Most of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s works feature allegory with moral corruption and the positive and negative aspects of Puritan ideology at the center of the stories. “Ethan Brand” is a largely allegorical story about how pride and careless pursuit of knowledge can corrupt people and cause them to inflict harm on others. The story’s three key themes—The Dangers of Amoral Intellectualism, Spiritual Damnation and Pride, and The Loneliness of Social Detachment and Rejection—all appear in the form of allegory. As a work of Dark Romanticism, “Ethan Brand” also uses allegory to show humanity’s inherent dark side, with Ethan Brand’s own curiosity about the Unpardonable Sin leading him to growing it inside his heart.

Ethan Brand is a highly philosophical and inquisitive man whose desire for knowledge pushes him to commit horrible acts against his fellow humans and he separates from them, both due to his lack of empathy and his spiritual or psychological separation from them. His decision to do so, however, has severe consequences for him. He loses his connection to other people, causing him to grow cold toward them. In turn, they reject him, seeing him as strange and unfriendly.