There are many examples of American Romanticism (a version of the English Romantic movement that occurred some years earlier) in James Fenimore Cooper's novel The Last of the Mohicans. "Shuns civilization and seeks nature" is seen with the character of Hawkeye. He has a close alliance with certain Native American tribes, however, he is a white man who has chosen to live in the wilderness rather than amid "civilized white men." And while it is important that he maintain his identity as a white man, he finds his strongest friendship with Chingachgook, the "last of the Mohicans." Hawkeye also embodies the characteristic of "fights for individual's freedom and worth." He fights to save Alice and Cora from Magua. He also helps others of their group escape not only from the Indians (i.e. Major Heyward), but also from the French (i.e. Colonel Munro). "Finds beauty and truth in supernatural or imaginative realms" also applies to Hawkeye. Whereas Gamut is a religious man, he is ineffective in the wilderness. Hawkeye is not religious in terms of organized religion: he may actually be seen as a pagan in light of this. However, ironically, it is Hawkeye's ability to find beauty and truth in nature that makes him a much more spiritual person than David Gamut. Hawkeye is also a superstitious man, which would bring to light the "imaginative realms" in his system of belief.
The epic hero is familiar in early European literature, and Cooper was undoubtedly aware of the English Beowulf, the French Roland, and the Spanish Cid. Romanticism called attention to the medieval heritage, largely scorned and ignored by the eighteenth century. Cooper, then, merged his romantic interests and contemporary readings with his American background. He could not copy and imitate the European models fully, but he could — and consequently did — merge the foreign and the native influences. Therefore, Natty Bumppo resembles medieval knights and is dubbed by his creator "a knight of the woods." Natty Bumppo's code, explained repeatedly and in detail throughout The Deerslayer, shows many points in common with the chivalric ideals. This transposition of the European epic hero to American soil is one of the accepted explanations for Cooper's popularity, impact, and influence in Europe during the nineteenth century. Natty Bumppo, however, shows his originality by possessing indigenous traits; and these characteristics, peculiar to the New World at this stage of its development, mark Cooper's contribution to American literature. Natty Bumppo is, in certain ways, the child of Rousseau, the French philosopher of the 18th century who preached that civilization is a corrupting element in the growth of man and that nature is good. According to Rousseau, the natural man develops efficaciously in a simple, natural environment. "The idea of delineating a character that possessed little of civilization but its highest principles as they are exhibited in the uneducated," writes Cooper about his characterization of the hero, "and all of savage life that is not incompatible with these great rules of conduct, is perhaps natural to the situation in which Natty was placed."
Although he has been raised in the situation of the Indians, Natty Bumppo has in his soul the highest qualities of civilization and Christianity. He has received these qualities intuitively and lives by these virtues because he knows instinctively that this conduct, or code, is right. Natty Bumppo also distinguishes between the positive and negative aspects of the Indians, whom he basically respects. For instance, Natty is firmly opposed to scalping as a horrible act for a white man, but he defends the Indians who use this technique as an honorable method of warfare. In his reliance upon feelings, intuition, and instinct, Cooper's hero is the romantic ideal who rejects the neo-classical guidelines of reason and rationalism. Natty Bumppo is a compromise between the two worlds in conflict on the North American continent: the expanding dynamism of the white, European, civilized, Christian race and the primitive Indian races inhabiting vast tracts of land. Cooper constantly refers to the differences between the two races, and his anxiety to achieve some reconciliation between the two peoples is very evident. Natty Bumppo, living and accepting many Indian ways, represents the American hero who endeavors to express his native background to the white men with whom he also feels the bond of blood ties. Cooper defines his purpose in these words: "It appeared to the writer that his hero was a fit subject to represent the better qualities of both conditions, without pushing either to extremes." Interracial Love and Friendship The Last of the Mohicans is a novel about race and the difficulty of overcoming racial divides. Cooper suggests that interracial mingling is both desirable and dangerous. Cooper lauds the genuine and longtime friendship between Hawkeye, a white man, and Chingachgook, a Mohican Indian. Hawkeye and Chingachgook’s shared communion with nature transcends race, enabling them to team up against Huron enemies and to save white military leaders like Heyward. On the other hand, though, Cooper shows his conviction that interracial romances are doomed and undesirable. The interracial love of Uncas and Cora ends in tragedy, and the forced interracial relationship between Cora and Magua is portrayed as unnatural. Through Cora, Cooper suggests that interracial desire can be inherited; Cora desires Indian men because her mother was part black. Literal and Metaphorical Nature Nature functions both literally and metaphorically in The Last of the Mohicans. In its literal form, nature is the physical frontier that surrounds the characters and complicates their battles and their chances for survival. In the opening paragraphs of Chapter I, Cooper describes the unpredictability of the colonial terrain, pointing out that the cleared, flat battlefields of Europe are no longer the setting for war. The New World has a new set of natural difficulties, and the men at war must contend not just with each other but with the unfriendly land. The forbidding landscape seems even more daunting to the English because their adversaries, the Indians loyal to France, know the land so well. The skills of the English have no place in the forests of America. David Gamut’s religious Calvinism, a European religion, becomes ridiculous in the wilderness. Metaphorically, the land serves as a blank canvas on which the characters paint themselves. Cooper defines characters by their relationships to nature. Hawkeye establishes his claim to heroism by respecting the landscape. The English Major Heyward establishes his incompetence by misunderstanding the landscape. While he means well, his unfamiliarity with the wilderness thwarts him. Magua uses the landscape to carry out his villainy, hiding women in caves, jumping wildly over abysses, and hiding behind rocks.
The Role of Religion in the Wilderness The character David Gamut allows Cooper to explore the relevance of religion in the wilderness. In theory at least, the American frontier is untouched by human culture. It is a fresh start, a piece of land not ruled by the conventions of European high culture, a place without a firm government or social code. Gamut’s aggressive Calvinism symbolizes the entrance of religion, a European model that enters the blank slate of the New World. We know Gamut is a Calvinist because he talks about predestination, the idea that God has a plan for each person and no amount of human effort can change that plan. Hawkeye’s frequent mockery of Gamut’s psalmody provides the novel’s comic relief. The mockery, which comes from the mouth of the hero, also suggests that institutional religion should not attempt to penetrate the wilderness and convert its inhabitants. Because Cooper makes Gamut ridiculous and Hawkeye heroic, it seems that, like Hawkeye, Cooper scoffs at Calvinism’s tenets. Gamut’s fatalism contrasts with Hawkeye’s pragmatism. Hawkeye adapts to his surroundings and helps the other characters to achieve improbable survivals, all of which suggests that Cooper believes humans do have the ability to determine their own fates. By the end of the novel the Calvinist Gamut learns to move beyond the rigidity of his religion and become a helpful and committed ally. He succeeds when he finds the ability to leave behind his fatalistic passivity and adapt to the demands of the forest. Cooper’s exploration of Calvinism sets the stage for many American writers of subsequent generations. For example, Herman Melville’s tragic hero Ahab subscribes to the rigid belief in fate that Calvinism endorses. The Changing Idea of Family Cooper uses the frontier setting to explore the changing status of the family unit. Cooper posits that the wilderness demands new definitions of family. Uncas and Hawkeye, for example, form a makeshift family structure. When Uncas’s real father, Chingachgook, disappears without explanation in the middle portion of the novel, Hawkeye becomes a symbolic father for Uncas. As Uncas develops his leadership qualities and emerges as a hero at the Delaware council of Tamenund, he takes on some of the charisma and skill of Hawkeye, just as a son would inherit behavior from his father. Not only do Uncas and Hawkeye form a family not related by blood, they form a family that transcends race. Despite this redefinition, however, the novel does not allow new family formations that mix race, for Uncas and Cora do not get to act on their interracial attraction. The tragedy of this sentimental novel is that Cora and Uncas cannot redefine the notion of family according to their desires.
