Last podcast, it was mentioned how reading about the Puritans in Hawthorne's recreation of Puritan New England would teach us about as much as a country song about raising cattle. That was hilarious! This time around, the focus is on this recreation as a simple artist's representation. A sunset is what the representation has taken as its subject. Sunsets are supposed to signify the end of a day and the closing of one moment and the transition into the next. The main point of this novel that relates to a sunset would be the constant degrading condition of Dimmesdale's mental and physical being and how Chillingworth plays a role in that as the pull of the cycle between day and night, taking the day to night.
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