Ethan Brand
by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Ethan Brand: Metaphors 1 key example

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!”