Ethan Brand

“The kiln […] on the mountain-side, stood unimpaired, and was in nothing changed since he had thrown his dark thoughts into the intense glow of its furnace, and melted them, as it were, into the one thought that took possession of his life. […] With the smoke and jets of flame issuing from the chinks and crevices of this door, which seemed to give admittance into the hill-side, it resembled nothing so much as the private entrance to the infernal regions, which the shepherds of the Delectable Mountains were accustomed to show to pilgrims.”

The narrator uses imagery to describe the lonely lime-kiln near the mountain where Ethan Brand’s obsession with the Unpardonable Sin began. Comparing the lime-kiln to the opening of hell immediately establishes the hellfire symbolism and two of the story’s core themes: The Dangers of Amoral Intellectualism and Spiritual Damnation and Pride. Hawthorne’s imagery suggests that the protagonist’s sin took form and grew in the flames of the furnace.

“‘You offer me a rough welcome,’ said a gloomy voice, as the unknown man drew nigh. ‘Yet I neither claim nor desire a kinder one, even at my own fireside.’”

Ethan Brand’s first line of dialogue reveals his refusal to accept the kindness or friendship of others, introducing the theme of The Loneliness of Social Detachment and Rejection. In his first words to Bartram and Joe, the protagonist immediately establishes he is a sinner by admitting that he does not deserve human kindness. At this stage in the narrative, the confession seems to suggest he feels the burden of guilt.

“‘It is a sin that grew within my own breast,’ replied Ethan Brand, standing erect with a pride that distinguishes all enthusiasts of his stamp. ‘A sin that grew nowhere else! The sin of an intellect that triumphed over the sense of brotherhood with man and reverence for God, and sacrificed everything to its own mighty claims! The only sin that deserves a recompense of immortal agony! Freely, were it to do again, would I incur the guilt. Unshrinkingly I accept the retribution!’”

In explaining the nature of the Unpardonable Sin to Bartram, Ethan Brand uses an allegory claiming that his intellectualism and disregard for God led the Unpardonable Sin to grow inside his heart. Here, he expresses pride rather than guilt over the magnitude of his sin. While acknowledging that he deserves to be punished in hell for it, he shows no repentance, admitting that he would do the same thing again. The revelation develops the themes of The Dangers of Amoral Intellectualism and Spiritual Damnation and Pride.

“‘Why, you uncivil scoundrel,’ cried the fierce doctor, ‘is that the way you respond to the kindness of your best friends? Then let me tell you the truth. You have no more found the Unpardonable Sin than yonder boy Joe has. You are but a crazy fellow,—I told you so twenty years ago,—neither better nor worse than a crazy fellow, and the fit companion of old Humphrey, here!’”

The village doctor’s dialogue underlines the external conflict between Ethan Brand and the villagers. This passage also supports the theme of The Loneliness of Social Detachment and Rejection. Ethan Brand rejects the opportunity to connect with the villagers despite his loneliness, believing that he is unable to rebuild his connection with his fellow humans and that they should be concerned with their own souls, which God can still save. The doctor angrily criticizes Brand’s refusal to connect, rejecting him once again with his statement that he has not found the Unpardonable Sin and that he is insane.

“Ethan Brand’s eye quailed beneath the old man’s. That daughter, from whom he so earnestly desired a word of greeting, was the Esther of our tale, the very girl whom, with such cold and remorseless purpose, Ethan Brand had made the subject of a psychological experiment, and wasted, absorbed, and perhaps annihilated her soul, in the process.”

After Humphrey asks Ethan Brand if he has seen his daughter on his travels, the narrator reveals that Esther was the victim of one of the protagonist’s psychological experiments. The nature of this experiment remains ambiguous, as the narrator only lists its likely devastating impact on Esther. This passage highlights Hawthorne’s critique of The Dangers of Amoral Intellectualism. Ethan Brand is figuratively presented as an unethical scientist who will stop at nothing in the pursuit of knowledge.

“Ethan Brand gazed into the box for an instant, and then starting back, looked fixedly at the German. What had he seen? Nothing, apparently; for a curious youth, who had peeped in almost at the same moment, beheld only a vacant space of canvas.”

This passage describes Ethan Brand’s interaction with the enigmatic German Jew. The protagonist distrusts the German Jew’s claim that he has the Unpardonable Sin inside his diorama but nevertheless looks and sees nothing. The German Jew appears to be taunting Ethan Brand by suggesting the Unpardonable Sin does not exist. Hawthorne implies that the two characters previously met on their travels and have an antagonistic relationship. The German Jew’s character evokes the Wandering Jew of Christian lore, condemned to walk the earth until the Second Coming after he taunted Jesus on the way to his crucifixion. The association suggests that, like Ethan Brand, he is an amoral character whose word cannot be trusted.

“Faster and faster, round about went the cur; and faster and still faster fled the unapproachable brevity of his tail; and louder and fiercer grew his yells of rage and animosity; until, utterly exhausted, and as far from the goal as ever, the foolish old dog ceased his performance as suddenly as he had begun it. The next moment he was as mild, quiet, sensible, and respectable in his deportment, as when he first scraped acquaintance with the company.”

The dog’s frantic pursuit of his tail symbolizes Ethan Brand’s pursuit of the Unpardonable Sin. The figurative comparison suggests that the dog and the protagonist have equally futile goals which are viewed by the villagers with curious amusement. Ethan Brand’s quest for the Unpardonable Sin is an obsession that dominates his life and exhausts him.

“So much for the intellect! But where was the heart? That, indeed, had withered,—had contracted,—had hardened,—had perished! It had ceased to partake of the universal throb. He had lost his hold of the magnetic chain of humanity. He was no longer a brother-man, opening the chambers or the dungeons of our common nature by the key of holy sympathy, which gave him a right to share in all its secrets; he was now a cold observer, looking on mankind as the subject of his experiment, and, at length, converting man and woman to be his puppets, and pulling the wires that moved them to such degrees of crime as were demanded for his study.”

The narrator reveals that Ethan Brand’s heart was once open to God, humanity, and nature, using imagery and personification to show the wondrous world that he appreciated before intellectual curiosity consumed him. Ethan Brand’s desire for knowledge is ultimately shown to both literally and figuratively harden his heart, replacing love and compassion with cold logic.

“Thus Ethan Brand became a fiend. He began to be so from the moment that his moral nature had ceased to keep the pace of improvement with his intellect. And now, as his highest effort and inevitable development,—as the bright and gorgeous flower, and rich, delicious fruit of his life’s labor,—he had produced the Unpardonable Sin!”

Here, the narrator conveys Ethan Brand’s moral corruption resulting from his pursuit of knowledge. Hawthorne employs a biblical allusion as the Unpardonable Sin is described as the “delicious fruit of his life’s labor.” The metaphor evokes the concept of Eve’s Original Sin when she tasted the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden.

“Ethan Brand stood erect, and raised his arms on high. The blue flames played upon his face, and imparted the wild and ghastly light which alone could have suited its expression; it was that of a fiend on the verge of plunging into his gulf of intensest torment.”

Ethan Brand stands at the top of the lime-kiln, ready to end his life. This image underlines the theme of Spiritual Damnation and Pride, as the fire seems to welcome the protagonist, implying that he is damned. The kiln’s heat and strange, ominous flames reflect the protagonist’s belief that he is about to descend into hell and his embrace of this dark fate.

“‘O Mother Earth,’ cried he, ‘who art no more my Mother, and into whose bosom this frame shall never be resolved! O mankind, whose brotherhood I have cast off, and trampled thy great heart beneath my feet! O stars of heaven, that shone on me of old, as if to light me onward and upward!—farewell all, and forever. Come, deadly element of Fire,-henceforth my familiar friend! Embrace me, as I do thee!’”

Ethan Brand bids goodbye to the earth, humanity, and the heavens, which he believes have rejected him after he committed the Unpardonable Sin. He applies personification in his monologue, characterizing the earth as a loving mother from whom he has separated because of his actions. The monologue highlights the theme of Spiritual Damnation and Pride as the protagonist would rather believe he is destined for hell than admit that he may not have found the Unpardonable Sin.

“Old Graylock was glorified with a golden cloud upon his head. Scattered likewise over the breasts of the surrounding mountains, there were heaps of hoary mist, in fantastic shapes, some of them far down into the valley, others high up towards the summits, and still others, of the same family of mist or cloud, hovering in the gold radiance of the upper atmosphere. Stepping from one to another of the clouds that rested on the hills, and thence to the loftier brotherhood that sailed in air, it seemed almost as if a mortal man might thus ascend into the heavenly regions. Earth was so mingled with sky that it was a day-dream to look at it.”

The narrator uses detailed imagery and personification to describe the change in the landscape after Ethan Brand jumps into the lime-kiln. The sky and earth seem lighter in his absence, implying the natural world’s celebration of the destruction of a man whose natural instincts had been corrupted. The characterization of Mount Graylock as “glorified with a golden cloud upon his head” has divine associations, suggesting God’s approval. However, it remains unclear whether these connotations of Heaven signal Ethan Brand’s spiritual damnation or God’s divine forgiveness of the protagonist.

“The marble was all burnt into perfect, snow-white lime. But on its surface, in the midst of the circle,—snow-white too, and thoroughly converted into lime,—lay a human skeleton, in the attitude of a person who, after long toil, lies down to long repose. Within the ribs—strange to say—was the shape of a human heart.”

The above passage uses imagery, symbolism, and metaphor to underline the macabre nature of Ethan Brand’s death. At the same time, a connection between the kiln’s process of turning marble into lime and the protagonist’s heart is made. The lime heart found within the skeleton suggests that Ethan Brand’s heart hardened to marble during his amoral pursuit of knowledge. The imagery of the “snow-white” lime implies that the kiln’s fire finally purifies him.