Ethan Brand, by Nathaniel Hawthorne

534 Words2 Pages

In his short story “Ethan Brand,” Nathaniel Hawthorne uses the symbolic action of the suicide to represent redemption, and also to help establish his character in the story. For us to completely understand the suicide, we have to understand what the Unpardonable Sin was and what it meant to Ethan Brand. The Unpardonable Sin can be interpreted in many different ways. First of all, his experimentation on others clearly represents how cold and uncaring he has become in his search for the Unpardonable Sin. He values his intellect over his compassion for others and completely cuts himself off from the rest of the world to search for this sin. Finally, the sin he is searching for lies in his very own heart. The quest for the sin becomes the means to its own end; the knowledge of it becomes the sin itself.

Ethan Brand’s suicide means two very important things in the story. When he returns to Graylock, he finally comes to an understanding the the Unpardonable Sin has been in heart for the duration of the search. By committing suicide, he may have sought to be pardoned after all. The scene...

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