Young Goodman Brown and Other Hawthorne Short Stories

Ethan Brand by nathaniel Hawthrone

Ethan Brand locates the Unpardonable Sin within himself.What is this sin of which he speaks? Find specific textual proof to support your claim.

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I believe the sin was triumph of the intellect over the heart. Ethan Brand begins as an upright man who cares about others and hopes that all sins are pardonable. Yet, in his intellectual quest, he becomes the most sinful man of all. He becomes obsessed with the question of what the Unpardonable Sin is, and in his eagerness for discovery, manipulates others into committing sin as well; for example, he tricks the “Esther” of the story, the daughter of an old man, with “cold and remorseless purpose” into his “psychological experiment” which “wasted, absorbed, and perhaps annihilated her soul”.

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http://www.gradesaver.com/young-goodman-brown-and-other-hawthorne-short-stories/study-guide/summary-ethan-brand