Ethan Brand Themes

Ethan Brand, once an uneducated laborer, left his lime kiln many years ago to search for the knowledge that would reveal to him the nature of the Unpardonable Sin. (Even before he left, he was rumored to have conjured a demon out of his kiln to debate with him about the Unpardonable Sin.) In the story’s present, Brand has returned to the kiln, and he has more knowledge than the wisest philosophers, but he…

Ethan Brand, once a humble lime-burner, left his kiln years ago in search of the Unpardonable Sin. He returns because he believes that he found—and committed—it. Both Brand and the locals who come to gawk at him are heavily focused on what he might be guilty of. Brand claims that he is guilty of the Unpardonable Sin, which he believes is his blind pursuit of knowledge and his subsequent loss of sympathy for…

Day slowly turns to night as Ethan Brand returns to his lime kiln after years spent searching for the Unpardonable Sin. Over the course of the night, villagers come to gawk at the strange man who claims to have committed the Unpardonable Sin himself, and whom they believe to be in league with the Devil. The lime kiln uses fire to turn marble into quicklime, in a reliable, manmade shortcut of natural processes. And Ethan…