The Ambitious Guest[edited on 23rd June]

 After reading this short story by Hawthorne, I was deeply inspired by the concept of ambition. It made me ponder upon the definition of ambition, and I came to a conclusion that ambition might totally corrupt an individual. Although it has to exist in some way in order for the mankind to continue advancing, it might produce a disastrous result if focused too much.

 Consider the family in 'The Ambitious Guest'. They were a happy family who were contented with their lives till the guest came by. After hearing the guest's hunger for achievement, the family started to lose their satisfaction and crave for what they do not own. In the end, everyone including the guest faced tragic deaths, and nothing was achieved.

 How about myself? Did having too much ambition ever affect me in a negative way? I am pretty sure it did. When I was in my middle school, I have won a United Kingdom math olympiad. After winning such a big competition, I began to get all excited about participating and winning more olympiads. I can assure you, I felt as if I was invincible. The results were catastrophic. After failing to win the next four or five consecutive contests, I began to face the reality; I started to think that maybe, I had just been lucky. Such outcomes brought me unforgivable disappointment and hatred, but all I could do was to lament at my own actions. Ambition blinded me, and I was wandering around in my own fantasies.

COMMENTS


Chonghyun Ahn: I really liked the way how you juxtaposed the concept of satisfaction and achievement and showed how the two are inherently different. I also was contented by your last line, where you put "Ambition blinded me", because it was very poetic in a sense that you not only spoke your opinion through the content, but also through the sentence structure of putting "ambition" in subject, and putting yourself in the object position. However, I would like to challenge your concept of "proceed" in the first paragraph. You seem to propose for progress that opposes ambition. How is the two different? Anyway, I liked your writing!

Hyunseok Lee: It was very interesting to connect your personal experiences to the text, however, I strongly believe that you should come up with additional characteristics of ambition. Since you said you were deeply touched about what the author showed related to ambition, I'm sure that you can talk about not only fail of achievement, but also relationship with nature and ambition, why ambition is useless, etc.

Inhee Ho: I sympathize with your personal experience as well! But I was wondering, didn't ambition allow you to see the reality as the final outcome? I viewed the story as awakening the family, living solitary life, to the reality. I agree that resultingly, the guest made the family to lose their satisfaction, but I saw that as letting them know the reality rather than blinding it.