The play presents the story of a man named Brand, a priest with a stark vision of a demanding, inflexible god. Brand's implacable insistence on moral rigor and his unwillingness to compromise his self-imposed standards of holiness lead him to refuse his sinful mother her last sacraments, to allow his child to die rather than abandon his desolate home, to callously chastise his wife for grieving until she also dies, and, finally, to become despised by his followers. Brand seeks salvation through an act of will, and condemns talk of love as mere moral weakness.
Brand guide sections