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Definition of Metaphor
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other. The comparison in a metaphor can be stated explicitly, as... read full definition
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other. The comparison in a metaphor... read full definition
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other... read full definition
Metaphors
Explanation and Analysis—Delicious Fruit:
After all of the other men leave the lime kiln, Brand tends to it alone in the darkness, reflecting on his transformation from a simple laborer to a "successful" seeker of knowledge and sin. In this moment, the narrator metaphorically refers to Brand’s achievements as a flower and a fruit, as seen in the following passage:
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!
“What more have I to seek? What more to achieve?” said Ethan Brand to himself. “My task is done, and well done!”
Here, the narrator momentarily moves into Brand’s mind, revealing for readers how Brand views committing the Unpardonable Sin as “the bright and gorgeous flower, and rich, delicious fruit of his life’s labor.” While “fruit of one’s labor” is a relatively common phrase, Brand highlights the metaphor here by describing it as “rich” and “delicious” (as well as mentioning the “bright and gorgeous” flower that turned into said fruit). It’s likely that Hawthorne includes the fruit metaphor here in order to hint at the parallels between Brand’s quest for sin and the story of Original Sin in the Bible, in which Adam and Eve eat a fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, disobeying God in the process.
While Brand prides himself on his efforts—referring to his quest for the Unpardonable Sin as a job “well done”—Hawthorne is clearly encouraging readers to question if this is really the case. The Search for Knowledge, Hawthorn subtly argues via this metaphor and biblical allusion, only leads to suffering.
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