University of the Pacific Scholarly Commons University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations Graduate School 1968 The Theme Of Social Decay In The Last Five Novels Of James Fenimore Cooper Cecil John Miller University of the Pacific Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/uop_etds Recommended Citation Miller, Cecil John. (1968). The Theme Of Social Decay In The Last Five Novels Of James Fenimore Cooper. University of the Pacific, Dissertation. https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/uop_etds/2826 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholarly Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE THEME OF SOCIAL DECAY IN THE LAST FIVE NOVELS OF JAMES FENIMORE COOPER A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School University of the Pacific In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy by Cecil John Miller Ju n e 1968 This dissertation, written and submitted by CECIL JOHN MILLER is approved for recommendation to the Graduate Council, University of the Pacific. Department Chairman or Dean: (3- ( 3 Jhw -K________ , Dissertation Committee: flea* Dated TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ...................................................... 1 Introduction ................................................................................... 1 Conventional Appraisal o£ the Five N o v els.................... 3 Methodology of the Unfavorable C r itic s ......................... 10 Methodology of the Sympathetic C r itic s......................... 17 Methodology of the Present Study........................................ 25 II. JACK TIER: BEYOND ROMANTICISM ................................... 27 Review of C riticism .................................................................... 27 Cooper's Formal Intention in Jack T i e r ......................... 28 Theme and Narrative Action in Jack T i e r .................... 35 Literary Mode of Jack Tier ................................................. 43 III. THE CRATER: THE RISE AND FALL OF A. DEMOCRATIC UTOPIA ............................................................ 50 Recent Interpretations of The Crater ....... 50 Perspective and Theme in The C ra te r .............................. 52 Formal Pattern in The C ra te r ............................................ 60 Picture and Prose in The C ra te r ....................................... 64 IV. THE OAK OPENINGS: THE PARADOX OF TRUE SOCIAL PROGRESS ...................................................... 74 Review and P review.................................................................... 74 Human Blindness and the Triumph of Grace in The Oak Openings .......................................................... 77 iii CHAPTER PAGE Theme and Narrative Structure in The Oak Openings ............................................................. 83 Literary Form of The Oak Openings ............................ 91 V. THE SEA LIONS; COOPER'S LAST ALLE­ GORICAL VOYAGE ................................................................. 98 Parallel Themes: Greed and Intellectual Doubt ............................................................. 98 Identical Ships and Twin C aptains ..................................... 105 Comprehensive Design of The Sea L ions ........................ I l l VI. THE WAYS OF THE HOUR: DEMOCRACY WITHOUT JU STICE ................................................................. 119 Opinion Triumphant over P rin cip le ...................... 119 Story and Probability in The Ways of the Hour . 126 Style and Scene in The Ways of the H o u r........................ 132 VII. THE ESSENTIAL QUALITIES OF COOPER'S LAST FIVE NOVELS ............................................................ 139 A. Resume of the Three Stages of Cooper's F ictio n ........................... 139 A. Profound A ntirom anticism .............................................. 141 An Original Conception ........................................................ 147 A. Formalized Narrative P a tte rn ...................................... 151 A General E stim ate ................................................................. 154 BIBLIOGRAPHY ......................................................................................... 156 APPENDIX .................................................................................................. 165 C H A P T E R I CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES I. INTRODUCTION The following discussion is intended to deal with the theme of social decay as it comes to expression in the last five novels of Jame-s Fenimore Cooper. * The method adopted for realizing this intention is to examine closely the characteristic features of the late novels in order, first, to ascertain the precise nature of the theme of social decay as an intellectual statement and, secondly, to appraise the artistic means chosen for embodying this theme in the individual books. Hence the prim ary emphasis of the investigation lies with the thematic study of the sources, that is, with the novels themselves considered both as intellectual documents and as works of literary art. Before undertaking the thematic interpretation of the late fiction, however, one must consider first the major problem presented by the low esteem in which the last five works have often been held in critical *The complete titles of the last five novels and the dates of publication are as follows: The Crater; or Vulcan's Peak. A Tale of the Pacific (1847); Jack Tier; or, The Florida Reef fl848TTThe Oak Openings; or, The Bee "Hunter (1848); The Sea Lions; or, The Lost Sealers (1849); The Ways of the Hour (185077' Unless otherwise noted, all subsequent references to Cooper's fiction are to the first collected edition (I859“186l), published in New York by W. A. Town" send and Co. 2 2 circles since the time of their first publication. This problem is important because the quasi-official estimate of these works implies that they do not merit serious critical attention. Seen from this perspective, the late novels are insignificant works that m erely restate with didactic clumsiness a social philosophy previously expressed in Cooper's fiction with considerable artistic success. The investigator therefore must attempt to ascertain at the outset whether this estab­ lished appraisal of the late fiction is essentially accurate in its main outlines or whether the conventional view requires substantial modifica­ tion. In order to illuminate this problem, the following two questions will be treated in this introductory chapter: First, among critics of Cooper, how widespread has been the tendency to depreciate these five novels? Secondly, what is the basis, the critical rationale, for both the unfavorable and the comparatively sympathetic evaluations of the late tales? Hopefully, the discussion of these questions will help not only to justify a new study of Cooper's last tales but also to indicate the need for a more flexible approach to the criticism of the fiction published during the novelist's last years. ^This orthodox interpretation of the novels was largely derived from Cooper's contemporaries, but it has been given systematic formulation by Thomas R. Lounsbury in his biography of the novelist, Jam es Fenimore Cooper (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1883), pp. 254-60. II. CONVENTIONAL APPRAISAL OF THE FIVE NOVELS In treating the first of these questions, one must note that the low estim ate of the late novels originated during Cooper's own life­ time. Cooper was an intensely patriotic American who loved hiscouxiry so well that he was, in the words of W. C. Bryant, both "her eulogist 3 and her censor. 11 However, with the publication of Home as Found in 1838, it seemed increasingly clear to the press and the public that Cooper had come to prefer the role of censor to that of eulogist. Stung by his criticism s of American life, reviewers and critics replied that Cooper "was written out" and that his later novels were mere vehicles 4 for expressing the author's outmoded political and social concepts. As a consequence of Cooper's growing alienation from his public, his last five novels were issued at a time (1847-1850) when his reviewers had grown accustomed to minimizing his books on the grounds of their alleged intellectual narrowness. The treatment accorded The Crater at the time of its publication in 1847 illustrates rather well how low his literary reputation had fallen in the last years of his life and how ^"Discourse on the Life, Genius, and Writings of J. Fenimore Cooper, " Precaution (1861), p. xix. ^Although this complaint against Cooper originated rather early in his career, apparently not long after the publication of The Bravo (1831), it was not until the late 1830's that this charge virtually destroyed his reputation as a novelist. For studies of the beginnings of this hostility to Cooper and his fiction, see Lounsbury, op. cit.;, pp. 128“33; Robert E. Spiller, Fenimore Cooper: Critic of His Times (New York: Minton, Balch, & Company, 1931), pp. 222-27; James Grossman, James Fenimore Cooper (New York; William Sloane Associates, Inc., 1949), pp. 86~97. this unpopularity influenced the appraisal of his books by reviewers. "If anyone else had written it, " Cooper observed shortly before the appearance of the book, "it would be the next six months' talk. As it is, it