The Ambitious Guest

In many of his works, Hawthorne examines the need for humans to follow and respect the power of nature. For example, the power of nature and the importance of abiding by natural laws feature heavily in “The Birth-Mark” and The Scarlett Letter. From the first paragraph of “The Ambitious Guest,” the conflict between the family and the mountain where they reside is evident. The family ignores the many warnings given to them by their environment and believes that they can outsmart nature by building a shelter to protect themselves from the landslides. However, their efforts are ultimately proven futile when they perish in a natural disaster.

The juxtaposition between the warmth inside the inn and the cold outside particularly highlights the theme of human beings versus nature. The warmth inside the inn is a controlled and man-made environment created by the family to give them a sense of safety; the fire literally and figuratively “brighten[s] the room with its broad blaze” (299). However, the cold and danger represented by the mountains outside, which is an uncontrolled and natural environment, is always threateningly present in the narrative. The fire that gives the family warmth is itself a reminder of nature’s superiority because some of the wood that is used to light the fire is from the “splintered ruins of great trees” that fell due to previous landslides (299).