In this excerpt from Hawthorne's Fiction: The Light and the Dark, Richard Harter Fogle focuses on the physical and spiritual alienation of Ethan's Unpardonable Sin.

Brand has completed the full circle, both physically and spiritually. He has sought the world over, and in one direction he has explored human nature to its farthest reaches. Ironically, he travels circlewise and fins his end in his beginning. The Sin is in himself. Thus his spiritual and physical journeys precisely coincide, and he returns to his point of departure, the spot where the Sin was conceived. Since his mission is fulfilled and his isolation from humanity is consummated, nothing remains but to die-a death emblematic of total separation. (47) (courtesy of University of Oklahoma Press)