Ethan Brand Study Guide

Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in Salem, Massachusetts in 1804. His great-great-grandfather was one of the judges who oversaw the infamous Salem Witch Trials of 1692–1693. With financial support from an uncle, Hawthorne was sent to Bowdoin College in 1821. He published his first novel, Fanshawe, at his own expense in 1828, although he later came to dislike this youthful work and destroyed as many copies of the novel as he could find. For many years, Hawthorne published his short stories anonymously in magazines and annually printed gift books, but in 1837, he published a collection of these called Twice-Told Tales. In 1842, he married Sophia Peabody, with whom he had two daughters and a son. He published The Scarlet Letter in 1850, after which he and his family moved to the Berkshire Mountains in western Massachusetts. Although this was an artistically productive time for Hawthorne, during which he wrote The House of the Seven Gables, The Blithedale Romance, and short stories including “Ethan Brand,” he was quite unhappy by his own report. Following the 1853 inauguration of President Franklin Pierce, a friend of Hawthorne’s since college, he was appointed United States consul to Liverpool, England. He and his family lived in England until 1857, then toured the continent until 1860. After their return to the United States, Hawthorne’s health began to fail, and he died in his sleep in 1864 while on a tour of New Hampshire’s White Mountains.

Nathaniel Hawthorne lived and wrote during the Romantic Period (1800–1840). Romanticism represents a reaction against the Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution. These earlier movements, which dominated 17th- and 18th-century Western philosophy, science, and politics, emphasized the pursuit of knowledge through reason and empirical (observable) information. In contrast, Romanticism emphasized emotion, individualism, aesthetics, and connection to nature. This ideological shift is reflected in “Ethan Brand,” as the story is a cautionary tale about the danger of prioritizing knowledge and intellectualism over human connection and Christian faith.

“Ethan Brand” explores the nature of sinfulness, the dangers of intellectual pride, and the limits of human judgement. He joined these same themes together in “Young  Goodman Brown,” an earlier short story in which a young Puritan man tries to witness a midnight witches’ meeting in the woods. Like Brand, Goodman Brown seeks knowledge about the nature of sin; and like Brand, Goodman Brown’s journey ultimately separates him from his community. Both “Ethan Brand” and “Young Goodman Brown” resemble the Germanic legend of a man called Faust who, dissatisfied with his life and the limited knowledge he can attain through human effort, sells his soul to the Devil in exchange for unlimited knowledge and earthly pleasure. In some versions, Faust’s deal irrevocably condemns him to hell, while in others, God’s grace saves him. Finally, the themes of intellectual arrogance and fallibility of human moral judgment recalls The Scarlet Letter, which Hawthorne published shortly before “Ethan Brand.” Roger Chillingworth and Ethan Brand both lose human warmth and relationship because of intellectual pride. And, like “Ethan Brand,” The Scarlet Letter questions legalistic, overly strict ideas about sin and guilt, suggesting that human empathy and connection—or lack thereof—are more important indicators of moral value than puritanical moral codes.