The Ambitious Guest
E225216
"The Ambitious Guest" is a short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne that explores themes of aspiration, anonymity, and sudden mortality through the encounter between a traveling stranger and a mountain family.
All labels observed (5)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| The Ambitious Guest canonical | 5 |
| "The Ambitious Guest" | 1 |
| short story "The Ambitious Guest" | 1 |
| the ambitious guest | 1 |
| “The Ambitious Guest” | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T2021530 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Ambitious Guest Context triple: [Twice-Told Tales, containsWork, The Ambitious Guest]
-
A.
The Pleasure of His Company
The Pleasure of His Company is a 1961 romantic comedy film featuring Fred Astaire as a charming, sophisticated playboy who returns to reconnect with his estranged daughter on the eve of her wedding.
-
B.
The Blue Hotel
The Blue Hotel is a short story by American author Stephen Crane that explores themes of fear, alienation, and violence in a small Nebraska town.
-
C.
The Gift
The Gift is a 2000 supernatural thriller film directed by Sam Raimi, centered on a Southern clairvoyant whose psychic visions entangle her in a murder investigation.
-
D.
The Gala
The Gala is a flagship opening-night showcase of top local and international comedians, staged as a major televised charity event during the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.
-
E.
The Woman in the Room
"The Woman in the Room" is a dark, emotionally charged short story by Stephen King that explores a son's anguish and moral dilemma as he contemplates ending his terminally ill mother's suffering.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Ambitious Guest Target entity description: "The Ambitious Guest" is a short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne that explores themes of aspiration, anonymity, and sudden mortality through the encounter between a traveling stranger and a mountain family.
-
A.
The Pleasure of His Company
The Pleasure of His Company is a 1961 romantic comedy film featuring Fred Astaire as a charming, sophisticated playboy who returns to reconnect with his estranged daughter on the eve of her wedding.
-
B.
The Blue Hotel
The Blue Hotel is a short story by American author Stephen Crane that explores themes of fear, alienation, and violence in a small Nebraska town.
-
C.
The Gift
The Gift is a 2000 supernatural thriller film directed by Sam Raimi, centered on a Southern clairvoyant whose psychic visions entangle her in a murder investigation.
-
D.
The Gala
The Gala is a flagship opening-night showcase of top local and international comedians, staged as a major televised charity event during the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.
-
E.
The Woman in the Room
"The Woman in the Room" is a dark, emotionally charged short story by Stephen King that explores a son's anguish and moral dilemma as he contemplates ending his terminally ill mother's suffering.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (46)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf | short story ⓘ |
| author | Nathaniel Hawthorne ⓘ |
| centralConflict | tension between human ambition and uncontrollable fate ⓘ |
| containsEvent |
a fatal landslide
ⓘ
arrival of a stranger at a mountain cottage ⓘ conversation about hopes and ambitions ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin |
United States
ⓘ
linked to:
United States of America
|
| depicts |
a mountain family
ⓘ
a traveling stranger ⓘ |
| explores |
the contrast between safety and danger
ⓘ
the desire for posthumous fame ⓘ the unpredictability of death ⓘ |
| featuresCharacter |
the ambitious guest
ⓘ
linked to:
The Ambitious Guest
the mountain children ⓘ the mountain father ⓘ the mountain mother ⓘ
linked to:
the mountain father
|
| focusesOn | the contrast between ordinary domestic life and grand ambition ⓘ |
| genre | short story ⓘ |
| hasClimax | the destruction of the family by the landslide ⓘ |
| hasImagery |
mountain wilderness
ⓘ
nighttime hearth scene ⓘ |
| hasMoral |
fame and anonymity may be equally fragile before death
ⓘ
human plans are vulnerable to sudden catastrophe ⓘ |
| hasTitle | The Ambitious Guest ⓘ |
| includedIn | Nathaniel Hawthorne short fiction canon ⓘ |
| literaryForm | prose fiction ⓘ |
| literaryMovement | American Romanticism ⓘ |
| motif |
dreams of future recognition
ⓘ
obscurity and remembrance ⓘ |
| narrativePerspective | third-person narration ⓘ |
| originalLanguage | English ⓘ |
| partOf |
American short story tradition
ⓘ
linked to:
American literature
|
| periodOfPublication | 19th century ⓘ |
| setting |
New England
ⓘ
a cottage in the White Mountains ⓘ |
| symbol |
the family hearth
ⓘ
the landslide ⓘ the mountain ⓘ |
| theme |
anonymity
ⓘ
aspiration ⓘ death ⓘ family ⓘ sudden mortality ⓘ the fragility of human plans ⓘ |
| tone |
reflective
ⓘ
somber ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: The Ambitious Guest Description of subject: "The Ambitious Guest" is a short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne that explores themes of aspiration, anonymity, and sudden mortality through the encounter between a traveling stranger and a mountain family.
Referenced by (9)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
linked to: The Ambitious Guest
linked to: The Ambitious Guest
linked to: The Ambitious Guest
linked to: The Ambitious Guest