Monday, March 12, 2018

An Interpretation of Hawthorne's "Ethan Brand"


A reader who has even a passing familiarity with the 19th-century American author Nathaniel Hawthorne understands he struggled with the theological concerns of his New England forebears. The title character of Hawthorne’s story “Ethan Brand” began his philosphical musings during long hours spent by his kiln on the slope of Mount Graylock. Ethan Brand represents a type of individual who wrestles with concepts like Unpardonable Sin. He says upon his return to the mountain after a 20-year quest for the Unpardonable Sin, that it was “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 character of old Humphrey fascinates me the most. He, like both Ethan and the Jew of Nuremberg who sells dioramic views to the local populace, is a wanderer.  Hawthorne tells us Humphrey’s wandering has a specific purpose: to inquire of people as to the whereabouts of his daughter, whom Hawthorne calls “the Esther of our tale.” When Humphrey sees Brand, he upbraids him for heisting his daughter away and pushing her into a life as a circus performer. She was, Hawthorne writes, “the very girl whom with such cold and remorseless purpose, Brand had had made the subject of a psychological experiment, and wasted, absorbed, and perhaps annihilated her soul, in the process.”
Later, Brand sits by the kiln by himself, and reviews his spiritual metamorphosis.  He thinks about how the “Idea that possessed his life had operated as a means of education,” but concludes, “So much for the intellect! But where was the heart? That indeed, had withered – had contracted – had hardened – had perished!” It turned him into an unfeeling 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.” Hawthorne again means to tell us his sin-obsessed character viewed others, on whom he sought to impose his beliefs, as unwitting experimental fodder.
The Wandering Jew of Nuremberg also knew Brand’s reputation, and earlier in the story says “I find it to be a heavy matter in my show box – this  Unpardonable Sin. By my faith, Captain, it has wearied my shoulders, this long day, to carry it over the mountain.”
Do we ever discover what the Unpardonable Sin was? Based on our examination of Hawthorne’s astonishing allegory, I can only conclude: IF Hawthorne believes in Unpardonable Sin at all, it would be the sin of imposing a heavy-handed belief system on other people whom you intimidate intellectually. That would be enough to make anyone want to join the circus.