The Case of Charles Dexter Ward focuses on the theme of education — a theme that was of great importance to Lovecraft. Charles Ward pursues an unbalanced education, foregoing formal academic studies for his own obsessive research into Providence's past.

Eventually, he pays a terrible price for his desire to know every detail of his ancestry. Without a critical mind, unarmed with a general knowledge of good and evil that a formal education could provide, Ward is prey for the monstrous Curwen, whose life becomes the focus of Ward's obsessive research.

Curwen could have been drawn to Ward by the young man's obsession.