“Every trace of their footsteps was lost in the obscurity of the woods,” wrote James Fenimore Cooper as he described the characters in his “The Leather Stocking Tales” as they were concealed by the woods. Cooper’s words have different levels of complexity throughout his novel series, which create a comparison between the colonial frontier and its inhabitants. The protagonist of these tales and the movie based on them is called Hawkeye, a white man raised by the last member of the Mohican tribe, Chingachgook. Hawkeye is known for his gun aim, and throughout the tales, earns the love of Cora, the daughter of British officer Colonel Munro. Taking place during the 1750’s on America’s colonial frontier, the expectations of two opposing …show more content…
Another significant piece of “The Leather Stocking Tales” is the blending cultures displayed that illustrate the frontier. In the movie, “The Last of the Mohicans”, one of the beginning scenes shows a cabin, and similarly to the one discussed earlier, represents peace and the blending of society. Although it symbolizes the same ideas, the course in which it does so is contrasting. In this scene, the cabin is full of life. Women, children, Mohican natives, and white men are all around a table in the small building. Within the cabin, the different groups of people speak their own languages, yet are able to get along well together regardless. This is crucial to showing the colonial frontier as compounding, proving that different societal groups can mix. Furthermore, as the cabin is surrounded by nature, it proves that nature can be used as a resource to society and that both nature and society can coexist. This is only true for as long as neither one is destructive toward the other, and since such simplicity and harmony is impossible, one must eventually dismantle the other. Similarly to how the scenery symbolizes the colonial frontier, the characterization plays a similar role. The protagonist in the series, Hawkeye, represents the frontier both as society and nature. Throughout the series, his name changes. Originally
Culture involves the socially mediated human capacity to differentiate, to categorize the world experience according to what is important to pay attention to, and what is not, and to assign meanings to the categories created . How does culture happen? Is it learned, shared, innate, and adaptive? For each or any of these how so? We will address the theme of culture of the Early American West through the writings of Ned Blackhawk’s Violence of the Land and Susan Johnson’s Roaring Camp – while thinking along the lines of: How are the cultures similar? Different? What are the symbolic gestures?
Within the two passages, two Native American writers, N.S. Momaday and D. Brown, deliver two contrasting views on the Native American landscape and experience. Momaday’s awestruck diction and peaceful imagery revel in the seclusion of a scenario which promotes creation. On the other hand, Brown’s forlorn diction and passive tone mourn the lifeless landscape and loss of people forcibly detached from their land. While Momaday writes to explain the admirable beauty of Rainy Mountain, Brown writes to mourn the loss of life stripped in the barren landscape.
A reader of The Last of the Mohicans is able to notice the manifested racism in the book which is perpetuated through the cultural divide and racial stereotypes. Racism from Cooper’s book depicts itself in being one of the contemporary themes in the novel which offers derogatory and stereotypical concerns to people of various races. In a more stringent analysis, the racial stereotypic statements from the book drive racial and cultural tolerance along with the societal inequalities which are set forth by Cooper. The author does not only use the stereotypes to further the racial barriers but also support and build the plot of the book promoting the idea that people from different racial and cultural upbringing can be divided on racial
The last of the Mohicans is an adventure novel about Native American interactions with English, French, and frontier settlers during the French and the Indian war in 1757. The background of the novel is based on the French, and the British army who are fighting against each other and both have Indian allies to assist them. Nature, as itself, is introduced to the reader as a character among all the other characters which the author explains in good detail. Of all the characters in the novel, Hawkeye and Magua play an important role, Hawkeye as the hero who saves the day and Magua, as the villain whose appearance brings fear and terror to the reader. The story changes its pattern as soon as Magua appears on the scene and executes his evil ambition and plans.
One extreme change for the Indians was the arrival of Anglo-Europeans. Native peoples’ lives were changed at the blink of an eye while new ideas, practices and beliefs were shown to them. The arrival of the Europeans changed the way the Indians viewed their world and manipulated their resources. This new change could be viewed as positive as well as negative, for while some tribes entered into trade relations with the Anglos, others were used as slave labor and all were subject to disease brought on by the European newcomers. However, despite all the advantages and disadvantages, no other introduction changed the lives of the Indians more than firearms and horses. West outlines one of the most important evolutions for Native life and how it represented a new way to harness resources and gain power. In just a few chapters, we are able to see the great advancements the Indians made in hunting and trade due to these new technologies and how they allowed the Cheyennes to rise to a new purpose as the Called Out People.
In Sherman Alexie’s novel The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven shows the struggles of daily Native American life, which is shown through the point of view of male character. All though out the book the following three questions appear: ‘What does it mean to live as an Indian in this time? What does it mean to be an Indian man? and What does it mean to live on an Indian reservation?’ Alexie uses literary devices such as point of view, imagery, characterization to make his point that the conflict of being an Indian in the U.S. in these short stories using the following short stories “An Indian Education” and “Amusement”. “An Indian Education” uses both imagery and characterization to show us what the narrator is
The movie itself was confusing at first in the beginning, however, it became easier to follow as the plot progressed. The concept of a "middle ground" came about when the French colonists came to America and encountered the Algonquian Indians. Both groups of people lived together and shared aspects of their culture with one another. For example, the French colonists learned the native language of the Indian people, and the Indians learned French. The movie opens with the fur trade. The fur trade showed a "give and take" relationship among the Algonquians and the French. The Algonquians would help hunt and skin the animals, in exchange, the French would give them whatever they needed. Another example of this "give and take relationship" occurs during the beginning of the movie, where a group of Indians led by Chomina escort Black Robe and David to the Huron Mission. One of the Indians makes a comment to Black Robe that since they had paddled so hard that they should be given something, specifically tobacco. To ensure that the
Many individuals were born into a life that their past generations had left for them. Some were born into slavery and forced to work in cotton fields because they had no equal rights as the white individuals. Having gone through the mistreatment, humiliation, and the discrimination done by the white individuals, not many had the opportunity o create the life they desired. This was presented in “The Last Member of the Boela Tribe “ written by Cathy Day in which four generations , Bascomb, Gordon,Verna, and Chicky, were left with a past and present that they could not escape from unable to move forward to create new identities for themselves that is expressed through the use of characterization and symbolism.
Cooper challenges the assumption that white characters exhibit certain character traits simply because they' are white and Native Americans exhibit certain character traits simply because they are Native American. He does so by introducing the interracial friendship of Hawkeye, Chingachgook and Uncas who have a very different racial history but look past race and develop a bond that saves other and leads to unification between whites and Indians. The novel’s setting is three years into the French and Indian War, and the struggle over the unfamiliar Native frontier brings about tensions between an expanding national culture and a diminishing Native American population (Cooper 13). Chingachgook and his son Uncas are the last of the Mohican tribe who have an uncommon friendship with a white man named Hawkeye. While Hawkeye may identify as white, he most closely associates himself with the Indians, he is a
Authors use literary devices as tools throughout their novels, each in a variety of situations, serving various purposes. One of C.S Lewis ' notable attributes was his consistent use of religion throughout his work. Which thus begs the question: What is the literary function of religious allegory in the novel, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, by C.S Lewis?
The first theme that I would like to speak about is the clash of two worlds ‘The Amish’ and ‘The Western Society’. This theme, Weir has made a clear comparison between the two worlds. They could not work together in harmony because of the differences in
Romanticism is also seen in the characters in the novel. The characters are manifestly impossible. (Pattee 212) Hawkeye is one of these impossible characters. He is an ideal character who is pure and untainted by the corruption of society. Hawkeye, like Cooper, is a romantic in that he has a deep respect for nature. Cooper uses Hawkeye to celebrate the creative spirit of the individual. Hawkeye, Chingachgook and Uncas are characters all folklores are about. They are the heroes that complete impossible task to help others. Cooper also portrays, in his novel, the stiff upper-class society and their true desire to escape to the frontier. (Magill 448) Cora and Alice represent the stiff, elegant society. The reader soon sees that under their refined life, they have a wanting to be 'freed'; from their upper-class society. They want to escape this boring life and be allowed to live. They see the frontier as this pure, beautiful place where they can be freed of the control of their society. (448) Cooper uses characters to portray his romanticism.
Throughout James Fennimore Cooper’s novel The Last of the Mohicans a common theme of interracial friendship and love and the difficulty it takes to overcome such an obstacle, is shown strongly in the work. In the novel Cooper shows how the America people of European decent treat those that are native, by showing how negatively they treat the Native Americans. Chingachgook and Hawkeye have a friendship that is genuine and deep, bypassing the normal relationship between that of a white man and a Mohican Indian. Interracial love and romantic relationships are condemned in The Last of the Mohicans, for example when, Cora, the older daughter of Munro, is approached
Martin is an average teen that lives with his parents and his younger sister Cheryl when his life is interrupted when his Lakota Grandpa comes to visit. Grandpa tells the story of his culture and life as an Indian, but Martin was afraid that his grandfather might not live up to the expectations he implemented into the minds of his friends. Sadly his grandfather was sick and tired, so he gave Martin the medicine bag as a passing gift to remember his family’s culture. In the end, Martin visited the Iowa sanctuary as a way to commemorate his grandfather and the medicine bag. The hardships of judging your family, culture and those around you are difficult to do unless experience, the description, and events experience by Martin explain these events and the meaning of the discovery changed him for the better. In the story, “The Medicine Bag”, the remarkable events during Grandpa’s visit enlightened Martin of the importance of family culture and the acceptance of others.
“The Last of the Mohicans” is a historical novel written by James Fennimore Cooper in 1826, depicting colonial America in 1757 amidst the bloody and long-drawn French and Indian War. The novel is an epic tale of war, loyalty, and the clashing of peoples from different backgrounds and races. Roughly 160 years later, the novel was adapted into a film which, despite the identical settings of the book and the movie, largely transforms the complex historical novel of a war amongst races into a saga of love, lust, and sacrifice through the oversimplification of the novel’s two female characters, Cora and Alice. Although, in the book, Cora is depicted as a fiery and mysterious Afro-Caribbean woman who lacks a love interest and dies heroically at the hands of the enemy, in the movie, Cora is reduced to a white woman whose character is centralized around the competing interests of two white men and appears destined for love. Ultimately, Cora’s character transformation from book to novel through her changed race, her exerted femininity, and her eventual romantic happy-ending demonstrates the serial reconstruction of strong, complex female characters as oversimplified vehicles for an audience-accepted romantic plotline and the centralization of male character dominance.