Sin, Guilt, and Judgment Theme Analysis

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 other humans and reverence for God. As he learned about evil by manipulating others into sinning, he came to stand outside of human relationships as an observer of people rather than a friend to them. Despite owning up to this, however, his words and actions suggest that he’s blind to his own pride, which is rooted in the Unpardonable Sin of prioritizing intellectualism over humanity. Indeed, Brand swells with pride when Bartram (who took over the kiln after Brand left) asks him to describe the Unpardonable Sin. He believes that this sin grows in his heart alone, takes perverse satisfaction in feeling more sinful than the local drunkards, and even ends his life because he feels that he has achieved his life’s work and done it well. Moreover, although Brand openly admits that he’s guilty of committing the Unpardonable Sin and believes he should be punished, he also admits that he would do it again if given the chance. His inability to acknowledge all his faults—namely, his pride—thus suggests that despite his immense knowledge and intelligence, he’s still unable to judge himself thoroughly and objectively.

The villagers are similarly flawed in their assessment of Brand’s (and, it seems, one another’s) guilt. The young people find Brand plain and unimpressive compared to the legendary figure they expect, writing him off as crazy rather than being open to the idea that he’s guilty of the Unpardonable Sin. Both Bartram and his son Joe find Brand unnerving, but Bartram’s fear ultimately stems from a sense of affinity, because he sees his own sins reflected in Brand’s. Moreover, the villagers ignore the Doctor’s sins—less seriously, swearing, but more seriously, heavy drinking—and still seek his aid in times of illness. Similarly, they still consider Lawyer Giles an honorable man even though he lost his law practice because of his own alcoholism. In contrasting Brand’s sense of his own sinfulness with the villagers’ opinions and his own actions, and in pointing out the limits of the villagers’ ability to judge one another’s character, the story suggests that while it’s natural for people to make judgments about guilt and sin, human knowledge is finite and fallible.