Prof. B. Harvey

APPRECIATING COOPER’S  LAST OF THE MOHICANS

LOOK AT “CAPTIVITY” ART/SCULPTURE—GREENOUGH’S “RESCUE”

--does the posture of the “savage” Indian remind you of….. an infant in a parent’s arms? Christ?

--who is being saved: woman with child or Indian (from his own “savage” propensities)?

--maybe the two figures are fused? Whites subdue their own violence?

NOTE SOME ANTITHESES--FROM STEREOTYPIC ONES TO LESS STEREOTYPIC ONES:

good Indian                             vs                     bad Indian

restraint/domestic                                           impetuosity/wilderness

blond haired heroine                                        (sexier) black haired/mixed blood heroine

enclosed space                                                 violators of enclosed space

natural eloquence                                            manipulative/political language

OVERALL THEME IS COOL or ADOLESCENT or AESTHETICALLY INTRIGUING:

male heroism in wood             vs                     immature/regressive male psyche

requires aesthetics of

violence/gun dance (the bullet hitting the flesh is the vertical/visceral punctuation mark to a

preceding syntax of strenuous/surface/linear/slick violence)

homosocial bonding                vs                     compulsive heterosexuality/marriage institute

across races (“Miami Vice,”                            “Rip Van Winkle”

“Lethal Weapon,” etc.)

THE NOVEL: PONDER POWERFUL (or ODD)  MOMENTS: 

21        --         Cora described looking at Indian (“race” likes same “race”?)

                        but Cora/Hawk in film

31        --         Indian menacing gaze in wood enclosure

35        --         Cooper goes out of his way to make Hawk “white”

61        --         Cora's extended gaze/lingering

84        --         violence

171      --         daughers go into patriarchal (domestic) fort: looming & cartoon/cinematic

122      --         Cora and Magua

THE NOVEL: WHY DO THE INDIANS INVARIABLY FALL OVER PRECIPICES, ETC., THAT IS, ARE THEY IMPULSIVE?  WHAT ABOUT MAGUA? 

81/97   --         Indian falls

THE NOVEL: DID YOU FIND MAGUA'S PORTRAIT CONSISTENT/COMPELLING?

THE NOVEL: WHY ALL THE MASQUERADES IN THE SECOND HALF?

44        --         name confusion/delaying verbosity/aphasia

138      --         simple Hawkeye vs. fall into language/books (is Hawkeye capable of

                        being devious?)

235      --         natural emotion/eloquence of "good" Indians