becomes a pointer to the mortality of all mankind and supports Hawthorne’s theme that no one can avoid the dictates of fate. There is no defense against death, which comes to the high and the low. The declaration of ambition in the passage is a situational irony. It is the young man who longs to be remembered after death, while the family does not share his burning ambition. However, it is the innkeeper’s family which achieves immortal fame: their “story has been told far and wide, and will forever be a legend of these mountains. Poets have sung their fate” (41), while the guest dies unknown and unmourned. In fact, his presence in the inn is itself debated. Again, the selected passage emphasizes that the path of life cannot be chosen by an individual but is dictated by fate. The guest believes that “a glory was to beam on all his pathway” (11). Finally, he dies unknown in a landslide in a desolate mountain area. He declares, “But I cannot die till I have achieved my destiny” (12): however, fate does not wait for him to choose the time of his death. The guest does not achieve his ambition for fame which he expresses in the selected passage. Hawthorne effectively emphasizes the uselessness of man’s ambition in the face of mortality and fate. Works Cited. Hawthorne, Nathaniel. “The Ambitious Guest.” Title of Collection. Ed. Editors Name(s). City of Publication: Publisher, Year. Page range of entry. Medium of Publication. One September night a family had gathered round their hearth, and piled it high with the driftwood of mountain streams, the dry cones of the pine, and the splintered ruins of great trees that had come crashing down the precipice. Up the chimney roared the fire, and brightened the room with its broad blaze. 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. They had found the "herb, hearts-ease," in the bleakest spot of all New England. This family were situated in the Notch of the White Hills, where the wind was sharp throughout the year, and pitilessly cold in the winter,--giving their cottage all its fresh inclemency before it descended on the valley of the Saco. They dwelt in a cold spot and a dangerous one; for a mountain towered above their heads, so steep, that the stones would often rumble down its sides and startle them at midnight. The daughter had just uttered some simple jest that filled them all with mirth, when the wind came through the Notch and seemed to pause before their cottage--rattling the door, with a sound of wailing and lamentation, before it passed into the valley. For a moment it saddened them, though there was nothing unusual in the tones. But the family were glad again when they perceived that the latch was lifted by some traveller, whose footsteps had been unheard amid the dreary blast which heralded his approach, and wailed as he was entering, and went moaning away from the door. 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 stage-coach always drew up before the door of the cottage. The wayfarer, with no companion but his staff, paused here to exchange a word, that the sense of loneliness might not utterly overcome him ere he could pass through the cleft of the mountain, or reach the first house in the valley. And here the teamster, on his way to Portland market, would put up for the night; and, if a bachelor, might sit an hour beyond the usual bedtime, and steal a kiss from the mountain maid at parting. It was one of those primitive taverns where the traveller pays only for food and lodging, but meets with a homely kindness beyond all price. 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 some one who belonged to them, and whose fate was linked with theirs. The door was opened by a young man. His face at first wore the melancholy expression, almost despondency, of one who travels a wild and bleak road, at nightfall and alone, but soon brightened up when he saw the kindly warmth of his reception. He felt his heart spring forward to meet them all, from the old woman, who wiped a chair with her apron, to the little child that held out its arms to him. One glance and smile placed the stranger on a footing of innocent familiarity with the eldest daughter. "Ah, this fire is the right thing!" cried he; "especially when there is such a pleasant circle round it. I am quite benumbed; for the Notch is just like the pipe of a great pair of bellows; it has blown a terrible blast in my face all the way from Bartlett." "Then you are going towards Vermont?" said the master of the house, as he helped to take a light knapsack off the young mans shoulders. "Yes; to Burlington, and far enough beyond," replied he. "I meant to have been at Ethan Crawfords to-night; but a pedestrian lingers along such a road as this. It is no matter; for, when I saw this good fire, and all your cheerful faces, I felt as if you had kindled it on purpose for me, and were waiting my arrival. So I shall sit down among you, and make myself at home." The frank-hearted stranger had just drawn his chair to the fire when something like a heavy footstep was heard without, rushing down the steep side of the mountain, as with long and rapid strides, and taking such a leap in passing the cottage as to strike the opposite precipice. The family held their breath, because they knew the sound, and their guest held his by instinct. "The old mountain has thrown a stone at us, for fear we should forget him," said the landlord, recovering himself. "He sometimes nods his head and threatens to come down; but we are old neighbors, and agree together pretty well upon the whole. Besides we have a sure place of refuge hard by if he should be coming in good earnest." Let us now suppose the stranger to have finished his supper of bears meat; and, by his natural felicity of manner, to have placed himself on a footing of kindness with the whole family, so that they talked as freely together as if he belonged to their mountain brood. He was of a proud, yet gentle spirit--haughty and reserved among the rich and great; but ever ready to stoop his head to the lowly cottage door, and be like a brother or a son at the poor mans fireside. In the household of the Notch he found warmth and simplicity of feeling, the pervading intelligence of New England, and a poetry of native growth, which they had gathered when they little thought of it from the mountain peaks and chasms, and at the very threshold of their romantic and dangerous abode. He had travelled far and alone; his whole life, indeed, had been a solitary path; for, with the lofty caution of his nature, he had kept himself apart from those who might otherwise have been his companions. The family, too, though so kind and hospitable, had that consciousness of unity among themselves, and separation from the world at large, which, in every domestic circle, should still keep a holy place where no stranger may intrude. But this evening a prophetic sympathy impelled the refined and educated youth to pour out his heart before the simple mountaineers, and constrained them to answer him with the same free confidence. And thus it should have been. Is not the kindred of a common fate a closer tie than that of birth? The secret of the young mans character was a high and abstracted ambition. He could have borne to live an undistinguished life, but not to be forgotten in the grave. Yearning desire had been transformed to hope; and hope, long cherished, had become like certainty, that, obscurely as he journeyed now, a glory was to beam on all his pathway,--though not, perhaps, while he was treading it. But when posterity should gaze back into the gloom of what was now the present, they would trace the brightness of his footsteps, brightening as meaner glories faded, and confess that a gifted one had passed from his cradle to his tomb with none to recognize him. "As yet," cried the stranger--his cheek glowing and his eye flashing with enthusiasm--"as yet, I have done nothing. Were I to vanish from the earth to-morrow, none would know so much of me as you: that a nameless youth came up at nightfall from the valley of the Saco, and opened his heart to you in the evening, and passed through the Notch by sunrise, and was seen no more. Not a soul would ask, Who was he? Whither did the wanderer go? But I cannot die till I have achieved my destiny. Then, let Death come! I shall have built my monument!" There was a continual flow of natural emotion, gushing forth amid abstracted reverie, which enabled the family to understand this young mans sentiments, though so foreign from their own. With quick sensibility of the ludicrous, he blushed at the ardor into which he had been betrayed. "You laugh at me," said he, taking the eldest daughters hand, and laughing himself. "You think my ambition as nonsensical as if I were to freeze myself to death on the top of Mount Washington, only that people might spy at me from the country round about. And, truly, that would be a noble pedestal for a mans statue!" "It is better to sit here by this fire," answered the girl, blushing, "and be comfortable and contented, though nobody thinks about us." "I suppose," said her father, after a fit of musing, "there is something natural in what the young man says; and if my mind had been turned that way, I might have felt just the same. It is strange, wife, how his talk has set my head running on things that are pretty certain never to come to pass." "Perhaps they may," observed the wife. "Is the man thinking what he will do when he is a widower?" "No, no!" cried he, repelling the idea with reproachful kindness. "When I think of your death, Esther, I think of mine, too. But I was wishing we had a good farm in Bartlett, or Bethlehem, or Littleton, or some other township round the White Mountains; but not where they could tumble on our heads. I should want to stand well with my neighbors and be called Squire, and sent to General Court for a term or two; for a plain, honest man may do as much good there as a lawyer. And when I should be grown quite an old man, and you an old woman, so as not to be long apart, I might die happy enough in my bed, and leave you all crying around me. A slate gravestone would suit me as well as a marble one--with just my name and age, and a verse of a hymn, and something to let people know that I lived an honest man and died a Christian." "There now!" exclaimed the stranger; "it is our nature to desire a monument, be it slate or marble, or a pillar of granite, or a glorious memory in the universal heart of man." "Were in a strange way, to-night," said the wife, with tears in her eyes. "They say its a sign of something, when folks minds go a wandering so. Hark to the children!" They listened accordingly. The younger children had been put to bed in another room, but with an open door between, so that they could be heard talking busily among themselves. One and all seemed to have caught the infection from the fireside circle, and were outvying each other in wild wishes, and childish projects of what they would do when they came to be men and women. At length a little boy, instead of addressing his brothers and sisters, called out to his mother. "Ill tell you what I wish, mother," cried he. "I want you and father and grandmam, and all of us, and the stranger too, to start right away, and go and take a drink out of the basin of the Flume!" Nobody could help laughing at the childs notion of leaving a warm bed, and dragging them from a cheerful fire, to visit the basin of the Flume,--a brook, which tumbles over the precipice, deep within the Notch. The boy had hardly spoken when a wagon rattled along the road, and stopped a moment before the door. It appeared to contain two or three men, who were cheering their hearts with the rough chorus of a song, which resounded, in broken notes, between the cliffs, while the singers hesitated whether to continue their journey or put up here for the night. "Father," said the girl, "they are calling you by name." But the good man doubted whether they had really called him, and was unwilling to show himself too solicitous of gain by inviting people to patronize his house. He therefore did not hurry to the door; and the lash being soon applied, the travellers plunged into the Notch, still singing and laughing, though their music and mirth came back drearily from the heart of the mountain. "There, mother!" cried the boy, again. "Theyd have given us a ride to the Flume." Again they laughed at the childs pertinacious fancy for a night ramble. But it happened that a light cloud passed over the daughters spirit; she looked gravely into the fire, and drew a breath that was almost a sigh. It forced its way, in spite of a little struggle to repress it. Then starting and blushing, she looked quickly round the circle, as if they had caught a glimpse into her bosom. The stranger asked what she had been thinking of. "Nothing," answered she, with a downcast smile. "Only I felt lonesome just then." "Oh, I have always had a gift of feeling what is in other peoples hearts," said he, half seriously. "Shall I tell the secrets of yours? For I know what to think when a young girl shivers by a warm hearth, and complains of lonesomeness at her mothers side. Shall I put these feelings into words?" "They would not be a girls feelings any longer if they could be put into words," replied the mountain nymph, laughing, but avoiding his eye. All this was said apart. Perhaps a germ of love was springing in their hearts, so pure that it might blossom in Paradise, since it could not be matured on earth; for women worship such gentle dignity as his; and the proud, contemplative, yet kindly soul is oftenest captivated by simplicity like hers. But while they spoke softly, and he was watching the happy sadness, the lightsome shadows, the shy yearnings of a maidens nature, the wind through the Notch took a deeper and drearier sound. It seemed, as the fanciful stranger said, like the choral strain of the spirits of the blast, who in old Indian times had their dwelling among these mountains, and made their heights and recesses a sacred region. There was a wail along the road, as if a funeral were passing. To chase away the gloom, the family threw pine branches on their fire, till the dry leaves crackled and the flame arose, discovering once again a scene of peace and humble happiness. The light hovered about them fondly, and caressed them all. There were the little faces of the children, peeping from their bed apart and here the fathers frame of strength, the mothers subdued and careful mien, the high-browed youth, the budding girl, and the good old grandam, still knitting in the warmest place. The aged woman looked up from her task, and, with fingers ever busy, was the next to speak. "Old folks have their notions," said she, "as well as young ones. Youve been wishing and planning; and letting your heads run on one thing and another, till youve set my mind a wandering too. Now what should an old woman wish for, when she can go but a step or two before she comes to her grave? Children, it will haunt me night and day till I tell you." "What is it, mother?" cried the husband and wife at once. Then the old woman, with an air of mystery which drew the circle closer round the fire, informed them that she had provided her graveclothes some years before,--a nice linen shroud, a cap with a muslin ruff, and everything of a finer sort than she had worn since her wedding day. But this evening an old superstition had strangely recurred to her. It used to be said, in her younger days, that if anything were amiss with a corpse, if only the ruff were not smooth, or the cap did not set right, the corpse in the coffin and beneath the clods would strive to put up its cold hands and arrange it. The bare thought made her nervous. "Dont talk so, grandmother!" said the girl, shuddering. "Now,"--continued the old woman, with singular earnestness, yet smiling strangely at her own folly,--"I want one of you, my children--when your mother is dressed and in the coffin--I want one of you to hold a looking-glass over my face. Who knows but I may take a glimpse at myself, and see whether alls right?" "Old and young, we dream of graves and monuments," murmured the stranger youth. "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?" For a moment, the old womans ghastly conception so engrossed the minds of her hearers that a sound abroad in the night, rising like the roar of a blast, had grown broad, deep, and terrible, before the fated group were conscious of it. The house and all within it trembled; the foundations of the earth seemed to be shaken, as if this awful sound were the peal of the last trump. Young and old exchanged one wild glance, and remained an instant, pale, affrighted, without utterance, or power to move. Then the same shriek burst simultaneously from all their lips. "The Slide! The Slide!" The simplest words must intimate, but not portray, the unutterable horror of the catastrophe. The victims rushed from their cottage, and sought refuge in what they deemed a safer spot--where, in contemplation of such an emergency, a sort of barrier had been reared. Alas! they had quitted their security, and fled right into the pathway of destruction. Down came the whole side of the mountain, in a cataract of ruin. Just before it reached the house, the stream broke into two branches--shivered not a window there, but overwhelmed the whole vicinity, blocked up the road, and annihilated everything in its dreadful course. Long ere the thunder of the great Slide had ceased to roar among the mountains, the mortal agony had been endured, and the victims were at peace. Their bodies were never found. The next morning, the light smoke was seen stealing from the cottage chimney up the mountain side. Within, the fire was yet smouldering on the hearth, and the chairs in a circle round it, as if the inhabitants had but gone forth to view the devastation of the Slide, and would shortly return, to thank Heaven for their miraculous escape. All had left separate tokens, by which those who had known the family were made to shed a tear for each. Who has not heard their name? The story has been told far and wide, and will forever be a legend of these mountains. Poets have sung their fate. There were circumstances which led some to suppose that a stranger had been received into the cottage on this awful night, and had shared the catastrophe of all its inmates. Others denied that there were sufficient grounds for such a conjecture. Woe for the high-souled youth, with his dream of Earthly Immortality! His name and person utterly unknown; his history, his way of life, his plans, a mystery never to be solved, his death and his existence equally a doubt! Whose was the agony of that death moment? 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