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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

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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 will probably not be much read in this country. Cooper's pessimistic comment, made in a letter to his wife nearly two months before the date of publication, proved to be an accurate forecast of the response to the novel. When The Crater was issued in New York on

October 12, 1847, the American press practically ignored the book, apparently on the grounds that Cooper's creative energies were either used up or thoroughly misdirected. ^

Unfortunately, Cooper's alienation from the press and a substan­ tial part of the reading public meant that his last novels were not to receive im partial evaluation in his own lifetime. But what is even more regrettable, this low view of The Crater and the four other novels tended to acquire, in a relatively short time, an official status in critical circles without first having undergone a process of validation. Less than five years after Cooper's death, for example, The Cyclopaedia of Amer­ ican Literature expressed this prevailing opinion, as indicated by the

Correspondence of James Fenimore Cooper, ed. James F. Cooper (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1922), II, 574.

^Thomas Philbrick, Introduction to The Crater (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 196fc), p. vii: "Although the book attracted wide and generally favorable comment in England, where it appeared on September 27th, it was ignored by most American reviewers when it was published in New York two weeks later. " following comment on The C rater: "It has little to do with real life, the hero being wrecked on a reef, which, by supernatural machinery, is peopled with an Utopian community, giving the author an opportunity

7 to exhibit his views on government. " Thus it is suggested that the book is to be evaluated as little more than a propaganda piece governed by a rather incredible artistic conception. Significantly, almost a century later,

James Grossman, Cooper's most recent biographer, has repeated-" albeit with some modification in detail-"essentially the same criticism of the "supernatural machinery" used in The Crater. In particular, he has objected to the cataclysmic ending, which he has characterized "as merely intellectual. " In his opinion it is only a mechanical device for helping "the novelist to get rid of his invention when he has no more use for, it. ■ " 8

Objections to the late novels, of course, have not been confined to

The Crater. Having considered the novels as a group, Thomas R. Louns- bury, Cooper's nineteenth-century biographer, maintained that "not one Q of them has the slightest pretension to be term ed a work of a rt.1,7 In

^ Evert A. Duyckinck and George L. Duyckinck, The Cyclopaedia of American Literature (New York: Charles Scribner, 1855), II, ll2.

8James Fenimore Cooper (New York: William Sloane Associates, Inc., 1949), pp. 224"25. ^Lounsbury, op. cit. , p. 254. Doubtless Lounsbury's biography summarized the prevailing critical view of the late novels in the nine" teenth century, but for a favorable response to Jack Tier and The Oak Openings by a pre-Civil War critic, see William Cullen Bryant, op. cit. , pp. xxxii-xxxiv. See also Herman Melville, rev. of The Sea Lions, Literary World, IV (1849), 370; and the anon. rev. of The C rater, United States Magazine and Democratic Review, XXI (1847), 440. his penetrating essay on Cooper published early in the twentieth century

(1908), W illiam Brownell did not even discuss The Oak Openings and

The Sea Lions; and among the three novels which he studied, he saw m erit, of a limited kind, in Jack Tier alone. Over a decade later, Carl Van

Doren stated what is probably the severest condemnation of the late fiction ever offered by a major scholar. In discussing three of the books, he stated flatly:

Jack Tier (1846-8) is a lurid piratical tale of the Mexican War; The C rater (1847) does poorly what Robinson Crusoe does supremely; The Sea Lions (1849) has the distinction of marking the highest point in that religious bigotry which pervades Cooper's later novels as thoroughly as the carping spirit which kept him always alert for a chance to take some fling at his countrymen. H

After the F irst World War, critics appeared who were more favorably disposedto Cooper than VanDoren was, buteven these sympathetic students of the novelist tended to minimize the significance of the late books. Vernon

L. Parrington, for example, confirmed Lounsbury's opinion that literary a rt was overwhelmed by didacticism in the work of the late Cooper, and

Robert E. Spiller practically dismissed the last books as "footnotes" to the already completed statement of Cooper's fiction. 12 Henry W. Boynton

^ American Prose Masters, ed. Howard Mumford Jones (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1963), pp. 8, 21, 30, 38, 4 0 -4 1 .

^"Brown, Cooper, " Cambridge History of American Literature, ed. William P. Trent, John Erskine, Stuart P. Sherman, and Carl Van Doren (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1917-1921), II, Part II, 302-3.

^See Vernon L. Parrington, Main Currents in American Thought (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1927), II, 2T^-229, esp. 218; Robert E. Spiller, op. cit., pp. 313614. observed that Cooper's "later romances, The C rater, The Oak Openings,

The Sea Lions, had been simply good imitations of him self in a romantic

strain.11 13 Among these critics concerned with the rehabilitation of

Cooper's reputation, Yvor Winters alone devoted considerable attention,

some of it favorable, to the criticism of the last books.

The tendency to disparage the late fiction has continued to be evi­

dent in scholarly studies on Cooper published since the Second World War.

Arvid Shulenberger has emphasized that the late novels were composed

by a weary Cooper who had "too little interest to give much thought to any

I C of his novels. " Stanley T. Williams has argued that Cooper's "disgust

with the stupidities of civilization narrowed his literary horizon" until

his late work was "cluttered by the foibles of the society in which he lived

so critically. Although Alexander Cowie has conceded that "nothing

that Cooper wrote is wholly negligible, " he also has found little m erit in

these tales. "The stories he wrote after the Littlepage trilogy, " Cowie

James Fenimore Cooper (New York: The Century Co. , 1931), p. 382.

^In Defense of Reason (3rd ed.; Denver: Allan Swallow, n. d. ), pp. 177, 182, 185, 193-94, 198.

•^Cooper's Theory of Fiction: His Prefaces and Their Relation to His Novels (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 195$), p. 72.

16 "James Fenimore Cooper, " Literary History of the United States, ed. Robert E. Spiller, Willard Thorp, Thomas H. Johnson, Henry Seidel Canby, and Richard M. Ludwig (3rd ed. rev. ; New York: The Macmillan Company, 1963), I, 268-69. states, "do not include any that are now considered among his best.

More sympathetic to the late fiction than Cowie, Frank M. Collins has yet concluded that these books, considered as intellectual statements, V embody only "a faltering synthesis" of the oppositions within the w riter’s art and thought. 18 And George Dekker, the most recent critic to comment at length on the novels, has virtually restated Lounsbury’s assessm ent of the late fiction. He judges that the novelist's writing during his final period reveals that Cooper was "hardened in reaction," with "the range of his sympathies" having been radically contracted by the deepening of "his religious experience."^

Nevertheless, contemporary students of Cooper's fiction have not been entirely of one mind in depreciating the five works under considera­ tion in this study. The appearance of James Grossman's notable biography in 1949 meant at least that the novels were beginning to attract 20 new interest. Even though Grossman seemed to have retained, in part,

^ The Rise of the American Novel (New York: The American Book Company, 1948), p. 153.

■^"Cooper and the American D ream ," PMLA, LXXXI^(March 1966), 79. 19 James Fenimore Cooper: The American Scott (New York; Barnes & Noble, Inc., 1967), pp. 245-50. 9 Q Grossman, op. cit. , pp. 222-43. For additional evidence of a growing critical interest in the late fiction, see Harold H. Scudder, "Cooper’s The Crater," American Literature, XIX (May 1947), 110-16; W. B. Gates, "Cooper’s Tlie Crater and Two Explorers," American Literature, XXIII (May 19$ 1), £43~46; idem "Cooper’s The~Sea Lion's and Wilkes' Narrative, " PMLA, LXV (Dec. 1950), 1069"75. 9 the traditional literary evaluation of the books, his careful analysis of each novel reflected a new alertness to Cooper's expressed purposes in composing the late fiction. Among those who have followed Grossman's lead, Howard Mumford Jones has probably contributed the most provoca- tive study of the late fiction. Like Grossman, this contemporary scholar has noted that a religious quality pervades the social criticism of the late tales; but, unlike Grossman, he has found that the stories contain much more than the author's supposedly narrow defense of the doctrines of the Episcopal church and his personal reaction to social changes occurring in the United States. Instead he maintains that Cooper's fiction expresses a profound religious vision, a Weltanschauung, which comes to full realiza- tion in his best novels and is certainly present in the late work. ^ This new insight into the nature of Cooper's fiction apparently has stimulated the recent investigations of the five novels by Donald A. Ringe and Thomas

Philbrick. Partly as a consequence of this approach to the late tales,

Ringe has appraised Jack Tier, The Oak Openings, and The Ways of the

Hour as relatively successful literary works, and Philbrick has high praise for the organic unity exhibited in both The C rater and The Sea Lions. ^

21 "Prose and Pictures: James Fenimore Cooper,11 History and the Contemporary: Essays in Nineteenth-Century Literature (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1964), pp. 65, 68, 72-76, 78, 81-82.

^See Donald A. Ringe, James Fenimore Cooper (New Haven: Twayne Publishers, 1962), pp. 1&8-44; Thomas Philbrick, James Fenimore Cooper and the Development of American Sea Fiction (Cam- bridge: Harvard University Press, 19517, pp. £03-S?9; idem Introduction to The Crater, pp. vii-xxix. Cf. Charles A.. Brady, "James Fenimore Cooper: Myth-Maker and Christian Romancer," American Classics Reconsidered, A. Christian Appraisal, ed. Harold Gardiner, (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1958), pp. 10-81. 10

III. METHODOLOGY OF THE UNFAVORABLE CRITICS

What has been said thus far supplies at least a tentative answer to the first question posed at the beginning of the chapter: evidently a substantial m ajority of Cooper*s interpreters have been inclined to minimize the significance of the last five novels although recently a few critics have begun to reconsider the established appraisal of these works.

The preceding discussion also suggests that the conventional view of these stories is not based upon a careful and im partial examination of the novels themselves. However, the second introductory question

(which deals with the critical logic underlying both the unfavorable and the comparatively favorable assessm ents of the late books} remains unanswered. Accordingly, the next phase of the study consists in the examination of the critical methodology employed by several unfavorable critics in order to determine, if possible, the basis for their conclusions.

Subsequently, the critical procedure of the relatively sympathetic commen" tators is to be investigated with a sim ilar aim.

Among the critics who have depreciated these novels, the first to be considered is Thomas R. Lounsbury, whose authoritative biography of the novelist appeared in 1883 and established the pattern for most of the subsequent negative appraisals of the late fiction. Although Lounsbury gave the case against these novels its classic formulation, this critic, nevertheless, seems to have viewed Cooper as a highly gifted w riter who rarely produced fiction that was altogether without m erit. Not unexpectedly therefore he acknowledges that Jack Tier contains some "passages of 11 marked power" and that "the account of emigrant life" in The Crater "is 23 entertainingly told. " It also is his opinion that the latter book presents 24 a number of "shrewd and keen remarks" on American life. He con* cedes, moreover, that The Sea Lions becomes "a powerful story" when the novelist forsakes "his metaphysics and turns to his real business" OC of narrating an adventure. 3 However, after noting that the last books are not altogether without commendable features, this student of the novelist criticizes the fictional personages in these works on the ground that they are caricatures of the author's own earlier romance characters.

In developing this objection, Lounsbury presupposes that the herioc figures in the early tales provide a norm in terms of which the writer's m ore realistic fiction is to be judged and that any departure from this pattern of characterization constitutes a misdirection of Cooper's genius.

For example, in his evaluation of Jack Tier, he states that Mrs. Budd,

Cooper's nautical M rs. Malaprop, is an inferior "imitation of the adm iral's widow in 'The Red Rover,"1 one of Cooper's most romantic sea tales. Mrs. Budd, he continues, is so grotesque that she is "simply unendurable." According to Lounsbury, then, the characters in a book like Jack Tier should have the same vitality and completeness as the personages in The Red Rover (1827), but regrettably the fictional world

^Lounsbury, op. cit., pp. 255-56.

24Ib id ., p. 256.

25Ibid., p. 259.

2^Ibid., p. 255. 12 of the late sea tale is dominated by eccentric human types that have been rather arbitrarily created by the novelist in order to further an intellectual theme. Applying the same critical touchstone to the presentation of character in the other late books, he concludes that the conversion of

Scalping Peter in The Oak Openings is "only saved from being common­ place by being absurd. " W hereas Lounsbury had previously admired the novelist's "idealization of the Indian character as seen in Chingachgook and Uncas, " he now finds something "unnatural" in the "process of turning the organizing chief of a great warlike confederacy into a Sunday-school hero." 27 And in his discussion of the dramatis personae in The Sea Lions, he maintains that the heroine lacks any largeness of spirit and mind, her personality being narrowed by her inflexible commitment to the doctrine of the Trinity. Similarly, Stimson, Cooper's favorite seaman in the same book, is curtly described "as one of the most offensive canters that the 28 whole range of fiction presents. "

Allied with Lounsbury's unfavorable view of the characters is his disapproval of the artistic conceptions governing the novels. Although he

is compelled to admit the works are highly original compositions, he maintains that it is this very inventiveness in choice of theme and subject

m atter which constitutes the novelist's worst fault. In commenting on the

design of The Sea Lions, for example, he states that "this is certainly one

27_ Ibid., pp. 5 4 -55, 258. 28 Ibid., p. 259. 13 of the most remarkable conceptions that it ever entered into the mind of a novelist to create"; nevertheless this remarkable conception leads only to the absurd conclusion that Unitarians "can be cured of their faith . . . 29 by being subjected to the horrors of an icy winter. " 7 Similarly, Cooper's biographer rejects the startling ending of Jack Tier as preposterous, judges the action of The Crater as highly improbable, and characterizes the events in The Ways of the Hour as evident impossibilities. His negative estim ate of the plan of The Oak Openings already has been suggested by his treatm ent of Scalping Peter's conversion; that is, he holds that the 30 outcome of this pivotal incident is both incredible and unnatural.

Cooper's alleged inability in the late books to develop well-rounded characters and to elaborate a credible story is traced by Lounsbury to the novelist's increasing didactic interest in general and to his narrowing religious and social opinions in particular. Thus this decline in Cooper's literary workmanship "was not due to failure of power, but to its m isdirec- tion. " 31 Hence the w riter's vigorous narrative powers are said to be turned aside from their natural direction by the desire to inculcate a special lesson. Obviously, this line of thought presupposes that romantic narration, not realistic social criticism , is Cooper's essential gift and that the novelist's growing intellectual concern with social issues inevitably com es into conflict with his romantic art.

Ibid., pp. 258~60.

30Ibid., p. 258.

^*Ibid., p. 254. 14

How this presupposition that the novelist's art is inherently roman­ tic influenced subsequent evaluation of the late books is well illustrated by Parrington's study of Cooper in his Main Currents in American

Thought. Although this critic seeks to restate "the Cooper problem" in term s of depth psychology, he accepts Lounsbury's view that the novelist's growing moral awareness almost inevitably stands in opposition to his romantic instincts. Specifically, he construes the alleged opposition between the author's early romantic instincts and his later critical realism as a psychological tension first prompted by the author's lengthy residence in Europe lasting from 1826 to 1833. Cooper's European stay supposedly

"destroyed his provincial contentment" and left him "lingering between worlds, " that is, between an aristocratic Europe symbolizing the past and a Jacksonian America symbolizing the present. 32 Although the conflict was historical in origin, it became an internalized and somewhat confused struggle dominating Cooper's mind. Over a period of time, his inward

"perplexities and dogmatisms" were increasingly conveyed to the pages of his books, "playing havoc with his romantic art, " so that eventually "his creative work was brought only this side of shipwreck. " 33 Consequently,

Parrington virtually dismisses the late novels as thematic essays because they were composed at a time when Cooper's narrative technique was supposedly overwhelmed by his didacticism. That these assumptions bear directly

32 Parrington, op. cit., pp. 214-18, esp. p. 218. Cf. D. H. Lawrence, Studies in Classic American Literature (New York: The Viking Press, 1964), pp. 3l>-63, esp. p. 49.

* 3 O Parrington, op. cit., pp. 214-16. 15 upon the interpretation of C oopers late fiction is indicated by the following comment on The Crater by Parrington:

He found himself nowhere at home. Puzzled and perturbed, he leveled his shafts at both worlds and sought a haven of refuge in vicarious existence, at tim es in the wilderness beyond the soil and smutch of the Jacksonian frontier, at times in the Utopian world of The Crater7 where an honest man could find free play for his creative energies until the trouble-makers came upon him. ’

Seen in this context, The Crater is a rather confused expression of the clash between Cooper's romantic devotion to an idealized past and his critical attitude toward the crudities of the present. Thus, even more than

Lounsbury, Parrington presupposes that Cooper's divided mind kept him from producing coherent literary work during his last years, an a priori judgment which, of course, disposes of the late stories without requiring a serious investigation of the books themselves.

At this prelim inary stage of the investigation, one can draw only tentative conclusions about weaknesses inherent in the critiques of Louns­ bury and Parrington. Nevertheless even the foregoing summary of the critical strategy of these two commentators indicates that their judgments on Cooper's late work presuppose literary standards which are alien to the author's expressed intention. For example, even a casual reading of a novel like Jack Tier would seem to supply sufficient evidence that this novel is meant to be, among other things, a vigorous attack upon the romantic optimism and heroic individualism which pervades the works of

Scott, Dumas, Hugo, and even the early Cooper. It would seem therefore

34 Ibid., p. 218.

v 56 radicalism. Again using the m irror of M ark's consciousness, he stresses that the governor of the colony "was of /the/ opinion that civilization could not exist without property" as its practical basis (p. 324).

Then in a more generalized treatm ent of the same question, the novelist states that radical democrats and Utopians in the United States wrongly "imagine that perfection will come before its stated time" (p. 478).

They suppose that progress will come speedily and almost automatically when the masses are liberated from the chains of the past, an expectation which Cooper judges to be idolatrous, since the government of history belongs to the Creator, not to the thing created. Fundamental then to the meaning of the book is Cooper's twofold conviction: (1) that the distinction between the Creator and the creature provides the only sound basis for a just social order and (2) that the democratic exaltation of the will of the masses tends to subvert society by substituting the opinion of the majority for the voice of God. Hence in the closing paragraph of the book, the writer V, sums up his quarrel with the egalitarians of his own generation by stating:

"Let those who would substitute the voice of the created for that of the

Creator, who shout 'the people, the people,' instead of hymning the praises of their God, who vainly imagine that the m asses are sufficient for all things, remember their insignificance and tremble" (p. 494).

The catastrophic ending of the tale and M ark's chastened recollection of the adventure suggest to many critics that Cooper also is inculcating the lesson that democratic society in the United States must inevitably come under the divine judgment for its apotheosis of the will of the people and that the process of growth in every civilization is followed by an irreversible 16 to be an unusually hazardous critical procedure to condemn a book for not being a romance in the heroic tradition if its author intended it to be a refutation of this particular tradition. Apparently the fundamental difficulty is that these critics have unwisely sought, in the words of

Robert E. Spiller, "to estimate his work in term s of aesthetic principles evolved by European culture since the Renaissance, with little sympathetic 35 attention to his background or to his own expressed objectives. "

Moreover, both Lounsbury and Parrington assume that Cooper's growing critical realism intrudes unnaturally upon the romantic narra­ tive, thus creating an irreconcilable conflict between didactic purpose and his narrative art. This assumption, however, has been refuted with convincing authority by W. E. Brownell who has directed attention to the close relationship existing between Cooper's social realism and his 3 6 romantic narration. "There is, " Brownell writes, "a quality in

Cooper's romance . . . that gives it as romance an almost unique distin- tion. 1 mean its solid alliance with reality. " It is, he continues, a

romance which "produces . . . an almost unequaled illusion of life itself. " 37

■^Spiller, op. cit. , p. vii; idem "Second Thoughts on Cooper as a Social Critic, " James Fenimore Cooper: A. Re-Appraisal, ed. Mary E. Cunningham (Cooperstown: New York State Historical Association, 1954), p. 542. 3 6 Not only has this judgment been confirmed by leading critics of the stature of Spiller and Winters, but recently Thomas Philbrick also has demonstrated with great thoroughness how Cooper used a realistic American background to support his narrative art in The Pioneers. See Philbrick, "Cooper's The Pioneers: Origin and Structure, " PMLA, LXXIX (December 1964), 579-93.

37Brownell, op. cit. , p. 13. 17

Thus Cooper's romance is said to be unlike the romance of a Scott because it is substantially realistic in its critical examination of the surface of life.

III. METHODOLOGY OF THE SYMPATHETIC CRITICS

To this juncture, the investigation has been limited to a treat­ ment of the critical methodology of major critics of Cooper who tend to characterize the late novels as relatively insignificant either from an intellectual or literary point of view. Among these students of

Cooper, on the one hand, Lounsbury and Parrington presuppose that

Cooper's art was inherently romantic and on this basis minimize the significance of the thematic late novels; on the other, Brownell and

Spiller view Cooper as a critical realist adapting romance forms to his moral purposes. Although the latter approach is more promising than the form er, neither Brownell nor Spiller has seriously attempted to apply his insights to the study of the late fiction, and as a consequence these two critics do not appear to have departed in any significant way from the conventional view of the novels first formulated in a systematic manner by Lounsbury and later modified by Parrington. Having thus seen the basis for what is virtually the orthodox appraisal of the novels, one must now consider the thinking of those students of Cooper who have dissented, at least in part, from the established evaluation of the late books. Among these critics, the first to be considered is Yvor Winters.

Although this critic practically ignores The Crater and ranks The Ways of

-^ I b id . t p . 15. 18 the Hour among Cooper's worst novels, he has special praise for The

Oak Openings; as a novel of frontier adventure he judges that it is to be ranked as "one of Cooper's best. " 39 Moreover, he finds that the action of The Sea Lions exhibits "great vigor of conception, " a judg­ ment which stands in distinct opposition to Lounsbury's opinion on the design of the book; and even though he classifies Jack Tier as "a novel of sentimental adventure," he finds that Jack Tier herself is an "extra­ ordinary figure.

Significantly, this new appreciation for certain aspects of the novels under discussion is based upon a critical rationale which differs radically from Lounsbury's methodology. To begin with, Winters is in substantial agreement with the conclusions of Brownell and Spiller on the nature of Cooper's fundamental literary instincts. Like them, he believes that Cooper is interested essentially in m oral and social problems, notin romance per se. Winters states: "His concern was prim arily for public morality; it was the concern of the statesman, or of the historian, first, and of the artist but secondarily . . . ." 41

When Cooper's last novels are studied in this context, it is no longer possible to prejudge them as didactic accretions on Cooper's romantic

•^Winters, op. cit., pp. 182, 193. 40 I b id ., pp. 198, 194.

41 Ibid., p. 179. W inters, of course, is not denying that Cooper wrote novels which were almost pure romantic adventure; he is merely stating that Cooper's fiction, considered as a whole, reveals that his romantic interests are subordinate to his critical concern. 19 a r t.

Winters, however, carries his reasoning a step further. Having

granted that the novelist's literary work tends to be fragm entary, he yet maintains that Cooper "displays at his best a rhetorical grandeur of a kind

cognate with his social ideals, but habitual rather than understood and

commonly collapsing for lack of support from the action . . . ." 42 Winters

thus maintains that the novelist is able, at times, to harmonize the grand

movement of his literary vision with his social criticism , a conclusion

which, in effect, contradicts the prevailing critical assumption that

Cooper's didactic intention inevitably conflicts with his romantic art.

Winters, indeed, is not saying that Cooper's novels are free from dishar­

mony, but on the basis of his critical approach there is no justification

for the prejudgment that, in novels of purpose like the last five,

Cooper's literary art is necessarily overwhelmed by his critical inten­

tion. On the contrary, when tension is present in the novels,

according to this critic, the difficulty originates with the intrusion of

romantic conventions and not with the thematic movement of the story.

Hence Cooper's problem novels may or may not exhibit a dichotomy

between romance and theme, but when the tension occurs, the fault is

not to be attributed to Cooper's critical realism; rather his "great

traditional moral sense" is "corroded by the formulary romantic 43 sentiment of his own period. "

Winters' study of the novels raises the question of the inner

42Ibid., p. 198.

43Ibid. coherence of the fiction within the context of Cooper's m oral aw are­ ness; for this reason, his critique is manifestly superior to m ost previous examinations of Cooper's fiction. Nevertheless, his relatively brief discussion is not intended to be more than a substantial introduction to the subject. For instance, he praises a work like The Oak Openings, but in the treatment of the book he does not attempt to dem onstrate the nature of the connection between the theme and the narrative action.

Fortunately, the knowledge of the organic unity of these late novels has been further advanced by James Grossman, who, like W inters, is inclined to take seriously Cooper's expressed intention in writing his fiction and to evaluate carefully the novelist's success in fusing idea and 44 narrative action. Having read The Crater from this point of view, he expresses dissatisfaction with the climax of the book. The violent ending is not organically related to the story as a whole; it is a m ere mechanical contrivance for resolving the action.45 In turning to Jack Tier, however, he notes a grim unity in the tone of the book, something which has been neglected, if not entirely overlooked, prior to Grossman's study. Even though he considers the climactic disclosure of Jack's true identity "an improbable explanation,11 he nonetheless grants that even this unexpected denouement "does not ruin the story but is consistent with its harsh

^Because in many respects his conclusions parallel those of Lounsbury, Grossman is not to be called a sympathetic critic without qualification; but Grossman does differ from Lounsbury in one significant respect: he avoids prejudging Cooper's work in the light of the European romance novel. 45 Grossman, op. cit., p. 225. 21 tone. "4^ He also is im pressed by the central episode in The Oak

Openings, but he is unwilling to admit that the book as a whole has inner coherence. Having acknowledged that Cooper leads up "with

skilful surprise to his central incident, Parson Amen’s death," he yet concludes that the very success of this central incident "throws the whole novel out of balance" and that "his genuine religious theme

embodied in the martyrdom dwarfs everything else and makes even the delightful early passages about Western ways and types insignificant and irrelevant."47 Similarly, the religious theme in The Sea Lions is not an integral part of the narrative action; rather it is "a minor but bulky excrescence on a competent story of thrilling adventure."48

By contrast, however, he judges that Cooper's final novel, The Ways

of the Hour, exhibits considerable artistic unity, even though the

denouement represents an "irresponsible solution" to the central 49 dilemma of the story. ". . . For once Cooper's formal ideas about

life, " he states, "are integrated into the action of a contemporary

ta le . " 50

Of foremost significance in Grossman's analysis is his critical

methodology: not only is he willing to consider seriously the author's

4 6I b id ., p . 228.

47Ibid. , pp. 229-31.

48Ibid., p. 231.

4^Ibid., p. 243.

50Ibid., p. 239. 22 theme and his choice of artistic means for expressing it, but he also is concerned with the study of each of the last novels as a totality.

In addition, it is of special interest to note that Grossman, the first critic to treat the books in any fulness as unified works of art, finds a consistency of tone throughout Jack Tier and some measure of

organic coherence in The Ways of the Hour, a novel which critics have almost invariably ranked with Cooper's poorest fiction. At the

same time it is evident that Grossman, although he singles out aspects

of the other three novels for praise, does not believe that Cooper's formal ideas on religion are effectively incorporated into the action in

these books.

It is important, however, to ask why Grossman seems to discover

more unity in Jack Tier than he discerns in a novel like The Oak Openings.

Again, the answer, one may suggest, is to be found in a limitation inherent

in his critical methodology: his approach appears to be conditioned by an

intellectualism which leads him to interpret Cooper's religious outlook in

a restricted sense. As a consequence, he fails to see that Cooper's formal

ideas on religion are often organic elements in a religious life-and"world 52 view .

^ P e r h a p s the raising of this question presupposes that The Oak Openings has its own special kind of unity. For a brief defense of this presupposition, see Brady, op. cit. , p. 81.

52E. g., in his reading of The Sea Lions, Grossman discovers no clear link between Cooper's formal theology and the antarctic adventure. But cf. Philbrick, James Fenimore Cooper and the Develop" ment of American Sea Fiction, pp. 233-49. 23

Strong support for this assessm ent of Grossman's critique is im plicit in Howard Mumford Jones* reading of Cooper's fiction.

Jones, the final critic to be treated in this chapter, maintains that the characteristic quality of Cooper's fiction is "not prim itivism , not romanticism, not the influence of the frontier . . . but a great religious vision of life, one comparable to that in the Kosmos of

Alexander von Humbolt, a vision at once melancholy and sublime !"53

In building a case for the religious interpretation of Cooper, Jones cites the w riter's solid alliance with early American painters, whose canvases, like those of Thomas Cole, often depict the sublimity and harmony of nature in order to emphasize the limitations of mankind.

Thus prompted by the painters, Cooper in his later novels used the majesty and peace of the creation to stress the corruption of men in society by exhibiting the contrast "between the harmonies of the universe and the crime and follies of mankind. " 54 The Crater, for instance, demonstrates "how human selfishness ruins an earthly paradise"; The

Sea Lions also turns the "sublime natural phenomena" of the Antarctica into an argument for dependence upon God in a world warped by greed and proud unbelief. ^

Jones, op. cit. , p. 75. See also Howard Mumford Jones, The Pursuit of Happiness (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1953), pp. 111-13, esp. p. 113; "In Cooper's later books the universe passes beyond the simplicities which contented Deerslayer and becomes the majestic and mysterious universe of the astronomer, indicative alike of the might, the mystery, and the goodness of God. " ^ Jones, op. cit. , pp. 73-74. 24

Furtherm ore, Jones thinks that the scope of Cooper's literary vision becomes fully understood only when it is studied in relation to the history of ideas. In his view, Cooper1 s novels**“especially the later ones like The C rater-**present a striking intellectual and spiritual paradox: on the one hand, obedience to the divine moral code would lead only to happiness for man "in a young nation in a new world"; on the other hand, "the law of history" leads nations inevitably through a 56 process of "infancy, growth, maturity, decay, death." Seen in the light of this tension, Cooper's later novels are virtually the deliverances of a prophet who warns that at least "no nation ought to hasten the proc­ ess of its own decay" by transgressing the "explicit moral directions" 57 framed by "a Christian deity. " Hence, the last books illustrate, by way of religious vision, the disastrous consequences which are to follow upon the continued decay of society in the United States.

Final confirmation or rejection of Jones' reading of Cooper's m ature literary work must depend upon an examination of the novels themselves; however, even at this preliminary stage of the study, one can state tentatively that this interpretation appears to explain the critical data far more adequately than do most previous studies of 5 8 Cooper's late fiction. Apparently building upon Winters' perceptive

^ ^Ibid. M p . 76. 57 Ibid., pp. 76-77.

^Recognition of the unusual significance of Jones' analysis on the part of the investigator does not mean, of course, that the present study m erely echoes the opinions of this critic. In the following chapters, for example, a case isfrankly made against Jones'view that Cooper's late fiction contains a dialectical tension. 25 observation that Cooper at times achieves "a rhetorical grandeur cognate with his social ideals, " Jones is able to treat the novelist's romanticism, his social and political idealism , and his dark pessim ism over the future of his country as integral elements in the author's

"great religious vision of life. " Viewed in this light, the puzzling and sometimes annoying aspects of Cooper's fiction“"the lengthy didactic passages treating moral and social questions, the continued insistence upon the universality of social decay, and the imagery and the concep­ tions drawn from prominent American painters “"are no longer to be discounted automatically as intrusive blocks of m aterial overwhelming

Cooper's narrative art; instead this diverse subject matter is to be studied in term s of its relationship to the literary expression of Cooper's developing life_and“world view.

IV. METHODOLOGY OF THE PRESENT STUDY

Having briefly analyzed aspects of the critical methodology of

several leading Cooper scholars and critics, one is now in a position to conclude that the established evaluation of the late books appears to be based upon questionable assumptions as to the nature of the w riter's fiction. This conclusion, however, does not mean that the analyses of critics like Lounsbury and Parrington are practically worthless. On

the contrary, even Lounsbury's deprecatory comments direct attention

to some of the distinguishing features of the late fiction. Not only does

this critic's study indicate that the novels are highly original in concep­

tion, but it also emphasizes that Cooper's late stories manifest his growing social pessim ism and his increasing interest in Christian doctrine. At the same time Lounsbury and the critics under his influ­ ence have failed to bring the late work into clear focus, chiefly because they have presupposed that this writer was wasting his talents in experimenting with the novel of ideas, a prejudgment which led them to slight his expressed intentions and to dism iss his inventive plots as absurd. Accordingly, there seems to be considerable justification for a new investigation of the late tales which would take into account both his explicitly stated purposes and his choice of artistic means for embodying his intellectual themes in fictional form.

In seeking to realize this aim, the investigator will examine the five last novels according to their order of publication, with a single novel being considered in each of the five chapters (Chapters II“VI) which follow. In each chapter the discussion will center on three aspects of the novel under consideration: (1) the formal intention of the author in composing the work, (2) the congruity of the form al intention with the narrative action, and (3) the appropriateness of the mode of the action or the literary form for expressing the author's intellectual theme. The final chapter (Chapter VII) will present a summary of the essential qualities of this group of novels. Hopefully, this method of study will provide a rather accurate knowledge of the theme of social decay as it is developed in the late novels and will contribute to a just assessment

of the literary significance of these works. C H A P T E R II

JACK TIER: BEYOND ROMANTICISM

I. REVIEW OF CRITICISM

A number of recent commentators on Cooper's fiction have noted that the novelist's intellectual purpose in writing Jack Tier was to expose the false idealization of human life which often characterizes the romantic tale of the sea. James Grossman, who is probably the first contemporary critic to direct attention to the pessim istic tone of the book, observes that Captain Stephen, whose actions supply the primary- motivating force to the narrative, incarnates "the sordid truth of rom an­ tic fiction."^ What Grossman sees exhibited in Spike's character, ’

Thomas Philbrick finds in the novel as a whole: he comments on that

"antiromanticism which seems to supply the prim ary impetus of the novel." Using even stronger term s than those chosen by Grossman and

Philbrick, Donald A., Ringe describes the book as an "essentially true 3 criticism of a world where all sense of principle has been lost. " To complete the picture drawn by contemporary critics, Frank P. Collins contrasts this late nautical tale with the romances written by the author

^Grossman, op. cit., p. 226.

* James Fenimore Cooper and the Development of American Sea Fiction, p. 207.

^Ringe, James Fenimore Cooper, p. 134. in the eighteen-twenties; he characterizes Jack Tier as "a retractive 4 commentary" on books like The Red Rover.

One can appreciate the provocative insights derived from this growing critical consensus on the intellectual meaning of Jack Tier and yet concur with Ringe's judgment that this late book of Cooper's "has received little careful analysis. As a rule the studies of the novel are fragmentary and fail to view the work as an organic whole. What therefore rem ains to be done in the study of this novel of purpose is to define the author's formal intention more precisely and with greater fulness than has been accomplished in previous investigations and to appraise the w riter’s success in relating his intellectual theme to the novel considered as a unified work of literary art. Hence in this chapter the purpose is threefold: (1) to establish the author's formal intention in writing the novel, (2) to evaluate his success in fusing his thesis with the narrative action, and (3) to assess his skill in adapting the action to a particular literary mode.

II. COOPER’S FORMAL INTENTION IN JACK TIER

Since Cooper's formal intention in Jack Tier is closely related to the problem of defective leadership in society, it is appropriate to begin the study of the book with an examination of the novelist's

^Collins, op. cit., p. 94.

^Ringe, James Fenimore Cooper, p. 131. 29 commentary on those three personages that function as leaders in the tale. These dominant characters are Captain Stephen Spike, the m aster of the Molly Swash; Mrs. Budd, the widow of Spike's former captain; and Harry Mulford, the first mate of the vessel. In his discussion of

Spike, the author acknowledges the smuggler's "rare m erit as a

seaman" who gives "his orders in a way to denote that he had been long accustomed to exercise authority on the deck of a vessel, and knew his 6 calling to a minutiae. " Nevertheless, Spike's superior gifts as a leader are exercised without respect for any law but that of his own will: as an autonomous man, he is so steeped in lawless practices that his conscience no longer troubles him, except in the rarest moments.

Accordingly, when he lies m ortally wounded in the naval hospital at Key

West, Cooper observes:

Spike had a conscience that had become hard as iron by means of trade. He who traffics much, most especially if his dealing-s be on so small a scale as to render constant investi­ gations of the minor qualities of things necessary, must be a fortunate man, if he preserve his conscience in any better condition. ^

Although this statement reveals that Spike is not seen by Cooper as a

rebel in the grand manner, as an "Arch Angel ruin'd, " his absolute

egoism gives the captain a certain alliance with the demonic heroes of

romanticism. In appraising his role in the climactic scene of the tale,

the novelist even compares Spike's absolute indifference to the welfare

of others to the supreme egoism of Satan. "Spike," he writes, "had

6Jack Tier, pp. 13, 22.

^ Ib id ., p. 493. 30 taken no share in the struggle, looking on in grim satisfaction, as the

Father of lies may be supposed to regard all human strife, hoping good to himself, let the result be what it might to others" (p. 478).

Apart from his extreme egocentricity, however, the captain is

seen by his creator as a democratic demon"-a demagogic political leader--rather than an aristocratic Satan in the tradition of Milton’s fallen archangel. In the preface, for example, the author states that

"the species of treason portrayed in these pages is no uncommon occur­ rence" and then compares the master of the brig to the petty American political leader "who is clamorous about the rights of the people" but who is in reality "the partisan of corruption and selfishness" (p. vii).

Accordingly, Spike’s "abuse of power" aboard the Molly Swash seems intended to teach complacent Americans that not even a democratic government is immune from corruption and that "given an evil captain, the whole structure of government ^"*here naval discipline^ works for g evil . . . . " Hence Cooper’s commentary on Spike implies that when a democratic leader is given over to absolute self-trust, his egoism

inevitably leads to the destruction of his own character and to the

subversion of those fundamental principles which make possible an

orderly community life. Expressed in formal term s, Cooper’s intention

thus is to expose what he considers to be the peril to society found in

the popular Am erican doctrine of self-reliance embodied in the leveling

8 “* Kay S. House, Cooper’s Americans (Cincinnati: Ohio State University Press, 1965), p. 192. 31 politics of the frontier and enshrined in the teachings of Ralph Waldo

E m e rso n .

The novelist's discussion of Mrs. Budd's actions lends additional support to this conclusion. In her case, however, the w riter is con­ cerned not with the problem of corrupt leadership but with the problem of incompetent leadership. Mrs. Budd, Who deems herself to be the pilot of Rose, her niece, and Biddy Noon, her Irish servant, is castigated by the author both for her "credulous imbecility" in trusting Spike and for her pretension to an authoritative knowledge in nautical m atters.

Actually, Cooper states, "her intellect was unequal to embracing any thing of an abstracted character, and only received the most obvious im pressions, and those quite half the time it received wrong" (p. 228).

Although M rs. Budd is honest and well-meaning, her fixed notion "that she knew all about a vessel" gives her a feeling of "great superiority over her niece" (p. 30). Hence in her proud claim to a knowledge which she does not possess, Mrs. Budd is almost as self-assertive as Stephen

Spike, and in her blindness to the nature of things she constitutes a serious threat to those who place confidence in her authoritative opinions.

Seemingly, Cooper intends to contrast Harry Mulford, the third leader aboard the brig, with Spike and Mrs. Budd. Unlike Spike he is represented as brave and idealistic, and unlike Mrs. Budd he is portrayed as intelligent and perceptive; nevertheless in his proud self-dependence he is said by the novelist to be not altogether different from the captain and Rose's aunt. Cooper states that "the germ of goodness had been implanted early in him, and was nursed with tenderness and care, until, 32 self-willed, and governed by passion, he had thrown off the connections of youth and childhood, " in order to take service with the lawless Spike

(p. 334). The author also reports that Mulford is not entirely clear in his conception of his duties and obligations to his Creator. His virtues are somewhat akin to the "noble vices" of which Augustine spoke, that is, he trusts in his own virtuous powers and refuses to submit himself tb~the power of God. "He had been taught to believe, " the writer observes,

"that the Anglo-Saxon m ariner did not call on Hercules, on every occasion of difficulty and distress that occurred, as was the fashion with the

Italian and Romish seaman, but he put his own shoulder to the wheel, confident that Hercules would not forget to help him who knew how to help himself" (p. 254). Cooper’s evaluation of the first mate thus implies that human pride endangers the noble-hearted youth even as it corrupts the greedy Spike and blinds the foolish widow.

These three forms of self-trust-«Spike’s assertive lawlessness,

M rs. Budd’s proud claim to nautical knowledge, and Mulford’s dependence upoiThis own strength-"do not, however, comprehend the whole of

Cooper’s formal thesis. For his comments on Mulford’s self-reliance imply that the novel has a positive as well as a negative intention.

Although this aspect of the theme is often passed over by students of the novelist, Cooper’s appraisal of Mulford's terrible ordeal on the bottom

of the capsized schooner indicates that it is as important for the leader

of men to secure divine aid by submitting to the "designs of a mysterious 9 Providence" as it is essential for him to turn from self-trust.

9Ibid., pp. 254-72, esp. p. 272. 33

In the preface to the novel, Cooper states this positive side of his form al intention-"the need for men to submit to the designs of providence-"with considerable fulness. Having reviewed the events of the war with Mexico, he concludes:

Providence, however, directs all to the completion of its own wise ends. If the crust which has so long encircled that nation, inclosing it in bigotry and ignorance, shall now be irre­ trievably broken, letting in light, even Mexico herself may have cause hereafter to rejoice in her present disasters. It was in this way that Italy has been, in a manner, regenerated ....

In Cooper's vocabulary, then, "progress" and "providence" are practically interchangeable terms, with improvements in society more likely to originate from the divine direction of the great moments and movements of history than from the energies of reform ers and demagogic politicians.

Thus under a mysterious providence the military action against Mexico

(as well as the naval action against Spike) may well be a prelude to better things for men and society.

Always fond of the United States navy, Cooper finds in the quality of life aboard the Poughkeepsie evidence for his thesis that progress comes quietly, almost without human effort. Speaking of the gradual but genuine improvement in shipboard society and society in general, he comments: "But intellect has certainly improved in the aggregate, if not in its special dispensations, and men will not now submit to abuses that, within the recollections of a generation, they even cherished. " * *

IOIbid.,tu-, p. vi.

11Ibid., p. 403. 34

A perceptive critic term s this emphasis upon social progress with a minimum of social planning " q u i e t i s m , " 12 but regardless of the designation it is clear that Cooper became convinced in his last years that progress comes gradually through humble submission to the workings of Providence in history, not from the manipulation of man and society by an elite group of "guardians. "

For this reason the novelist passionately distrusted the reform movements of his day, chiefly because the leaders in these causes were assuming that they were competent to guide human history, a role which, in Cooper's view, belongs to the divine hand alone. Upon the occasion of Mulford1 s drawing a cork from a bottle of claret, the novelist thus denounces the prohibitionist m oral posture on the grounds that its adherents go beyond the law of God in forbidding the use of "the gifts of Providence." Similarly, he castigates the progressivist-- perfectionist movement (led by Horace Greeley, Albert Brisbane and

John Humphrey Noyes) for having been able to generate progress only 13 in "the art of mendacity. " From these severe condemnations of what Emerson called the "party of hope, " many students of American intellectual history erroneously conclude that Cooper was in his last works reverting to the traditionalist "party of memory. " But what under­ lies these judgments against the radical reform ers and romantic idealists is not Cooper's commitment to a particular socio-political movement.

IZcollins, op. cit., p. 93.

*3jack Tier, pp. 367-68. 35

Rather his rejection of radical progressivism in Jack Tier is based upon his twofold thesis: first, that self-trust in all its forms, including social activism , is destructive of the human community and, secondly, that true progress is the gift of a beneficent Providence.

III. THEME AND NARRATIVE ACTION IN JACK TIER

M arius Bewley, a distinguished interpreter of Cooper's fiction, maintains that the novelist "at his best" is able to make "the most flagrant adventures" serve as the "intrinsic parts of a developing moral 14 theme, the whole of which becomes the form of the completed tale. "

What Bewley finds in Cooper's best work is, in general, to be met with in Jack Tier. Largely by means of physical violence, the narrative action of the novel expresses the author's form al intention, without significant intrusion of unrelated subject m atter. Fundamental to this physical action is Spike's determination to recoup his fortunes by m arrying Rose Budd for her inheritance and by selling gunpowder to the Mexican government during the war between the United States and that nation. Although Mulford opposes Spike's cupidity because Jie loves Rose and remains loyal to his country, Jack Tier's conflict with the captain is far more complex than Mulford*s and provides Cooper with an opportunity to explore the tensions connected with human loyalty in considerable depth. In his discussion of this relationship, Grossman

14 Bewley, op. cit., p. 73. emphasizes that Cooper is primarily concerned with the "reality and intensity of emotional complication in male friendship. " ^ But there is reason to believe that this interpretation is little m ore than a modern psychological subtlety imposed upon the text of the novel. Actually the tension within Jack is precipitated by divided loyalties which have little to do with male friendship. As the friend of Rose, Jack wants to protect

the young woman from Spike's machinations; but as the disguised wife

of Stephen Spike who retains "a strange, tiger-like affection"^ for her

erring spouse, Jack recognizes that any defense of Rose may put Spike

into the hands of his enemies. Thus this woman, who passes as a common

seaman, plays a dual role in the closing action of the tale: on the one

hand, she enables Rose and Mulford to escape together after Spike has

marooned the mate on a naked rock in the sea; and, on the other, she

warns Spike that Mulford is certain to return seeking revenge.

Although Spike provides the fundamental motivation for the conflict-

in the book, Mrs. Budd's actions also play a significant role in shaping

the adventure. At three points her foolish conduct influences the course

of events. First, while still in New York she has perm itted herself to

be persuaded by Spike that Rose is a "pulmonary case" and requires a

sea voyage to restore her health. It is therefore her gullibility which

puts Rose into the hands of Spike. Secondly, her assumption of a knowl"

edge of ships and sailing prompts her to untie and lose the painter during

^Grossman, op. cit., p, 227.

■^Jack Tier, p. 511. 37 a moment of crisis, an act which almost costs her own life and the lives of Rose, Biddy Noon, Jack Tier, and Mulford. Finally in the overloaded yawl, her dull ignorance of Spike's intentions enables him to have her pushed into the sea before she can offer any resistance.

Spike in his persistent greed and Mrs. Budd in her impenetrable ignorance thus function as twin centers of conflict in "a world where coherence and order have been lost in the only standard of value that many will admit-«*monetary gain. This collapse of law and order aboard the Molly Swash prim arily manifests itself in the disappearance of all human loyalties. When the carpenter dies as a consequence of

Spike's lust for the gold aboard the Mexican schooner, the master of the brig says brutally: "It's neither more nor less than a carpenter expended" (p. 443). Such indifference as Spike*s to the welfare of his comrads reflects that in his case the process of dehumanization is far advanced.

This brutal scene also has the effect of preparing the reader for the climatic episode in which Spike commits what would appear to be the ultimate act of treachery by a sea captain whose responsibilities are for the safety of his passengers and crew first and for himself last.

Pursued in the yawl through heavy seas by a cutter from the Pough­ keepsie, Spike contrives to lighten his boat, which is dangerously over- loaded with passengers and crew, by a series of managed accidents.

In quick succession several members of the crew are forced into the

171 Ringe, James Fenimore Cooper, p. 134. 38

sea, but it is only when Mrs. Budd's turn comes that the depths of

Spike's perfidy are fully exposed. Pushed into the water, she somehow

grasps the hand of the boatswain and screams for Spike to save her.

His hard egoism and indifference to the fate of a fellow human being is indicated in the following directive to the boatswain:

"Cast off her hand, " said Spike reproachfully, "she'll swamp the boat by her struggle--get rid of her at once! Cut her fingers off, if she won't let gol"^®

Spike's guilt is compounded when the reader recalls that he is murdering the widow of the sea captain who acted as a father to Spike in the latter1 s

youth. "The old fellow, " Spike says of Captain Budd in the first chapter,

"brought me up. I was with him from my tenth to my twentieth year, and then broke adrift to see fashions" (p. 16).

However, what is probably the most significant aspect of this

climactic scene is regularly overlooked by critics of the novelist. It is

that Spike's total devotion to self is reflected in practically every member

of the crew. Granted that Spike and his helpers initiated the plungers

into the sea, the fact remains that once begun the struggle is carried on

without direction from him and without the slightest feeling of comrade­

ship among the men. "Distrust," Cooper writes, "was at its most

painful height. " Like bulldogs the men spring for each other, every man

attempting with "frenzied efforts, to throw all the others overboard. "

When this "combat of demons" is over, the yawl, which started its trip

with eighteen people aboard, contains only the captain and the

^Jack Tier, p. 474. 39 boatswain (p. 478). The novelist's purpose in constructing this scene of brutal terror, one which is hardly rivaled in American literature, appears to be to demonstrate his conviction that, given a lawless leader like Spike, the whole of society is corrupted in all its parts and that as a consequence the loyalty of man to his fellow man eventually disap­ pears completely.

In the nineteenth century Lounsbury condemned this ending on the ground that the story concludes principally because the author has killed "nearly all the characters. Among present critics, Alexander

Cowie echoes this established opinion by calling "its tragedy uncon- 20 vincing. " Even as favorable a student of Cooper as Henry W. Boynton

said that the book "is in some ways a better tale than The Red Rover" but only in spite of "the comic melodrama of its ending. " 21 Nevertheless, these critics who follow Lounsbury fail to perceive that this singular

ending harmonizes exceptionally well with the antiromantic theme of

the book and with the pattern of violent action found throughout the novel.

Terrible then as this ending may be, it powerfully demonstrates the

author's passionate belief that self-assertion carried to its logical

consequence ends in grotesque absurdities.

At this juncture it is important to observe that, although Spike has

^Lounsbury, op. cit. , pp. 255-56.

^Cowie, jop. cit. , p. 154.

^Boynton, James Fenimore Cooper (New York: The Century Co. , 1931), p. 390. Cf. , however, Dekker, op. cit. , pp. 213-14. something in common with the alienated antiheroes of Herman Melville

(The Confidence Man), Albert Camus (The Stranger), and Graham

Greenej(A Burnt~Out Case), Cooper is not expressing in Jack Tier his

"bafflement at the world's evil, 11 his perplexity over the darkness which supposedly lies "at the heart of things. If one considers for a moment the conflict in its broad outlines, it becomes clear that the novelist is not maintaining that men in society are the helpless victims

of an unchecked moral plague spread by vicious leaders like Spike, and it also becomes clear that he means to go beyond antiromanticism to something he deems more permanent than this pessimistic interpre­ tation of existence. What the novelist therefore is seeking to demon­

strate through the whole of the action is that those who are motivated by self-trust are brought to defeat by a power which is more than human by a providence which works for good in the universe. Hence when one

considers the conflict in Jack Tier in its full scope, it is of paramount

importance to note that Spike is not defeated by the strength of Mulford

or the strong will of Jack Tier; instead he is destroyed and order is

restored by what one may somewhat loosely term the "forces of provi­

dence. " These powers which oppose Spike's absolute egoism and its

anarchical results are essentially two in number: the natural world and

the United States navy. Although the whole of nature seems to conspire

against Spike, it is especially through a series of storms that Spike's

impotence is made evident to the reader. Early in the action his plan

22Collins, op. cit. , p. 94. 41 to sell the brig to Senor Montefalderon is hindered by a typhoon which sends the Mexican schooner to the bottom before the arrangem ent is consummated. Then a second storm makes his attempt to escape in the yawl practically hopeless, giving his pursuers an opportunity to over­ take him. And finally, like an avenging fury, a hurricane descends upon his grave where his body is interred in the sands of the shore and sweeps his bones into the depths of ths ea. Apparently this check on the designs of the smuggler by the power of the natural world implies that the physical setting is to be understood as a revelation of the will and power of the divine majesty.

Similarly, the action seems to suggest that the Poughkeepsie constitutes both an ideal society and an instrument of divine justice. In contrast to life aboard the brig, the community of men on the Pough­ keepsie is pictured as well ordered and progressive, with the novelist observing that in the modern navy the surgeon is "necessarily a man of education and experience" and the chaplain, a man of discernment and piety (p. 403). In particular, the quality of loyalty--which is in short supply with Spike and his crew --prevails among the officers and men of the naval vessel (pp. 400-405). It is therefore a reliance: upon principle-” specifically, the recognition that all loyalties are subordinate to loyalty to the Creator--which distinguishes the world of the sloop from the decadent and demonic society ruled over by Spike. In deliberately opposing the just community of the Poughkeepsie to the unjust world of the brig, in bringing about the destruction of the latter through the agency of the form er, Cooper seems to be saying that the government and life in the 42

sloop is in harmony with the purposes of Providence and that this world of the sloop constitutes, albeit somewhat obliquely, an image of the society of the future.

This interpretation of the natural world and the society of the

sloop also harmonizes with the m oral recovery of the proud Mulford and the debased Jack Tier. Through his experience on the bottom of

the capsized schooner, Mulford learns to submit in humble trust to the

divine will as it is expressed in the physical world; and through the

example and instruction of Rose, Jack Tier learns the same lesson. In

regard to the sloop it is, first, the instrument by which the lives of

Mulford and Jack Tier are preserved. Mulford, along with Rose, is

rescued from the lighthouse by the crew of the naval vessel, and Jack

is saved from the sea by the cutter from the Poughkeepsie when Spike

forces her to jump from the yawl. Secondly, through the means of the

naval vessel both Mulford and Jack are re-introduced into a world of

norms, social order, and human loyalty.

Seen in this perspective, the narrative action of the book effec”

tively expresses Cooper's twofold intention: on the one hand, his

negative antiromantic thesis~"the polemic against egoism-*is conveyed

through the pattern of conflict which culminates in the tragic ending;

and, on the other, his positive thesis“-the necessity for humble

submission to divine providence--is adumbrated in the natural world

functioning as the instrum ent of divine justice and power, the final

victory of the Poughkeepsie over the brig, and the recovery of Mulford

from his pride and Jack Tier from her social degradation. 43

IV. LITERARY MODE OF JACK TIER

In a brief but helpful essay on Jack Tier, Philbrick observes that this late nautical tale includes a large number of characters and scenes which appear to be derived from the novelist's early sea romances, The

Red Rover (1827) and The Water-Witch (1830), but as this critic explains

"the mood of shabby senescence" has settled upon Spike, his crew, his brig, and "even the hero and heroine of the love story do not escape the 23 withering touch of Cooper's harsh tone. "

Especially valuable because of its searching comparison of the subject matter in Jack Tier with the contents of the early romances,

Philbrick's analysis, nevertheless, can prove misleading if it is construed as a full discussion of the tone of the novel. Actually the narrator in the book adopts different tones to suit the requirem ents of the story and not all of these tones are harsh. As the dignified opposite of the uncouth

Spike, Senor Montefalderon is uniformly accorded a sympathetic and respectful treatment by the voice of the narrator. Similarly, the officers and men of the Poughkeepsie escape the sardonic commentary applied to the major personages of the Molly Swash. And for the love scenes between Mulford and Rose, the narrator's manner of expression evokes the same sentimental mood to be found in his early romances. Thus with­ out further citation of evidence, it should be clear that Philbrick's study

James Fenimore Cooper and the Development of American Sea Fiction, pp. 2p4-0fe. 44 of the tone in Jack Tier fails to take into account the complexities of the narration. Moreover, the word "tone" does less than complete justice to the form of Cooper's novels, and in Jack Tier especially

Cooper builds his tale around a series of dramatic actions, and for this reason the word "tone"-■with its reflection on the attitude of the narrator toward his m aterials'-is probably not so appropriate as the term "mode"--which concerns the form of the dramatic action.

Although the narrative action in Jack Tier is shaped by a mixture of three modes (romantic, realistic, and ironic), fundamentally the reader has "the sense of looking down on a scene of bondage, frustra- J24 tion, or absurdity" (Frye's characterization of the ironic mode). This sense of absurdity is especially evident in those scenes which present the actions of Spike. In the early part of the narrative his marriage proposal to Rose is so clumsily managed that Mrs. Budd thinks that the offer is directed to her rather than to Rose (pp. 107-13). Later it becomes apparent that even his treason has an element of absurdity in it: he is risking his ship, his crew, and his own life for the sake of a rather small profit. And finally nearly a score of people die because he wishes to recover a single bag of doubloons which could not be worth more than a few thousand dollars (pp. 155_56). This same ironic mode, however, dominates the characterization of Jack Tier no less than it governs the form of Spike’s actions. Assigned the conventional role of

24 For a further definition of the terms which follow, see Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism : Four Essays (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957), pp. 33-34. 45 the disguised romantic heroine, Jack or Molly is no lovely maiden: instead, having lost her feminine identity through twenty years service before the mast, she has been transformed into a debased sailor whose physical appearance is revolting.

The main outlines of Cooper's methodology are now rather evident.

He takes the stock devices and form s of romantic sea fiction (including the disguised maiden, the intriguing corsair, and the pattern of the sea chase) and distorts them in term s of a realistic social setting. Consid"

ered by itself, this strange m arriage of the two modes suggests

something grotesque, if not absurd. One need only note the following picture of Spike to sense this fact:

The gait of the man would have proclaimed him a sea" dog, to anyone acquainted with that animal . . . .The short squab figure, the arm s bent nearly at right angles at the elbow, and working like two fins with each roll of the body; the stumpy, solid legs, with the feet looking in the line of his course, and kept wide apart, would all have contributed to the making of such an opinion. Accustomed as he was to this beautiful sight, H arry Mulford kept his eyes riveted on the retiring person of his commander, until it disappeared behind a pile of lumber, waddling always in the direction of the more thickly peopled parts of the town. ^5

However, Cooper is not content with reducing the romantic corsair to

the level of realistic burlesque. Having undermined the romantic mode

by means of the comic, he then proceeds to undermine the latter as well.

How he carries out this process is illustrated in his treatment of Spike

and Mrs. Budd. As described in the opening of the narrative, they seem

subjects for social satire, character types with gross manners,

25jack T ier, p. 17. 46 deserving of chastening but nothing m ore. The conventions of comic

satire would seem to require merely that Spike lose his property because of his cupidity, and Mrs. Budd, her dignity because of her

social follies. What happens, however, is that Spike, without losing his comic features, becomes the moving force in the death of sixteen people. And in conventional realistic comedy Mrs. Budd would be

"one of those inane, uncultivated beings" that enjoy the protection of

"a benevolent Providence, " not the victim of barbarous crim inal

action (p. 29).

This mixture of the three modes, with the increasing dominance

of the ironic over the romantic and the realistic, creates effects that

are_,grotesque to the point of surrealism . When the Mexican schooner,

with twenty-one men aboard, sinks in the anchorage without capsizing,

the rescuers from the brig are greeted by the following sight:

As the boat moved slowly over this sad ruin, however, a horrible and startling spectacle came in view. Two bodies were seen, within a few feet of the surface of the water, one grasped in the arm s of the other, in the grip of despair. The man held in the grasp was kept beneath the water solely by the death-lock of his companion, who was himself held where he floated, by the circumstance that one of his feet was entan­ gled in a rope. The struggle could not have been long over, for the two bodies were slowly settling toward the bottom when first seen. It is probable that both these men had more than once risen to the surface in their dreadful struggle. 26

Regularly passed over in critical discussions of Jack Tier, this lurid

vision, in which a seaman’s desperate reach for life causes his ship­

m ate’s death, powerfully supports Cooper’s major theme concerning

. *

26lbid., pp. 153-54. — 47 the collapse of m an's loyalty for man.

Unquestionably, the reader's willingness to accept the ironic mode of this "flagrant adventure" depends in considerable measure upon his response to the novelist's rhetoric. For it is Cooper's grand prose style (alm ost in the tradition of the seventeenth century) which prompts the reader to say that "he felt and saw Key West in the story of Jack T ier" 27 and to recognize that Cooper somehow manages to fuse the m ost disparate elements into a modal unity. Nevertheless, the critic of Cooper must seek to go beyond the intuitions of the reader who wants principally "to see and to feel" and ask how the novelist creates his effects with his prose. In order to discover the inner work­ ings of Cooper's method in Jack Tier, one must primarily observe his skill in relating the physical,environment to the ironic mode of the narrative action. The scene in which the carpenter is drowned vividly illustrates the novelist's gift in this respect. With a realistic precision worthy of Ernest Hemingway, Cooper pictures the elaborate physical arrangem ents involved in raising the stern of the sunken schooner so that Spike can recover the doubloons from the upper transom-locker.

Because Spike's greed causes the work to continue at night, a lantern must be used, and the scene thus acquires an eerie melodramatic quality, which culminates in the sound of groans coming from "the depths of the vessel. " When the frightened carpenter attempts to escape

2?Van Wyck Brooks, The World of Washington Irving (New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1944), p. 180. 48 from the seemingly haunted ship, he meets Spike, who blocks his exit.

"In the struggle that ensued," states Cooper, "the lantern was dropped into the water, leaving the half "frenzied combatants contending in the dark" (p. 442). It is at this point that the combatants recognize that the groans mean that the shores are giving way. Although Spike escapes, the carpenter drowns with "one piercing shriek" as the schooner sinks.

After the drowning of the carpentey, Senor Montefalderon calls the m an's death "a sad accident, " but Spike responds as follows:

"Yes, he was a good fellow enough with a saw, or an adze, " answered Spike, yawning. "But we get-used to such things at sea. It's neither more nor less than a carpenter expended. ~ ’ ‘ ht, Senor Don Wan; in the morning we'll be at that gold

Although the ironic force of this incident is considerable, it does not have the power of those scenes in which the novelist pictures nature in direct conflict with man. For instance, when the Mexican schooner is sunk by a tornado, the physical setting itself is converted by Cooper's prose into "an enveloping action. " Standing on a gun, Mulford sees in the western sky "a fiery heat" which "was glowing there behind a curtain

of black vapor. " In the silence of the tropical noonday, "the birds alone

seemed to be alive and conscious of what was approaching. " Spike is

so appalled at the sight of the tornado in its approach that he "stood

aghast, gazing at the enemy as one conscious of his impotency might have been supposed to do . . . before an assault that he foresaw must prove irresistible" (p. 148). And, of course, this effect is precisely

28Jack Tier, p. 443. 49 the one which the novelist is striving for in his use of his lofty rhetoric.

In Jack Tier what Cooper intends to exhibit in his portrayal of nature is the ironic contrast between the unlimited power and wisdom of the

Maker of the world and the dependent status of finite man.

One must grant that Jack Tier, in spite of its "spirit, energy, 29 invention, life-like presentation of objects and events, " has a number of weaknesses characteristic of Cooper's fiction. The characters, for example, are genuinely striking creations, but they also tend to be essentially two-dimensional figures. In addition, wordiness, careless diction, and sentim ental conversation are blots on the style of the novel.

Nevertheless, investigation indicates that the "divine-human irony" which ultimately shapes the whole action of the narrative puts the novel in a class of its own and that the narrative action effectively expresses the novelist's form al intention.

C. Bryant, op. cit. , p. xxxii. CHAPTER III

THE CRATER: THE RISE AND FALL OF A DEMOCRATIC UTOPIA

I. RECENT INTERPRETATIONS OF THE CRATER

Although recent critics of Cooper's fiction tend to agree that The

Crater deals with the problem of social decay in the United States, they evidence a marked difference of opinion about the precise nature of the author's formal intention in composing the novel. According to Jam es

Grossman, the book advances the thesis that "the prim e business of government" is "the protection of property rather than life,11 * whereas

Howard Mumford Jones states that the novel "shows in miniature what 2 happens when 'democracy takes over' from gentlemanly control . . . . "

Harold H. Scudder practically reduces the intellectual meaning of the book to "a defense, or a demonstration of, the newly announced economic views"

of Henry C. Carey. ^ Viewing the work within the context of the intellec"

tual history of the eighteen-forties, John C. McCloskey concludes that

the novel reflects Cooper's opposition to the leveling political and social

movements active during that time. Both George J. Becker and W. B.

* Grossman, op. cit., p. 222.

20 Strange New World: American Culture: The Formative Years j(New York: Viking Presa, ^964), p. 160.

^"Cooper's The C rater," American Literature, XIX (May 1947), 110-16. ^"Cooper's Political Views in The C rater, " Modern Philology, LIH (November 1955), 113rl6. 51

Gates read the story as a warning to contemporary America, with the 5 latter critic emphasizing the prophetic tone of the novel. To complicate the critical picture even further, Charles A. Brady states that The Crater

exhibits a multiple purpose. This work, Brady writes, "is, in intention,

Cooper's Typee and his Mardi, too, as well as his Utopia and his 1984.

Although these variations in interpretation indicate that critics

continue to encounter special difficulty in ascertaining the import of

this late tale, the three most recent interpreters of the work appear to be

evolving what may be the beginning of a critical consensus as to Cooper's

formal intention in the novel. "The theme of the book, " Donald A. Ringe

observes, "is clearly a moral one. " Thus Cooper's thesis is that a 7 "society m ust eventually decay and die" when its "m oral basis is lost. "

Like Ringe, Thomas Philbrick argues that the work is prim arily a warning

to Americans that "only by moving backward to the firm principles, the

pristine simplicity, and the stable cohesiveness of the early years of the

Republic" is it possible to "avoid the fate of Rome, or perhaps of Sodom g and Gomorrah. " Philbrick, however, especially stresses the cosmic

implications of the allegory: in his opinion the book contains "a thematic

^George J. Becker, "James Fenimore Cooper and American Democ­ racy, "^College Englishj XVII (March 1956), 332; W. B. Gates, "A Defense of the Ending of Cooper's The Crater, " Modern Language Notes, LXX (May, 1955), 347-49.

^Brady, op. cit., pp. 80-81. ^"Cooper's The Crater and the Moral Basis of Society,11 Papers of the Michigan Academy of Science, A rts, and Letters, XLIV (1959), 37^7"380. O introduction to The Crater, p. xvii. 52 9 insistence on the universality of the cycle of growth and corruption.

In turn his view that the colony functions as "a representative society, a community whose history evinces the inability of imperfect man to create any lasting good"^ is generally supported by Frank M. Collins, who discovers that on one level the novel conveys a warning about the moral threat to "the American idyll'* and that on another level it emphasizes man's role in an eternal cosmic struggle which involves his choosing between "being directed by God or used by Satan.

More than previous critics Ringe, Philbrick, and Collins study

The Crater with a sensitivity to the expressed purposes of the novelist.

Nevertheless* there is reason to believe that a careful analysis of the text will reveal that Ringe and Philbrick overestimate the pessimism of the formal thesis of the book. There also is reason to question whether

Collins' opinion that an irrational paradox lies at the heart of the late novels is supported by a close reading of The Crater. The intention in the first part of this chapter, therefore, is to examine the author's own interpretation of the story in order to define as accurately as possible his intellectual theme.

II. PERSPECTIVE AND THEME IN THE CRATER

In order to acquire an accurate understanding of the critical theme in The Crater, one must first recognize that this book has a principal

9I b id ., p . X X V .

^Ibid., p. xxiv.

^Collins, op. cit., pp. 92-93. 53 character^ Mark Woolston) whose sensibility functions as a clearly defined center in the story. 12 In effect, the consciousness of this central charac" ter serves as "a magic m irror" in which the novelist observes the passing events of the adventure. Furtherm ore on one level of implication, this observer’s interpretation of the narrative action is virtually identical with

Cooper’s official perspective. For example, when Mark enters into a hasty m arriage with Bridget Yardley contrary to her father’s wishes and without his father's consent, the young seaman, along with his bride, comes to feel that "they had offended against one of the simplest commands." Thus the awareness that "they had not honoured their father and their mother"

soon enters into their thoughts and apparently lingers in their minds long 13 after the event. That Cooper takes a similar view of their conduct is

indicated in the following comment by the novelist:

Still, the law of God /""H onor thy father and thy mother . . . ,'JJ is there, and we are among those who believe that a neglect of its mandates is very apt to bring its punishment, even in this world; and we are inclined to think that much of that which Mark and Bridget subsequently suffered, was in consequence of acting directly in the face of the wishes and injunctions of their parents.

Seen in this double perspective, the incident of M ark's prem ature marriage

not only_illustrates the author's literary method, but it also provides a clue

^Cooper provides fictional justification for this relationship by explaining in the preface to The C rater, p. x, that his narration is based upon "Captain Woolston's journal" and that he even attem pts to "imitate the simplicity" of M ark's style.

^The Crater, p. 32.

14Ibid.. p. 25. 54 to his formal purpose in The Crater. In previous novels Cooper fre­ quently explored the problem of authority and subordination in society.

A glance at the novels published in the eighteen-forties, for example, reveals that The Pathfinder (1840), The Two Admirals (1842), and the

Littlepage trilogy (1845-1846) are directly concerned with this question; but it is in The Crater that Cooper first attempts to discuss this m atter in term s of explicitly stated biblical norms and principles.

That this is the direction of Cooper's thought is confirmed by his interpretation of Mark’s tragic voyage to the Pacific Ocean as first officer of the Rancocus, a Quaker-owned vessel which is engaged in the sandal-wood trade between the tropical islands and China. Viewed from Cooper's religious perspective, this "branch of commerce . . . ought never to be engaged in by any Christian man, or Christian nation" because the sandal-wood "is said to be burned as incense before idols" in China and "no higher offence can be committed by any human being than to be principal, or accessary, in any manner of way, to the substi­ tution of any created thing for the everliving God. " It is this same thought that long remains as a source of disturbance in the penetralia of the aged journal w riter’s mind. "In after-life, " Cooper continues,

"Mark Woolston often thought of this, when reflection succeeded to action, and when he came to muse on the causes which may have led to his being the subject of the wonderful events that occurred in connection with his own fortune" (P- 39).

Mark’s reflections on the significance of the sandal-wood trade, as well as Cooper's commentary on the same subject, illuminate what is the m aster motive governing The C rater: of all acts of rebellion against law and authority the worst is to "substitute any created thing for the ever-living God." Once the student of Cooper perceives that this presupposition functions as the intellectual centerpiece for the book, then the other elements in the tale quickly fall into place. On this basis one can see how in Cooper's perspective M ark's lack of respect for parental authority is related to his participation in the idolatrous sandal­ wood trade, for the Being who said "Thou shalt have no other gods before me" also said "Honor thy father and thy mother . . . . " It is this same emphasis upon the duty of the finite creature to submit in humble obed­ ience to the authority of the Creator which dominates the novelist's discussion of economic theory and practice in the United States just prior to the Civil War. Like Mark, Cooper believes that trade between nations should be unincumbered by high tariffs. But the novelist also maintains that those economists who attribute to free trade the power of "humanizing, enlightening, liberalizing, and improving the human race" are in danger of unwittingly committing idolatry, for they are ascribing "to this frail and m ercenary influence a power which there is every reason to believe the Almighty has bestowed on the Christian church" rather than upon any human agency or institution (p. 383). Accordingly, men must beware lest

"whole communities degenerate into m asses of corruption, venality, and

cupidity, when they set up the idol of commerce to worship in lieu of the

ever-living God" (p. 417). But however much the novelist warns against

an idolatrous commercialism, he is equally concerned with what he

considers to be the presumptions of Fourier socialism and democratic Filmed as received without page(e) 56

UNIVERSITY MICROFILMS. 57 15 process of decay. On the surface, this interpretation of the novelist's intention would seem to be confirmed by an examination of the text of the novel. Of Mark's saddened reflection on the rise and fall of the colony,

Cooper states:

He would thus recall his shipwreck and desolate condition when suffered first to reach the rocks; the manner in which he was the instrument in causing vegatation to spring up in the barren places; the earthquake, and the upheaving of the islands from out of the waters; the arrival of his wife and other friends; the commencement and progress of the colony; its blessings, so long as it pursued the right, and its curses, when it began to pursue the wrong; his departure, leaving it still a settlement surrounded with a sort of earthly paradise; and his return, to find all buried beneath the ocean.

In keeping with the toneaof this passage, Cooper w rites in the preface that

M ark's "hopes for the future, meaning in a social and earthly sense, were not very vivid" (p. ix). At this juncture, however, it is necessary to observe that the novel contains a second level of implication and that on this level Mark’s opinions do not coincide at all points with the view of the author. Although in many respects Mark and his creator appear to see events through similar spectacles, Cooper's official perspective is broader and more generalized than M ark's immediate and somewhat embittered

recollection of his experiences. Thus on this second level of meaning,

Cooper's hero is not so much his spokesman as he is an object lesson. As

the founder of the island society, the aged captain rem em bers with pleasure

15IE. g., see Ringe, "Cooper's The Crater and the Moral Basis of Society," p. 380.

^The Crater, p. 493. the blessings experienced by the Craterinos, but he also recoils in horror at the thought of the decline and sudden destruction of the colony. It seems reasonable then to suggest that, although Mark's vigorous sensibilities help the w riter to define the economic, moral, and religious principles which characterize the just society and to emphasize the fearful conse­ quences which follow upon the loss of these fundamental qualities, his experiences are intended to warn Americans of the fate of the unjust society, not to dramatize an iron law of historical decay.

This reading of the novelist's intention is further supported by his rem arks in the preface and the didactic passages of the novel. A timely repentance, he maintains in the preface, will enable his fellow Americans to avoid the second half of the cycle (the descent into destruction). "If those who now live in this republic, " he admonishes, "can see any grounds for a timely warning in the events here recorded, it may happen that the m ercy of a divine Creator may still preserve that which he has hitherto cherished and protected" (pp. ix-x). Similarly, in his exposition of his philosophy of history in the didactic passages of the book, the author reveals that he vigorously disagrees with the point of view which latex!finds

expression in Oswald Spengler's work, The Decline of the W est. Upon the occasion of M ark's recovery from a deadly fever, the novelist

observes that "so far as the human mind has as yet been able to penetrate the m ysteries of our condition here on earth" the result has been to

stimulate belief in the "existence of a vast and beneficent design" which

governs the course of human history (p. 152). Granted that the histories

of "Rome, Greece, Egypt, and all that we know of the past, which comes purely of man and his passions" would teach that "empires','dynasties, heresies, and novelties, come and go like the changes of the seasons, " nevertheless in all change there is a purpose which is itself stable. This purpose is disclosed tonnankind through "the slow but sure progress of prophecy. " If one looks to events "in the land of Judea, " it is possible to see that "the Ottoman power and the Ottoman prejudices are melting away, as it might be, under the heat of divine truth, which is clearing for itself a path that will lead to the fulfillment of its own predictions" (p. 153).

The novelist further observes that the science of astronomy is foremost

"among the agents that are to be employed" in the fulfillment of $}iblical prophecies. It is his conviction that the discovery, by means of new and powerful telescopes, of "proofs of design" in the heavens will prompt men

to acknowledge their dependence upon the "Divine First Cause," with the

ultimate result being the realization of the millenium (pp. 153-54).

Consequently in Cooper's grand perspective the cycles of growth and decay,

however fraught they may be with peril for particular nations and civiliza­

tions, are not to be construed as ultimate processes but only as pieces in

a divine plan which directs all history to a splendid realization of Isaiah's

prophecy that "the whole earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the

Lord, as the waters cover the sea" (p. 153).

On the basis of the previous discussion, the investigator now is in a

position to summarize the novelist's form al purpose in The C rater. In

general his intention is to define the just society as that community in

which men submit their wills to the will of the sovereign Creator and to

define the unjust society as that community in which men worship the 60

"thing created" rather than the Creator. His particular intention, however, is to warn his countrymen, within the context of his teleological conception of history, that both commercialism and radical progressivism constitute a threat to American civilization because the adherents of these "move­ ments" wrongly ascribe to commerce or the m asses a power which belongs to the "ever-living God" alone.

III. FORMAL PATTERN IN THE CRATER

Having seen something of "the cosmic theme which underlies the 17 entire novel, " one can understand why attempts by critics to study the novel exclusively in political, economic, or m oral term s inevitably produce

unbalanced interpretations of the intellectual meaning of the work. What is

equally regrettable, critics often condemn the novel on the basis of literary

standards which do less than full justice to the unique form of the book.

Ringe, for example, states that the work "lacks the objective density of 18 the Littlepage tales, " a judgment which is both incontestable and irrele­

vant. It is irrelevant because his comment implies that Cooper intended

The Crater to be virtually a duplicate of Satanstoe or The Chainbearer.

As already indicated, however, Cooper gives his social theme in The Crater

a universality which is lacking in the Littlepage trilogy; and--what is of

paramount significance for this phase of the study--he chooses radically

Philbrick, Introduction to The Crater, p. viii.

James Fenimore Cooper, p. 130: "The theme of The Crater is precisely the same as tlxat of the Littlepage series and it carries the same warning to the American people. " different artistic m eans for the expression of his theme, For in its literary structure The Crater is much closer to thematic allegory than are the books of the Littlepage trilogy or even Jack Tier. Where Satans" toe, The Chainbearer, and The Redskins are leisurely studies of a cycle of growth and decay spread over three generations, The Crater is a highly schematized fable which swiftly traces the rise and fall of a microciviliaa- tion through five clearly defined historical stages. Even a cursory examination of these five phases reveals that the Utopian novel has a formal pattern which is not present in the three volumes treating the struggle between New York landlords and the antirenters. In the first stage depicted in The C rater (Chapter IV), nature is in a primeval state like the world before man’s creation. Speaking of the reef (the world of nature) as Mark first saw it, Cooper observes that "nakedness and dreariness were the two words which best describe that island" (p. 67). The second stage (Chapters

V-VIII) depicts a condition of adversity in which the hero begins the cultivation of the land. Of this pioneer period the writer notes that "the seasons of adversity are those in which men are the most apt to bethink I* them of their duties to God and their obligations to the divine law (p. 95).

The upward movement continues through stage three (Chapters X-XXVIII), i the era of cultivation, which is characterized by a spirit of gratitude for increased m aterial prosperity. During this part of the cycle, Mark is joined by colonists from Pennsylvania who help him found an American-

style Utopia, a m iniature state which is republican in its government, just in its defense of the rights of property, and democratic in its recognition

of the civil liberties of every citizen. In the fourth stage (Chapter XXIX), 62 however, a thankful spirit is supplanted by an attitude of self~trust which develops after the im pressive victory of the colonists over the combined forces of a fleet of pirates and a faction of hostile natives. The novelist states that during this brief period "the ancient humility seemed suddenly to disappear, " with moral, civil, and religious anarchy coming to prevail in the colony (p. 462). In the last stage (Chapter XXX) the falling action is completed by the sudden destruction of the colony by an earthquake which sinks the land beneath the sea.

This formal schema in which the phases of the rise and decline of the colony are clearly distinguished from one another is unfolded in close conjunction with a second pattern: the law structure of the Decalogue. As noted in the consideration of Cooper’s official perspective, Mark is in­ volved at the outset of the action in the transgression of those command­ ments which concern respect for parents and the worship of God. It is, however, the keeping of the Sabbath ordinance after his shipwreck which

dominates his experience on the island. In the eloquent passage which

describes M ark's first Sabbath on the reef after his shipwreck, Cooper

rises almost to the level of hymnody. He writes:

The Sabbath ever dawns on the piously-inclined, with hope and a devout gratitude to the Creator for all his m ercies. This is more apt to be the case in genial seasons, and rural abodes, perhaps, than amidst the haunts of men, and when the thoughts are diverted from the proper channels by the presence of persons around us. Still greater is the influence of absolute solitude, and that increased by the knowledge of a direct and visible dependence on the ffrovidence of God, for the means of even prolonging existence. In the world, men lose sight of this dependence, fancying themselves and their powers of more account than the truth would warrant, and even for­ getting whence these boasted powers are derived; but man, when 63

alone, and in critical circumstances, is made to feel that he is not sufficient for his own wants, and turns with humility and hope to the divine hand that upholds him. 19

Cooper*s point is clear. Through his Sabbath meditation Mark acquires that hum ility--that submission to the divine power and wisdom--which was lacking in his previous conduct. He thus begins to divest himself of

that proud self-trust which, the author maintains, constitutes the root of

all other transgressions. As a consequence Mark learns the secret of

true social order--which is that the just community exists only where

men have first submitted .themselves to the "higher divine laws. " It is

on the basis of this new knowledge that Governor Mark Woolston and the

colonists are willing to give up the idolatrous sandalwood trade in favor 20 of whaling as the major commercial enterprise for the colony. It is

also on the basis of the authority of the Decalogue that the governor

opposes the view of the editor of the C rater Truth-Teller that "a majority

of any community has a right to do as it pleased. " Such an opinion as the

editor's, Mark reasons, implies that "if a majority has a right to rule,

in this arbitrary manner, it has a right to set its dogmas above the

commandments, and to legalize theft, m urder, adultery, and all the other

sins denounced in the twentieth chapter of Exodus1.1 (p. 469). Accordingly,

when the Craterinos tacitly accept the editor's view of the powers of the

m ajority, it is the novelist's purpose to show that the people have unwittingly

^Ibidl, p. 102.

^Ibid. , pp. 386-87. For a different interpretation of the sandal­ wood trade, see Philbrick, Introduction to The Crater, p. xxvi. 64 attempted to pass over that invisible boundary which separates the

"thing created" from the Creator. Having unjustly overthrown the established order and in the process depriving Mark of the governor­ ship and attempting to take his property by legal chicanery, the colonists, in Cooper's opinion, "pursue the wrong" and therefore deserve the divine judgment which descends upon them.

To many critics, however, this catastrophic conclusion to the adventure hardly seems justified by the misdeeds of the colonists whose chief fault appears to be m erely that they have permitted themselves to be misled by hypocritical politicians, schismatic clergymen, and a lying newspaper editor. Doubtless there is some force in this objection, for the colony bears more resemblance to a gossip-ridden American village of the nineteenth century than it does to Sodom and Gomorrah or to

Bulwer-Lytton's Pompeii. But if one recalls that Cooper is not so much concerned with gross misconduct as he is with man's hubris, then one must concede that this extraordinary resolution of the narrative harmon­ izes with the w riter's comprehensive intellectual theme and with the formalized pattern of the action.

IV. PICTURE AND PROSE IN THE CRA.TER

Thematic coherence and form al consistency, however, do not

guarantee that the work under study is a significant literary production.

Like the recumbent body of Adam in Michelangelo's painting of the creation

in the Sistine Chapel, a novel requires a touch of life. And in studying The Crater, one discovers that the book has comparatively little of that fictional life which Percy Lubbock characterizes as "scene," that is, dram atic action and dialogue objectively presented to the reader with 2 1 the narrator kept in the background. The story moreover is deficient in that vigorous social life which is a distinguishing feature of a novel like The Pioneers (1823). The book nonetheless has a vitality which springs from its central metaphor: the story of Mark and his island community as an image of the history of civilizations (with a direct bearing upon the

"American experience"). Although the vital force of this metaphor derives, in large measure, from the author's grand view of the cosmos and the comprehensive processes of history, the critic must not under*

estimate the sense of life conveyed by the realistic aspects of Cooper's panoramic vision. For example, "the homely simplicity" of the prose in the first chapter of the book may offend the fastidious critic, but thia.whole discussion of the alleged foibles of his generation--A.merican pretentious" ness in naming offspring and public places, the conflicting medical opinions

of rival doctors, the absurdities of the Oxford movement, and the freedom

exercised by young Americans in choosing a mate--imparts a realistic

color to the world of the novel.

In the body of the novel this sense of solidity is further strengthened

by the author's skill in drawing upon the resources of contemporary science.

W hereas Daniel Defoe in handling a sim ilar motif is satisfied with creating

2lThe Craft of Fiction (New York: The Viking Press, 1957), pp. 21, 93, 156 -TT a surface realism, Cooper is concerned to relate, in Philbrick*s words,

"above all a 'scientific* narrative." This critic explains:

To his lifelong concern for technical accuracy in nautical m atters Cooper here joins a similar passion for precise descrip** tion and explanation of climate, geological phenomena, soil pro­ duction, and nearly every other area of science and technology touched upon by the setting and the action of his story; indeed Mark Woolston cannot look at the stars without being rem inded of the findings of Herschel. ^2

From James Cooke's Voyage to the Pacific Ocean (1784) and Charles

W ilke's Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition (1845), ^

Cooper drew materials for his vivid picture of his tropical island chain.

For his knowledge of geology, he depended upon Sir Charles Lyell's

O A Principles of Geology (1830-1833). ^ For the process of bringing land

under cultivation, he used his own experience in developing farm land

near Cooperstown, as well as his reading in the economic theories of 25 his friend and publisher, William C. Carey.

It is in Mark’s conversion of the volcanic ash into soil that one

perceives most clearly the vital strength of the realistic aspect of

Cooper's vision. With scientific attention to detail, Cooper pictures the

young man searching "for the places" on the slope of the crater which

seem "to have most of the character of soil. " Having found these spots

^Introduction to The Crater, p. x.

^ F o r a discussion of Cooper's use of these two works, see Gates, "Cooper's The Crater and Two Explorers," American Literature, XXIII (May 1951), 243-46.

^ F o r a treatment of Cooper's dependence upon Lyell, see Scudder, op. cit., pp. 110-165. 67 where the crust "had been disturbed by the action of the elements, "

Mark breaks up the ash with a pick and then scatters "a little guano

/ b i r d dung~7 inthe heaps . . . . " To this mixture, he adds "sweep­ ings from the deck" and seaweed gathered by Betts, his man Friday.

Of the painstaking labor involved in the moving of the seaweed, Cooper sta te s :

He /B e tts h a d found a large deposit of sea-weed, on a rock near the island, and had made two or three trips with the dingui, back and forth, to transfer some of it to the crater. After all his toil and trouble, the worthy fellow did not get more than a hogshead full of this new m aterial, but Mark thought it well worth while to haul it up, and to endeavor to mix it with his compost. This was done by making it up in bundles, as one would roll up hay, of a size which the young man could manage. 26

That Cooper strives in realistic passages like this one to leave the im pression that "there is not a word in these volumes which we now lay before the reader, as grave m atter of fact, that is not entitled to the most implicit credit" is readily apparent (p. vi). Nevertheless,if one views this episode in which Mark creates soil within the context of the entire novel, it becomes evident tfa&t the w riter’s interest in factuality admirably

serves the thematic purpose of the novel. His intention apparently is to contrast M ark’s experience with Crusoe’s in order to demonstrate that the young American has a more secure title to his real estate than that held by Defoe's hero. Like Crusoe, Mark claims his island by right of discovery, but unlike his predecessor he is, under a dispensation of

Providence, the creator of its soil. Hence in Cooper’s logic the egalitarian

26 The Crater, pp. 86-87. 68

Craterinos who subsequently challenge M ark's ownership of the land must do so in the face of the governor’s double claim to the ownership of his property, a circumstance which greatly increases the guilt of those who seek to rob the governor of his land in the name of democracy (pp. 483"84).

Although this modification of the Crusoe myth is a brilliant thematic stroke, Cooper’s ability to take Mark’s ordinary experience and combine it with m aterial drawn from the several sciences so that in the process a picture of existence emerges which has "the scope and seriousness of 27 Faust" is equally impressive. How Cooper elevates and universalizes his materials is well illustrated by his subsequent transformation of the same Robinson Crusoe theme. On the-'surface Mark may seem to be essentially an imitation of Crusoe; following the Crusoe motif, Cooper’s hero rebels against parental authority and shortly thereafter survives a shipwreck which leaves him marooned on a deserted island. Crusoe's headstrong rebellion,nevertheless,is essentially simple and juvenile, whereas

Mark's revolt involves a subtle hubris which has metaphysical implications.

Once having delineated Crusoe as a young man who is deaf to all parental counsel, Defoe then sends him to his fate by a rather straight line; but

Cooper has Mark fall into a further metaphysical revolt--the "idolatrous" sandal-wood trade--before he brings Mark to disaster.

Moreover,Crusoe is, in the words of Ian Watt, "only a special case of economic man," a half-man who reflects Defoe's view that every human

27 Philbrick, Introduction to The Crater, p. viii. 69 being is "dominated by the rational pursuit of m aterial self-interest.

But Mark as the developer of land and civilization is more than homo economicus; he is man like Adam in the book of Genesis arid Milton's

Paradise Lost. Thus although the book opens with a "Robinsonade, " this feature is soon transmuted into an Adam-in-paradise allegory. Like his

Biblical original Adam-M ark lives alone in a golden world enjoying virtually unbroken fellowship with his God. Having recovered from his fever which implies something of a continuation of the Crusoe theme,

Adam-Mark receives, through the agency of an earthquake, a new earth to cultivate in the form of land elevated above the sea by the recent convul­ sion (Chapter XI). In keeping with this picture of a new creation, the author's prose style quickly loses that drabness which characterizes the writing in the first part of the novel. Under the stimulation of his vision of paradise restored, Cooper says of Mark when the latter discovers a new spring:

The water proved to be sweet, cool, and every way delicious. This was at least the twentieth spring which had been seen that day, though it was the first of which the waters had been tasted. This new-born beach had every appearance of having been exposed to the air a thousand years. The sand was perfectly clean and of a bright golden color, and it was well strewed with shells of the most magnificent colors and size. '

But the w riter does more than suggest the existence of a new world. When

this "American Adam" sees the tropical beauty of Vulcan's Peak, Cooper

28"Robinson Crusoe as a Myth, " Eighteenth Century English Literature: Modern Essays in Criticism, edited by james L. Clifford (New York: Oxford University Press, T959), pp. 169-73.

^The Crater, p. 188. states explicitly that the young man is so deeply impressed by its perfection that he would "gladly give up all the rest of the world, for the enjoyment of a paradise like that before him, with Bridget for his Eve" (p. 198). Once

Eve-Bridget is delivered into his possession by the kind offices of Bob Betts,

Vulcan’s Peak becomes the unifying natural symbol in this metaphor of the new creation. From one point of view, it is a second Eden, with its rich pastures and fruitful fields (pp. 227-28, 295, 414, 486). From another point of view, it is an image of the unchanging majesty of God as it is revealed in the natural world. Thus when the awestruck young man first sees this peak, Cooper states with a simple eloquence that "this exhibition of the power of nature filled the young man’s soul with adoration and rever" ence for the mighty Being that could set such elements at work" (p. 182).

The community of man, that is, the island society as the image of civiliza­ tion in general and of American civilization in particular, may pass through the various stages of growth and decay, but Vulcan’s Peak was there before men came and its apex remains after they are gone. After the colony is destroyed, Mark and Bridget, who are aboard the Rancocus, have the following im pression of the unchangeableness of the mountain:

It might be said to resemble, in this respect, that sublime rock, which is recognised as a part of the "everlasting hills," in Cole’s series of noble landscapes that is called "the March of Empire"; ever the same amid the changes of time, and civilization, and decay. There it was the apex of the peak, naked, storm-beaten, and fam iliar to the eye, though surrounded no longer by the many delight­ ful objects which had once been in its neighborhood. ^0

^ The Crater, p. 491. For a discussion of Cooper’s indebtedness to Thomas Cole's painting "The Course of Empire," see Ringe’s "Cooper’s The Crater and the Moral Basis of Society, " p. 373. 71

But however splendid the Peak may be, it is only one aspect of Cooper's panoramic vision of nature. "Yet, what was this, " Mark asks of the mountain and the convulsion that elevated it to its dominant position on the island chain, "in comparison with the thousand vast globes that were rolling about in space--objects so fam iliar as to be seen daily and nightly without raising a thought, in the minds of the many, from the created to 31 the Creator?"

It would be misleading to suggest, of course, that the language of

The Crater is, at all tim es, sufficient to sustain Cooper's grand vision of the natural world. Unquestionably the book has its passages of pedes­ trian prose, and it exhibits his habitual carelessness in style and his inattention to detail. For instance, in Chapter XIII he belatedly announces the death of Bridget's m other, having forgotten that she died in Chapter I.

Nevertheless the free eloquence of the language in the best passages echoes the diction of the primitive epic and the grand view of the tropical landscapes suggests the huge canvases of Thomas Cole and

Washington Allston. Deeply im pressed by some of the scenes in the novel,

Howard Mumford Jones observes:

The imaginary landscape of The Crater, before Woolston turns the island into a garden, has the same qualities of terror and desola­ tion that Washington Allston achieved in his romantic canvases "Elijah" and "The Deluge. " I have even fancied that the dream -like evanescense of the crater in that novel owes something to the fantastic nightmare of Cole, "The Titan's Goblet, " painted in 1833. ^

^ The Crater, p. 195. 32 "Prose and Pictures: James Fenimore Cooper," History and the Contemporary, p. 72. 72

i At this stage in the discussion, it should be rather clear that this grand conception of nature in the novel powerfully supports Cooper's formal intention. Even more than in Jack Tier, the physical setting becomes the m irror of the divine majesty and the instrument of a just providence. The nightly display in the heavens, the sublime Peak, the rolling seas, and the mighty convulsions in the surface of the earth«*~all are conceived by the novelist as so many disclosures of the purposes and the immediate presence of the "ever-living God." Thus although the perceptive Philbrick

finds that the fundamental contrast in the book is between "the evanescence 33 of man" and "the duration of the natural setting, " there is every reason

to believe that the basic contrast actually is between the frailty of man and

his civilizations, on the one hand, and the natural setting construed as the

revelation of the divine majesty, on the other. Seenin this light, the

magnificent picture of the physical world drawn by Cooper, especially when

considered in conjunction with the cycle of growth and decay, the divine

government of history in term s of the standard of the Decalogue, and the

vast designs of providence, emphasizes m an's dependence, the difference

between his own finite powers and those of his infinite Creator. Hence the

supreme temptation for men, and especially for men in democratic

societies, is to forget their dependent creaturehood and to attempt to

substitute the authority of man's voice for the will of God. This point of

view is eloquently summarized in the closing paragraph of the book, a

passage which is worth quoting in full. Of man and his social achievements,

33 Introduction to The Crater, p. xxviii. Cooper writes:

Let those who would substitute the voice of the created for that of the Creator, who shout "the people, the people," instead of hymning the praises of their God; who vainly imagine that the masses are sufficient for all things, rem em ber their insignifi­ cance and tremble. They are but mites amid millions of other mites, that the goodness of providence has produced for its own wise ends; their boasted countries, with their vaunted clim ates and productions, have temporary possessions of but small por­ tions of a globe that floats, a point, in space, following the course pointed out by an invisible finger, and which will one day be suddenly struck out of its orbit, as it was originally put there by the hand that made it. Let that dread Being, then, be never made to act a second part in human affairs, or the rebellious vanity of our race imagine that either numbers, or capacity, or success, or power in arm s, is aught more than a short-lived gift of His beneficence, to be resumed when His purposes are accomplished. ^4

^The Crater, p. 494. CHAPTER IV

THE OAK OPENINGS: THE PARADOX OF TRUE SOCIAL PROGRESS

I. REVIEW AND PREVIEW

The foregoing consideration of Jack Tier and The Crater reveals that Cooper took seriously the problem of social decay without, as some critics allege, falling into an embittered pessimism. * Indeed the examina­ tion of the two novels suggests that the author was gradually moving away from the position taken in The Redskins (1846) that the "downward course" 2 of American life could not be altered. It is true that the microsocieties in both late novels are brought to disaster through m an's pride and self" trust, but the novelist yet maintains that Americans may escape a similar fate by a timely repentance. The writer, in addition, appears to have a

growing faith that the divine hand is guiding the whole of human history toward a grand consummation, a millenium in which the whole earth will be filled "with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea"

(Isaiah 11:9).

This same hopeful view of the future is presented with increased

explicitness and intensity in The Oak Openings ,(1848), the third novel to be

dealt with in this study. In the preface, for instance, Cooper vigorously

*E. g., see Vernon L. Parrington, op. cit., p. 216-: "It was the very faithfulness of Cooper to his conception of an ideal republic that brought him into collision with his fellows and filled his later days with bitterness." 2 The Redskins, p. v. 75 affirms his mature conviction that "the main course is onward," not downward as he maintained previously (p. vi). Similarly, the didactic passages in the novel clearly and frequently express his belie£rthat "the progress of the nation has, by a beneficent Providence, been onward and onward" (pp. 201, 270“72, 432-33). Furthermore, having unequivocally stated his faith in the future, Cooper does not hesitate to explain what direction this onward course of history is to take. " . . . We firmly believe," he continues, "that the finger of Providence is pointing the way to all races, and colors, and nations, along the path that is to lead the east and the west alike, to the great goal of human wants" (p. vi). This happy fusion of races and nations is to include the whole world, but appar­ ently the new Eden is to be reserved for the enjoyment of the people of the

United States. Profoundly im pressed by the "wonderful fertility" of the

West, Cooper observes that the great heartland of the American nation is

"a glorious gift from God, " thus suggesting a comparison with a restored paradise (p. viii). In the setting of the forest glades (the oak openings) of Michigan, the metaphor of the West as the second Eden is so natural that it slips easily from Ben Boden!s tongue when he attempts to explain the Biblical story of the creation of man to Pigeonswing, his Indian com­ panion. In the original garden, says the bee-hunter, "all things excellent

and pleasant was to be found-"some such place as these openings, I

reckon" (p. 246).

Like Walt Whitman and Vachel Lindsay, Cooper maintains that this

transformation of society must take placd spontaneously. It cannot be

imposed upon the people from above by an elite group of planners. But the novelist goes on to stress that paradise cannot be restored by the will of the masses or, for that matter, by any conscious human effort, "If the course is onward, " he judges, "it is more as the will of God, than from any calculations of man; and it is when the last are the most active, that there is the greatest reason to apprehend the consequences" (p. 432).

In the same passage he further explains that his mind is "filled with skepticism" when men boast of "the great progress that the race is making toward perfection, and point to the acts which denote its wisdom, its power to control its own affairs, its tendencies toward good when most left to its own self-control. ..."

If it is Cooper!s firm conviction that Providence directs human affairs

"onward" and at the same time it is his belief that progress cannot come through the powers of the race, then there would seem to be a need for the novelist to explain how this new world is to be realized. That he was

sensitive to this difficulty was already evident in Jack Tier and The C rater.

In the preface to the form er work, he suggests in a somewhat veiled manner that true social progress involves a paradox. Wars, for example, are

great evils to those who must endure them, but in some instances they are

the mysterious means used by Providence for destroying corrupt institutions

and letting in new light through the crust of human bigotry and ignorance.

In The Crater he also stresses that the science of astronomy might become

an instrument for bringing men to a state of humble reverence. Apparently,

however, Cooper senses that these answers are somewhat inadequate, for

Jjn The Oak Openings he attempts to restate the question and to present a

fresh solution. How the forest romance treats this problem is therefore

the next subject for consideration in this chapter. 77

II. HUMAN BLINDNESS AND THE TRIUMPH OF GRACE IN

THE OAK OPENINGS

The first pages of the book reveal that the novelist intends to face squarely the problem of human evil by emphasizing m an's m oral and spiritual blindness. Concerning man's indifference to the glories of nature, Cooper states in the first sentence of the preface that "it ought to be m atter of sur" prise how men live in the midst of marvels, without taking heed of their existence. " Within the same context he goes on to acknowledge that "the wonders of creation" meet men "at every turn, without awakening reflection," because "their minds" are unable to "attain an elevation higher than the most sordid interests can bestow" (pp. v"vi). Similarly, the author observes in the opening sentence of the novel that he has "heard of those who fancied that they beheld a signal instance of the hand of the Creator in the celebrated cataract of the Niagara, " but he intimates that undue preoccupation with these novel images indicates that men easily overlook the fam iliar but grander vision of the "firmament studded with other worlds" which "each night brings into view" (P. 9). Moreover, if men only had their eyes open, they would perceive that the whole earth""including the oak trees of Michigan"" provides "motive for adoration" in the "admirable adaptation of means to ends. " His conclusion then is that the ordinary "phenomena of the earth" and the starry night clearly exhibit the divine goodness and m ajesty but that most men, because they are engrossed by their worldly interests, are indifferent to this natural revelation (pp. 9 "10).

The novelist's concern with the noetic problem, of course, antedates 78 the publication of The Oak Openings. In fact, his very first novels deal with this m atter: in Precaution (1820) he portrays a social world in which the principal characters confuse appearance and reality, and in The Spy

(1821) he converts the neutral ground between the American and British arm ies into a moral chaos in which the ambiguities far outweigh the certainties. In developing this line of thought, Cooper might well have come to espouse in The Oak Openings a nihilism like that which dominates

Mark Twain’s novel What Is Man? -(1906) and Samuel Beckett’s play

Waiting for Godot (1954). In this late forest romance, however, Cooper clearly seeks to avoid nihilism, or m oral agnosticism, by taking the view that the problem of knowledge originates with the limitations of the viewer, not with the inherently unknowability of the thing to be perceived. Conse" quently, the fundamental difficulty facing man is not that reality is in itself.. unknowable but that he has wilfully closed his eyes to the truth.

It is, then, this particular formulation of the epistemological problem which comes to expression in The Oak Openings. In the little bi-racial

society which Cooper creates in the forest glades of western Michigan practically everyone is afflicted with some m easure of blindness as to the nature of reality. Considered as a class, the Indians are described by the

author as "the superstitious children of the forest" who think that Ben Boden,

the bee-hunter, has the power to talk with the bees (pp. 138-43, 310-28).

What is worse, in the eyes of the author, the tribesmen are led by Scalping

Peter, a powerful warchief, who harbors twin illusions: he thinks a league

among the Indian tribes could bring about the destruction of white civiliza­

tion; secondly, he holds the view advanced by the antirenters of New York 79

state and certain radical reform ers that society can be improved by means of force and violence (pp. 358-60, 402).

The Anglo-Americans on their part are almost equally unenlightened in their understanding of God, man, and the natural world. Gershorn

W aring, a Massachusetts Yankee who makes whiskey to sell to the Indians, is a drunken sot whose understanding is so befuddled by hard liquor that he leaves his wife Dorothy and his sister Margery exposed to marauding tribesm en; Corporal Flint, whose soldierly pride blinds him to the dangers

of his position in the Indian encampment, is hardened against Christian teaching by his life in the m ilitary camps; and Parson Amen, the Methodist

m issionary, propagates the absurd notion that the Indians are the ten lost

tribes of Israel. Even Boden, though possessing rare forest lore and some

scientific knowledge, fails completely in his attempt to explain Christianity

to Pigeonswing, apparently because he does not have a clear conception of

its teachings and principles (pp. 118-19).

Although Cooper indicates that practically all the characters in the

world of the oak openings are imperceptive, the problem of moral blindness

is presented in its most intensified form through the person of the implac­

able Scalping Peter. Fundamentally unlike the Indian characters in the

Leather stocking series or in books like The Wept of Wish-ton-Wish (1829),

and Wyandotte (1843), Peter actually bears considerable resemblance to

the hypocritical reform ers and leveling democrats whom Cooper inveighs

against in Home as Found (1838) and The Redskins (1846). Thus in the

novelist's eyes he resembles most closely those passionate idealists "who,

under the guise of reform, or revolution, in moments of doubt, set in 80 *> motion a machine that is found impossible to control. . . ."

Although the identification of Scalping Peter with contemporary radical politicians may seem somewhat forced, the reader acquainted with the whole body of Coopers writings will perceive the logic in his methodology. In essence, Cooper had concluded that radical democracy frequently leads to the corruption of its leaders. Subjected to the pressures of factions, misled by the press, and motivated by the proud desire to gain or keep power, politicians, and especially zealous reform ers, often lose the ability to distinguish fact from opinion. Peter, of course, is not a radical democrat, and he has not been blinded by that "most fatal of all the influences that tend to mislead the judgment of the American citizen, " namely, the press (pp. 195“

96); but he belongs to that class of misguided crusaders who believe that society can be renewed by force. Moreover, his passionate idealism is, in effect, a form of m oral blindness which is rooted in "an inextinguishable hatred" for the white race (pp. 189"90, 199"200). For this reason he is completely baffled, observes the author, by Amen*s effort to teach the Indians

"to love those who hate us" and "to strive to do good to those who are plotting evil against ourselves. " Inevitably he rejects this counsel as absurd on the common sense grounds that it calls for behavior which, in the words of

Cooper, "greatly exceeds the moral strangth of men" (p. 394).

The Oak Openings, p. 402. Cooper also compares Peter to the revolutionaries who were troubling Europe at the time of the publication of The Oak Openings (1848). He states that "there was a marked resemblance between the hopes and expectations of Peter, in reference to the overthrow of his pale_face enemies on the American continent, and those of the revolu­ tionists of the Old World in reference to the overthrow of their strong- entrenched foes on that of Europe" (p. 272). 81

At this stage of the study, Cooper's critical intention should be rather evident. In the analytical pattern of thought in The Oak Openings

Peter constitutes the test case. If this implacable warrior with his

"heart of stone" can be transform ed into a saint who loves all races, then by implication there is hope for all men, including evil and corrupt person­ ages like Stedfast Dodge, Jason Newcome, Stephen Spike, and the editor of the Crater Truth"Teller.

Having brought the problem of m an's wilfull ignorance to concrete expression in the person of the warchief, Cooper then points out that divine grace alone is sufficient for clearing away the darkness of Peter's heart.

"This savage," Cooper explains after his conversion, was transformed into a new Peter by the supernatural power of that "blessed Spirit" who "is often poured out, in especial cases, with affluent benevolence" (p. 419). In another didactic passage from the last chapter of the book, Cooper adds that "the Spirit of the Most High God had been shed freely upon his m oral being, and in lieu of the revengeful and vindictive savage, he now lived a subdued, benevolent Christian" (p. 489)! As Cooper's official spokesman, the converted chieftain sums up the novelist's formal thesis at the conclus­ ion of the action. He says:

"My fadder was chief--I was great chief, but we was children. Knowed nuttin1. Like little child, dough great chief. Believe tradition. T'nk dis 'arth flat--t'nk Injin could scalp all pale- face--t'nk tomahawk, and war-path, and rifle, bess t'ngs in whole world. In dat day, my heart was stone. Afraid of Great Spirit, but didn't love Him. In dat time I t'nk General could talk wid bee. Yes; was very foolish den. Now, all dem cloud blow away, and I see my Fadder dat is in heaven. "4

4Ib id ., p. 497. 82

As a man divinely illuminated in the Augustinian sense ("all dem cloud blow away"), Peter "no longer" thinks "of destroying races in order to secure to his people the quiet possession of their hunting-- grounds"; instead he is depicted by his creator as a human being whose

"very soul was love. " Therefore Cooper implies that this new man is in a position to understand the paradox of true social progress, namely, that positive developments in the human community are dependent upon the mysterious "ways of Providence" and not upon human endeavor (p. 490).

He also perceives that the principal obstacle to genuine social progress is not the external environment or corrupt social institutions but the darkened state of the human heart. Accordingly, Peter seems intended to foreshadow the appearance of a new human type, the man of the m illenial age. When this new man comes to dominate society, the author intim ates that Am erica at last will "pay the debt she owes to Africa" and atone for invading the red man's "forests, and prairies, and 'openings'" by sharing with all races "the blessings of the Gospel and a juster view of the relations which man bears to his Creator" (pp. 489"90).

In the light of the foregoing discussion, it is clear that the intellectual content of The Oak Openings is considerably richer and more complex than in Jack Tier and The Crater, principally because Cooper's formal intention is to indicate how true social progress is to occur. Although he affirm s confidently in the preface and the commentary on the narrative action that the main course is onward, he recognizes that the main obstacle to the renewal of the human community is presented by the hardness and blindness of man's heart, a fact supposedly over-looked by most reform ers in the 83

United States. Therefore, paradoxical as it may seem, he advances the thesis that the new age will come when men abandon all efforts to establish it by means of human calculation and like Peter surrender themselves to the conquering power of divine grace.

III. THEME AND NARRATIVE STRUCTURE IN THE OAK OPENINGS

Given Cooper*s formal intention in this late work, one may safely say that The Oak Openings is the first serious attempt to write a theological novel in the United States. In noting this fact, Charles A. Brady states in his discussion of the book that "it is borne in on one with increasing force, as one reads the august colloquy on Christ between the Indians and the divine, Parson Amen, with its mighty echoes of the Passion and the Incar" nation, that Cooper is the only major nineteenth-century creative w riter-" short of the great Russians--to work within a specifically religious dimen" sion. Or, as Kay S. House expresses the matter, the book through its central character evidences "a movement, on Cooper's part, away from

Aquinas* theocentric humanism toward a more Lutheran emphasis on death and annihilation of the self as vital doctrine. Although House probably exaggerates Cooper's movement toward an alleged "Lutheran emphasis on death and annihilation of the self, " there can be no doubt that his portrayal

of Scalping Peter reflects his growing interest in a concept of grace which

5 Brady, op. cit., p. 81.

^House, op. cit., p. 260. 84 has for its corollary the denial of merit to the achievements of men.

Moreover it seems equally clear that the novelist's almost passionate concern with divine grace and human impotence has imparted a certain inconclusiveness to the narrative action after Peter's conversion. The prim ary difficulty seems to be that Peter (and Cooper), having seen the inadequacy of the methods of the crusader, went even further and eschewed practically all human action. For after his rescue of the white Americans from the Indians, the converted reformer lapses into quiescence; and no matter how much Peter's life is praised by the author as a perfect expres­ sion of the Christian concept of love, his passivity weakens the action at the close of the narrative.

To acknowledge that The Oak Openings has a rather unsatisfactory ending is not, however, to conclude that the narrative in general fails to support the w riter's formal intentions. On the contrary, the position is taken in this chapter that the entire story, with the exception of the weak­ ness noted, powerfully demonstrates Cooper's form al intention and that the novel ranks with the author's best fiction. In order to justify this favorable assessment of the novel, one must consider with some care the death of Amen and the conversion of Peter, since it is these climactic developments in the tale which regularly serve as the basis for negative criticisms of the work. On the one hand, critics like Lounsbury and Cowie maintain that this transformation in Peter's character is, from a psycho­ logical point of view, incredible. Cowie's conclusion is that Peter's change from "a war-like Indian" into a pious Christian "upon observing the way a Methodist minister could die" constitutes "a fine lesson," but 85 7 the account of the conversion "is lost in absurdity." On the other hand,

Grossman argues that the scene in which Amen dies and Peter repents is

"one of Cooper's finest incidents" but that it "throws the whole novel out of balance." In his opinion Cooper's "genuine religious theme embodied in the martyrdom dwarfs everything else and makes even the delightful early passages about W estern ways and types insignificant and irrelevant."®

Concerning the allegation that the episode is psychologically incred­ ible, one needs only to examine Grossm an's discussion of this part of the narrative action in order to see that the assessm ents of Lounsbury and

Cowie are based upon a faulty reading of the story. In brief, they have completely overlooked the ironic im port of this scene. According to

Grossman, Cooper's purpose in this part of the narrative is not to achieve psychological realism but to have the Indians, self-righteously and blindly, re-enact the story of the crucifixion. Thus, in a sense, Amen’s strange notion that the tribesmen are the "lost tribes of Israel" comes to have a certain basis in fact. "We see," states Grossman, "in their stubborn righteousness an ancient spirit, and in their deed old actors acting out an ancient role." Although they contend "that they would have been incapable

of slaying the Son of the Great Spirit had he come among them, " they nevertheless slay the meek and mild Amen who, like Christ, turns and forgives them. As a consequence, Grossman notes that "past and present

become confused in Peter's mind as he watches the missionary pray for

^Cowie, op. cit., p. 154.

Q Grossman, op. cit., pp. 230-31. 86 him, and the m artyr's death becomes the living proof of the great atone" □ ment on which the dying man places all of his hopes."

If one accepts Grossm an's interpretation of this central episode, then there is no sufficient reason for maintaining that this martyrdom is inher­ ently implausible, but the question as to the organic connection between this extraordinary event and the entire adventure requires further investi" gation. As seen by Grossman, the difficulty is that the experiences of

Boden provide the subject m atter for the first ten chapters of the book, and if the novelist were to be consistent, the actions of the bee"hunter should continue to dominate the narrative throughout the second half of the book.

Taking the same point of view, House argues that "Le Bourdon" (Boden's

French name) was intended by Cooper to serve "as a linking character between the races. " He has the technical skills of the white man, and yet

"like the Indians, he has suffered from the white man's plague," namely, the smallpox. House thus concludes that Cooper*s elaborate "preparation of Boden" as a mediator between the civilized white community and the savage tribes "is largely wasted" when the martyrdom of Amen becomes the center of interest.

That it is highly unusual for a novel writer to wait until the eleventh chapter of his book to introduce two of his central characters is hardly open to dispute. Indeed, if Cooper had been a careful literary craftsman, probably he would have brought Amen and Peter into the adventure in the

9 Ibid.

^House, op. cit. , pp. 251-52. 87 early chapters of the book. At the same time there are a number of

reasons for thinking that this shift in emphasis does not break the story into pieces as Grossman and House maintain. ** First, one must rem em ­ ber that it is not unusual for Cooper's best work to be characterized by a

loose probability, a feature of his fiction which is especially evident in a book like The Prairie. It is true that the individual scenes in his stories

may exhibit a highly plausible realism , but the structure of the action often

reflects the freedom which characterizes the American romance novel.

Accordingly, the unity in his fiction derives in considerable measure from

the mode of the action and the tone of the narration rather than from the

closely linked cause-and-effect relationship which governs a novel of

social realism like Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Seen in this perspec­

tive, the delay in the introduction of Amen and Peter is at least in keeping

with the author's customary "freedom in arranging events and attributing

m oral qualities to his characters. " 12

Secondly, although it is true that Boden is less prominent in the last

chapters, he is far from being completely eclipsed by the appearance of

Amen and Peter. Rather than abandoning Boden, the novelist actually elevates

him into an idealized type in the later scenes of the book. Without the intel­

lectual arrogance of Dr. Obed Battius, the rationalistic scientist of The

A Prairie, Boden is presented as a man who has a limited but nonetheless

accurate understanding of the natural world. In the colorful and lengthy

**House, op. cit., pp. 258-59. 12 Richard Chase, op. cit., p. 15. 88 episode which occurs prior to Amen's debate with the assembled Indian " chieftains (Chapters XIX"XXI), he emerges as a universalized figure who bears a resemblance to Natty Bumppo and yet differs from Leather stocking in both his possession of a limited scientific knowledge and his freedom from "subversive overtones."13 Ordinarily by the time this climactic stage in the action has been reached, Leather stocking would have engaged in physical combat with the hostile w arriors, but in this peaceful scene the bee-hunter both amazes the Indians by his ability to trace the bees to their hive trees and, in a m easure, wins the friendship of the tribesmen by his generous gift of honey.

The evidence would suggest, then, that Cooper's intention is to depict Boden as an idealized "natural man" who seeks to live in harmony with nature and his fellow men. Nevertheless, it would be erroneous to conclude that the bee-hunter is a direct descendent of Rousseau's primitive man. Actually, Rousseau's natural man is godlike in his virtues and powers because he has escaped the corruptions of social institutions, whereas

Boden*s superiority to the redmen depends upon his origins in a civilized community. In particular, the novelist wishes to stress that the forester's knowledge of the natural world derives, at least in part, from Christian civilization. It is this conclusion which is expressly stated in the following speech by the novelist's favorite spokesman, the converted Peter:

"Bourdon; you are a pale “face, and I am an Injin. You are strong, and I am weak. This is because the Son of the Great Spirit has talked with your people, and has not talked with mine.

l^See Henry Nash Smith, The Virgin Land: The American West as Symbol and Myth (New York: Peter Smith, 1957), pp. 75-76. 89

I now see why the pale~faces overrun the earth and take the hunting "ground s. They know most, and have been told to come here, and to tell what they know to the poor ignorant Injins. I hope my people will listen. " 14

Having seen that Boden has an important typical significance in the second part of the tale, one now is in a position to indicate the nfcture of the bee-hunter's role in the broad pattern of conflict which dominates the entire narrative action. The story, as most commentators observe, tends to fall into two divisions, with Boden more prominent in the first half than in the second. But, unfortunately, most critics fail to perceive that the first part of the narrative is related to the second part by way of contrast and that the conflict in both sections is governed by an under- lying unity of purpose. In the early chapters of the book, Boden*s externalized struggle with the Indians tends to dominate the action.

Although he is able to outwit his foes and save his own life by B&eans of his superior knowledge, he has no power with which to deliver the w arriors from their fierce pride, blind ignorance, and love of internecine warfare.

Therefore it is only after the bee-hunter has failed to resolve tensions between the races that Amen and Peter come to dominate the action and that the nature of the conflict begins to change. With the appearance of the missionary and the warchief, the contest is elevated to a higher plane.

Although elaborate preparations are made for a fight between the two races, this external combat never m aterializes because the novelist is not interested in a physical clash for its own sake. Instead, the conflict becomes increasingly intellectualized and internalized, with the real

' V The Qak Openings, p. 427. 90 combat coming in the form of a spiritual battle between Amen and the

Indians. In this m oral struggle the parson is unable to save his own life as Boden was able to do, but Amen is the victor in spite of his martyrdom because divine grace gives him the power to forgive his enemies. Thus the pattern of the conflict reveals that Boden's influence on Pigeonswing and the other Indians is negligible, whereas the m artyred missionary has been the instrument for bringing a complete renewal to the character of the hardened Peter.

The contrast, however, is not only between Boden and Amen or between the conflict in the early and later chapters of the book, for Boden and the converted Peter also emerge as significant opposites in the late chapters of the story. The latter is the man whose being has been renewed by divine power, whereas the form er is the man of nature who is the bene" ficiary of Christian culture but who has achieved his present state largely through his own efforts. That is why at the end'of the book, after com­ menting on Boden1 s subsequent rise to a position of influence, Cooper says

of the respective careers of Boden and Peter:

Such a career ^Boden's]/, however, has nothing peculiar in America; it is one of every-day occurrence, and shows the power of man when left free to make his own exertions; while that of Scalping Peter indicated the power of God.

Further investigation would reveal that this pattern of "paired charac"

ters" includes even the secondary figures in the adventure. ^ But what has

15 lb id ., p . 496.

^F or a perceptive discussion of related characters in the story, see House, op. cit., pp. 250-54; however, this critic passes over the funda­ mental contrast between Boden and Peter.

t 91 been said thus far should provide sufficient grounds for questioning the judgments that the unity of the book has been destroyed by the m artyrdom and that the novelist's careful development of Boden as a central figure has been wasted. On the contrary, when one considers this incident within the structure of the entire tale, the martyrdom is seen to be organically

related to the action in the first part of the book—if only by way of contrast.

IV. LITERARY FO R M OF THE OAK OPENINGS

Admittedly the complexity and underlying unity of The Oak Openings

cannot be adequately conveyed by sketching in the main lines of conflict in

the narrative action. Something of the actual richness and tonal unity of

the novel, however, can be suggested by a brief consideration of the literary

form of the book. Described in general terms, the work is a forest romance

modified in the direction of realism and irony. Like other novels of its kind,

the book has a wilderness setting and a pattern of flight-and-pursuit, with

the resourceful frontiersman attempting to save the small band of whites

from the pursuing Indians. Nevertheless, in respect to characterization,

this novel has a consistent realism which is often missing from the conven"

tional forest romance. For one thing, characters that are regularly

associated with romantic books like The Prairieatad The Deerslayer simply

do not appear in the story. "The novel begins," writes Henry Nash Smith,

"as if Cooper were determined to see what might have been made of The

Prairie if he had carried out his project of omitting the genteel hero and

heroine. Moreover, one must add that the book achieves its distinctiveness

17 Smith, op. cit. , p. 69. 92 by omitting personages that are even more important to Cooper's romantic fiction than the gentle Inez and noble Captain Middleton: both Leather- stocking and his noble red allies are eliminated from the book.

Furtherm ore, those personages who dominate the tale tend to have an earthy vitality. Dressed in the ordinary forest attire of the American riflem an, the bee-hunter has a pock-marked face which suggests a peasant origin. As noted by Van Wyck Brooks, it is possible to see and feel 18 "Moravian Pennsylvania in the life of Ben Boden. " But perhaps an even better drawn portrait is that of Gershorn Waring, the degraded whiskey trader from New England. Morally he is the victim of his own hard liquor which has dyed his countenance "a tell "tale hue." Physically he is "still young, tall, sinewy, gaunt, yet springy and strong, stooping and round- shouldered" (p. 13). Skilfull with the ax, he has, like other New Englanders,

"a desp'rate fancy for larnin* of all sorts, from 'rithmetic to preaching1"

(p. 15). Equally effective is the picture of the Indians in what Yvor Winters calls their "more familiar and less heroic moments." 19 Without the

sententiousness of Hardheart and Chingachgook, they vigorously challenge

Amen's thesis that they are the lost tribes of Israel with a delightful mixture of shrewdness, humor, and self-righteous indignation. When, for example,

Amen assures the Indians that according to biblical prophecy they are about to return to Palestine, their native land, Peter caustically replies that the

red men will quite cheerfully give that "far-off land" to the white men. Let

l®Brooks, _oj>. cit., p. 180.

*9~winters, op. cit., p. 193. 93 the pale-faces, he states, take all their property in the "big canoes, " along with "the small-pox and the fire-water, " and depart with all speed for that prom ised country (p. 283).

In the second part of the adventure, the realistic quality of the early chapters tends to become an aspect of th.e ironic form of the action. Part

of the irony stem s from Amen's ridiculous notion that the Indians are the lost tribes of Israel, and part of it derives from Peter's equally absurd conviction that the Indians are able to drive the white men into the sea.

But the true ironic center of the story is found in the re-enactm ent of the passion and crucifixion of Christ in the climactic episode. As previously indicated, Amen in this scene is successfully transformed into a Christ figure, and the Indians unwittingly assume the role of persecutors.

Scalping Peter, whose name suggests the faithflessness of the Apostle

Peter at the trial and death of Jesus, is the leading persecutor of Amen.

M oreover, he epitomizes in his person the whole complex range of attitudes

which brought :about the crucifixion. Like Caiaphas, the high priest, he is

determined to save his people at any cost (John 11:50), and like Judas he

betrays an innocent man who has trusted him (pp. 386-89). In the spirit

of "Doubting Thomas," he insists upon seeing physical evidence before he

will believe. He states that "I shall not believe that any do this ^"forgive

his persecutor s_7.till I see it" (p. 384). One recent commentator even

finds in the renewal of the chieftain's character echoes of the conversion

of Paul on the road to Damascus. Thus in his study of Scalping Peter 94

Ringe states:

When he does witness the parson's exemplary death, he is sud­ denly struck, therefore, by the truth of the man's belief; and, like another persecutor (Paul on the road to Damascus), he experiences a remarkable conversion. In language highly evocative of the Christian tradition, Peter becomes as a little child (p. 427) and puts on the new man. "I am no longer Peter--I must be another Injin" (p. 428). In the light of such evidence, we are certainly justified in reading a special significance as well into the name of P e te r . . . . 20 _

Even Corporal Flint, who is essentially a comic figure, receives a symbolic role in this strange drama. After Amen is put to death, Flint learns that he is to die by having his arm s tied to two bent saplings, which when released will swing his body into the air. Knowing that he will die suspended between two trees, Flint senses that he is being crucified.

Cooper states:

Then it was that the teachings of childhood were revived in the bosom of this hardened man, and he remembered the being that died for him, in common with the rest of the human race, on the tree. The seeming sim ilarity of his own execution struck his imagination, and brought a tardy but faint recollection of those lessons that had lost most of their efficacy in the wicked­ ness and impiety of the camps. 21

Perhaps it is hazardous to conclude that Cooper intends to identify Flint with the unrepentant thief in the biblical narrative, but it is fair to state that critics of Cooper's fiction have regularly failed to note that Flint’s

"crucifixion" functions as a powerful ironic contrast to the death of the

Christlike Methodist missionary. As his name indicates, the corporal is the man of flint; his heart remains untouched by grace. Parson Amen,

20Ringe, James Fenimore Cooper, p. 136. 21 The Oak Openings, pp. 413-14. 95 by contrast, has "a heart softened by Christian graces"; thus he meekly forgives his m urderers even before they can perpetrate the evil deed. ^2

On the basis of the ironic form which the action takes in this episode and the realistic portrayal of characters which is present throughout the narrative, one may be inclined to judge that the novel is fundamentally antiromantic. Although this evaluation is accurate as far as it goes, it does not do full justice to the world of The Oak Openings. In fact, the realistic forest scenes in the novel are painted in charming colors which reflect that the setting at least is far from being divorced from the romantic view of nature. Nevertheless, it is of comparatively little consequence whether these vivid pictures of the natural world are called

"realistic" or "romantic, " because what is of paramount significance for the present study is the way in which these scenes tend to unify a tale involving an unusually complex and varied pattern of action. Even though in the late chapters of the book Boden becomes somewhat less dominant and the conflict becomes increasingly internalized, the unchanging picture

of the environment preserves the continuity of the story. The episode in which the whole company of Indian chieftains and white people watch Boden follow the bees to their hives effectively illustrates how Cooper's relatively

uniform representation of the physical background lends unity to the

22 Ibid., p. 403. Although "Amen, " the name of the Methodist divine, is derived from a Hebrew verb meaning "firm ness" or "trust" and was used in Old Testament worship as a solemn response, it probably has little more than a comic significance in The Oak Openings. For Cooper's discussion of the origins of this sobriquet, see pp. 173 -74^ 96 narrative. 23 In describing the landscape, the novelist compares the spot where Boden practices his skills to "a well-kept park, " an opening in the forest which was recently burned over and now is "covered with young grasses and flowers" (pp. 307-9). In this lovely forest grove,

"Buzzing Ben" easily m asters the honey bees and m esm erizes the Indians with his skill. During the process of tracing the bees to their honey trees, perhaps the most interesting and colorful incident occurs when Ben and the Indians unexpectedly encounter a large number of bears, with the result that the bee-lining turns intcra bear hunt (pp. 332-34).

What is of foremost significance here is that the reader is left with the sense of having been already acquainted with this scene, and, in fact, this impression is essentially accurate, for many of the physical details in this episode were present in the first bee-lining conducted by Boden early in the adventure. Even though the second scene is grander than the first, largely because of the presence of the assembled Indian leaders, the physical features of the forest glades are practically identical. M oreover, this similarity of detail extends even to the presence of an encounter with bears in both episodes.

It is well known that Cooper made a trip to Michigan in June, 1847, to see at firsthand these forest glades and that he actually watched a bee- hunter at work not long after his return from Europe some years before, but beyond these facts little is known about the process by which Cooper

^F or a full discussion of the origins of this scene, see Mary E. Phillips, James Fenimore Cooper (New York: John Lane Company, 1912), pp. 3 0 9 -1 ^ 97 brought The Oak Openings into being. Some critics advance the hypothesis that he began with Boden, grew weary of this personage, and later decided to add Amen and Peter to the story. This conjecture, however, seems unsupported by any external evidence. In addition, the book has an impressive internal unity which hardly comports with this theory. In part, this coher­ ence is supplied by the novelist's consistent affirm ation of the thesis that social progress involves a divine paradox, namely, that fundamentally the relief of mankind's ills comes through divine action in renewing the hearts of men, not from human effort or intellectual calculation. In a considerable m easure, this unity is dependent upon the pattern of conflict in which the differences between the two parts of the book are made to serve the general theme. But it also is the uniform presentation of character in realistic term s, the splendid irony of the climactic scenes, and the consistent portrayal of nature which gives continuity to the mode of the action and makes this novel one of Cooper's best. Thus Brady and Winters, two of

Cooper's most distinguished critics in the twentieth century, rank this tale only slightly below the Leather stocking series. W inters thus concludes:

One other novel of frontier adventure, The Oak Openings, deserves particular attention, if only because of its extraordinary difference from the other novels on sim ilar subjects. As a story of simple adventure, it is one of Cooper's best; as a portrait of the Indian in his more familiar and less heroic moments, it is both convincing and amusing and has no parallel in Cooper or any­ where else in our literature. ^4

^ W in te r s , op. c i t . , p. 193. THE SEA LIONS: COOPER'S LAST ALLEGORICAL VOYAGE

CHAPTER V

I. PARALLEL THEMES: GREED AND INTELLECT UAL DOUBT

Cooper's sensitivity to the problem of m aterialism in the United States is frequently reflected in the pages of his novels and accounts for some of his best portrayals of the American character. Unscrupulous Ithuel Bolt in The Wing-and-Wing (1842), conniving Joel Strides in Wyandotte' (1843), landhungry Aaron Thousandacres and crafty Jason Newcome in the Little- page trilogy (1845-1846), and Captain Stephen Spike in Jack Tier (1848) are well-defined personages that are obsessed with the love of mammon. Never­

theless, with the exception of Stephen Spike, these covetous Yankees are not

so completely idolatrous in their pursuit of gain as Deacon Pratt and Captain

Daggett, two of the principal characters in The Sea Lions (1849), Cooper's

last nautical tale. In picturing this pair of greedy New Englanders, * the

novelist apparently intended to offer them as extreme types who adumbrate

the effects of covetousness upon the individual man and upon society as a

whole.

Although Pratt and Daggett are governed by the same ruling passion,

the author's commentary on these characters reveals that their common

* Strictly speaking, Deacon Pratt is a native of Long Island; however, by descent, religion, and custom he is an authentic New Englander. vice takes one form in the life of the deacon and another in the life of a sea captain. In evaluating the deacon, Cooper observes that "a tighter- fisted sinner did not exist in the county than this pious soul" (p. 21). He is a m iser whose grasping nature has led him to think that "not only every man, but every thing 'had its price, * and usually it was a good price, too" (p. 24). In his case the love of money eventually becomes a form of mental illness--a sick anxiety like that which afflicts Trina in Frank

N orris1 Me T eague - - with the deacon actually hastening his own death by excessive concern over his financial affairs. "As for the deacon," Cooper explains not long before the death of that worthy, "his health was actually giving way before anxiety, until the result was getting to be a matter of doubt" (j). 315). By contrast,Daggett, although he resem bles the deacon in his "golden longings" and in his "pertinancious, resolute, and grasping" seeking after gain, is characterized as an "iron-nerved" sinner who is perfectly willing to risk his goods and even his life in order to make a handsome profit (p. 426). Greedy but not m iserly, the resolute captain

"could spend^freely, on occasion, and perfectly understood the necessity of making liberal outfits to ensure ample returns" (p. 273).

In discussing Pratt and Dagget, the novelist manifests a vital interest in the community of New Englanders which has produced them.

In his opinion these two characters merely incarnate that cupidity which infects New England as a whole and Connecticut in particular. "Now, " he states, "one of the marked peculiarities of Connecticut is an indisposition to part with anything without a quid pro quo" (p. 23). He further explains that the covetous spirit which is abroad in this region affects even the social 100 intercourse of friends and relatives. To him it is distressing that "the free and frank habits that prevail among relatives and friends elsewhere are nearly unknown there, every service having its price" (p. 23). And among the New England brethren who have settled on Long Island, there is a close covetousness which so predominates in their community that the Congregational clergyman at Oyster Pond is compelled to spend much

of his time "providing," with the result that it is not "a very easy m atter for him to go beyond the beaten track, in order to probe the consciences

of particular individuals" like the misguided Roswell Gardiner (p. 67).

By emphasizing greed in this way, Cooper apparently hopes to

dem onstrate that cupidity may take various forms in a community but

that its ultimate effect is always the same: it hardens the human heart

so that men are rendered indifferent to the revelation of God in nature.

He observes that if "any thing connected with the hardness of the human

heart could surprise us, it would surely be the indifference with which

men live on, engrossed by their worldly objects, amid the sublime

natural phenomena that so eloquently and unceasingly speak to their

imagainations, affections, and judgments." In this author's opinion

therefore "the hardness of the human heart" is intimately related to man's

becoming engrossed by a love of m aterial gain.

Paralleling this clearly stated interest in the theme of man's cupidity

is a second line of thought in the book. Fundamentally this second theme

is concerned with the problem of rationalistic doubt, a question which was

2Preface to The Sea Lions, p. 5. 101 previously treated in The Wing-and-Wing. The intellectual skepticism which becomes prominent in The Sea Lions, however, differs markedly from that which is dealt with in the form er novel. In Wing “and" Wing the conflict is between an atheist hero and a Catholic heroine, but in this final sea novel the debate is between a Unitarian hero and a Trinitarian heroine. Hence it is only in The Sea Lions that Cooper deals with intel" lectual objections to the orthodox Christian belief in the Trinity.

The significance that this theme has in the tale is reflected in the

w riter’s rem arks on the way in which rationalistic doubt had affected the

relationship between Mary Pratt, the deacon’s niece, and Gardiner. As

the omniscient narrator Cooper explains that Gardiner’s rationalism has

brought "a dark cloud" over the young couple. Having noted the tension,

Cooper bluntly states:

That cloud came from a species of infidelity that is getting to be so widely spread in America as no longer to work in secret, but which lifts its head boldly among us, claiming openly to belong to one of the numerous sects of the land. Mary had reason to think that Roswell Gardiner denied the divinity of Christ, while he professed to honor and defer to him as a man far elevated above all other men, and as one whose blood had purchased the redemp­ tion of his race!

A. primary aspect of this anti-Trinitarianism , Cooper observes, is the

supposition of Gardiner (and the other adherents of Unitarianism) that

religious doctrines must be tested by "philosophy" and "reason," an

opinion which is vigorously disputed by M ary, who functions in the novel

3 Ib id ., p . 32. 102 as one of the principal spokesmen for the w riter's point of view. ^ Accord" ingly, when the youthful captain of The Sea Lions state s that he will not believe in any thing that he is unable to comprehend with his rational faculties, Mary promptly informs Gardiner: "You worship your reason, instead of the only true and living God. This is idolatry of the worst character, since the idol is never seen by his devotee, and he does not know of its existence" (p. U8).

Through his heroine Cooper argues that Unitarianism leads to the apotheosis of human reason, a conclusion which is elaborated further by Stimson, who, critics generally agree, is the novelist's second spokes­ man in The Sea Lions. When the youthful deist repeats what he previously said to M ary--that he cannot believe in any thing that transcends the categories of human reason-*, this elderly sailor replies: "A Deity I could understand would be no God for me. " In this statement the idealized seaman appears to be referring to that fundamental distinction between the Creator and the creature which began to come to the fore as an emphasis in Cooper's fiction with the publication of Jack Tier. "Where there is the same knowledge," he continues, "there is too much companionship, like, for worship and reverence" (p. 409). His point,therefore,is simply that divine and human knowledge are on two different levels and that necessarily divine knowledge will transcend the limitations of human understanding

^That M ary's opinions on the subject of the divinity of Christ are virtually the same as Cooper's is almost self-evident; but lest there be any doubt the novelist expressly states that Mary's views are identical with his own (p. 73). 103 because man is only a creature of God.

Although Stimson urges upon Gardiner a series of popular arguments for the deity of Christ, it is his stress upon the incomprehensibility of the divine majesty which becomes the m ajor factor in undermining the young man's confidence in Arian theology. Eventually when Gardiner moves in the direction of the Trinitarian position espoused by Stimson, it is the hero's increasing sensitivity to the sublime power of God as revealed in nature which leads him to question the central tenet of his Unitarianism-- confidence in the powers of human reason. Having looked at the splendor of the stars on a clear night in the Antarctic, he asks:

Who, and what was the Dread Being"-dread in his M ajesty and Justice, but inexhaustible in Love and Mercy--who used these exceed­ ing means as mere instruments of his pleasure? and what was he him ­ self, that he should presume to set up his miserable pride of reason, in opposition to a revelation supported by m iracles that m ust be admit­ ted to come through men inspired by the Deity or rejected altogether?®

At least until recently, critics were practically unanimous in holding the opinion that this clear development of the theological theme damaged the book. In setting the tone for subsequent critical appraisals, Lounsbury said in the late ninteenth century that "there can be little m ore tedious than the dry chaff of theological discussion which is here threshed for us over and

over." In this critic's opinion "believers in the Trinity had as little reason as believers in Episcopacy to rejoice in Cooper's advocacy of their faith. His unfavorable conclusion is that "there was nothing original in his views; there was nothing pointed or forcible in his statement of them.

5Ibid., p. 411.

6Lounsbury, op. cit., pp. 259-60. 104

Doubtless Stimson as an idealized seaman and a forthright exponent of Cooper's orthodox Episcopalianism is somewhat tedious. As W. C.

Brownell points out, practically every one of Cooper's novels has "its 7 tiresome character, " and Stimson guarantees that The Sea Lions is no exception to this general rule. Nevertheless, it is hardly just to maintain that the author's views contain nothing original and that his statem ent of them is "neither pointed or forcible." On the contrary, The Sea Lions reveals a remarkable new advance in a line of thought which had been

Q developing in his fiction for several years. For the first time in his work, he includes theoretical doubt among the forms of self-dependence which prompt men to attempt the crossing of that invisible boundary which separates the finite level of being from that transcendent Being who made all things, including human reason. Thus in Cooper's view the fundamental error of

Unitarians like Gardiner lies with their tendency to forget that human reason is a useful instrument but not a deity which man may worship in "lieu of the

ever-living God. " As succinctly stated by Mary, the novelist's position is

"that we are to exercise our reason, but it is within the bounds set for its

e x e r c is e " (p. 120).

Of course, only the subsequent examination of the narrative action can

fully reveal the vigorous originality of the novelist's thinking, but in summary

one may state that the analytical pattern of thought in The Sea Lions suggests

that Cooper was one of the few major novelists in the nineteenth century to

7 Brownell, op. cit. , p. 9.

®For what follows, see The Sea Lions, pp. 117-20, 406-12. 105 work within a specifically religious framework. Thus the w riter's case against theoretical doubt is not based upon em pirical proof or rational demonstration in any ordinary sense. Instead, his "argument" is essentially a setting of one Weltanschauung over against another, with the novelist self­ consciously presupposing that existence is a duality involving a fundamental distinction between the uncreated God and the created order. It is; therefore,

on the basis of this methodology that he maintains that New England deism is intellectually inconsistent and that its exponents unwittingly convert the

reason of man into an idol.

The preceding discussion would seem to justify the conclusion that

Cooper is seeking to develop a Christian interpretation of the m aterialism

and intellectual skepticism which he has seen in American society during __

the eighteen-forties. In addition, it seems evident that the novelist intends

to use these parallel themes of greed and intellectual doubt to supply the

prim ary impetus to the narrative action in this late novel. Nevertheless,

what has been said thus far does not explain how these two critical concerns

are related to one another in the unfolding of the adventure. Hopefully the

following discussion, which centers on the main lines of conflict in the tale,

will illuminate the connection between these parallel themes and bring into

focus the literary means chosen by Cooper for embodying his intellectual

content in the fictional life of his tale.

II. IDENTICAL SHIPS AND TWIN CAPTAINS

A. remarkable feature of the narrative action in The Sea Lions is its

formal scheme involving identical ships which symbolize the parallel them es 106 9 of cupidity and intellectual doubt. After a dying seaman named Daggett appears in the village of Oyster Pond, Long Island, with charts indicating the location of an unexploited seal island near the South Pole, two rival bands of Yankees embark in duplicate vessels for the sealing grounds.

Although both groups are motivated by a desire to make a profit, 'the Sea

Lion from M artha’s Vinyard is dominated by the covetousness of Captain

Daggett (the nephew of the deceased sailor) whose m aster passion eventually infects his entire crew. By contrast, the motivating force aboard the Sea

Lion from Oyster Pond is supplied by Roswell Gardiner’s proud confidence in the rationality of the human race and his own intellectual powers. Hence in the narrative action Daggett and his ship symbolize m an's lust for m aterial goods, whereas Gardiner and his vessel typify man’s presumptious trust in his own rational faculties.

How this form al pattern influences the narrative action is well illustrated by the way in which Daggett’s greed and Gardiner's pride combine to bring about a near disaster off Cape Hatteras. As the ships drive southward from

Long Island, Daggett steers his schooner near to the other Sea Lion and to the coast because he suspects that Gardiner plans to sail through the West

Indies to look for a buried gold hoard. On his part the youthful captain from

Oyster Pond views the proximity of Daggett's vessel to the land as a compet­ itive challenge. Because he "will not be outdone by a competitor, even in his m istakes," he keeps his ship even closer to the shore than Daggett’s. As a

^For what follows, see Philbrick, James Fenimore Cooper and the Development of American Sea Fiction, pp. 209“59; ci;., however, Dekker, o p . c i t . , p p .“Z 'l4 - l’?. 107 result of Daggett's concern with "the main chance" and Gardiner's "m is­ taken pride, " the schooners are caught in heavy breakers near Cape

Hatteras and only saved through divine providence bringing about a change in the weather (pp. 144ff.).

It would be a mistake, however, to think that Cooper's purpose in bringing these two vessels into a parallel relationship is exhausted by the contrasting behavior of their captains. On the contrary, as Philbrick

observes, "the primary function of the two schooners is to reinforce the

resemblance between Gardiner and Daggett before Gardiner's conversion. "

The active agent in bringing about this form al resemblance between the two

ships (and their commanders) is Daggett. In order to affirm his right to

share in the profits of a voyage which is dependent upon information derived from his dead uncle's charts, he secretly constructed a ship precisely like

Gardiner's and gave it the same name as Gardiner's vessel. During

moments of crisis he uses every available means to strengthen the tie

further. When the Sea Lion from Oyster Pond is damaged by the pounding

seas on the coast of North Carolina, Daggett's ship stands by to offer assis­

tance and to accompany the damaged schooner to Beaufort Harbor for

repairs. And at Sealer's Land, once the hold of Gardiner's vessel is filled,

Daggett slyly uses his crippled condition to play upon Gardiner's sympathies

so that the young captain will agree either to become his partner or to rem ain

with him to help fill the hold of his schooner.

So strong is this bond between the twin vessels that, try as he will,

10Ib id ., p. 255. 108

Gardiner cannot escape from his consort, except for a brief period in the south Atlantic when the schooners are separated by a gale. As already noted, this connection between ships and commanders is partly dependent upon the resolute will of Daggett, and in some measure it is dependent upon the physical sim ilarity of the ships which causes the Sea Lions to sail at the same rate of speed. Of this physical sim ilarity Cooper says that the vessels are "so moulded, sparred, and handled, that their rate of sailing" is "nearly identical" (p. 134). But the real cement binding the two captains together is their common egoism. They are, Cooper remarks, members of that class of men whose existence is "concentrated in self" (p. 5). In delineating the essential self-centeredness of these two leaders, Philbrick draws attention "to the scene on the mountain top at Sealer's Land."** As they view the magnificent panorama below, Daggett states: "I cannot say

I have much taste for sights unless they bring the promise of good profit with them" (p. 272). Unlike Daggett, Gardiner momentarily thinks of the divine majesty as he views the splendid setting of ice and snow; nevertheless, his meditation on the summit is basically as egocentric as Daggett's, for he also is largely concerned with thoughts of self and his feelings about Mary

Pratt. In contrast to these two imperceptive egoists, Stimson thinks along the lines of the converted Peter in The Oak Openings. Of this regenerated

ser.man’s meditation, Cooper asks:

And what was that rugged, uncultivated seaman, who stood near the two officers, thinking of, all this tim e? Did he, too, bend his thoughts on love, and profit, and the pleasures of this world? Of love, most truly, was his heart full to the overflowing; but it was

11Ibid., p. 252. 109

the love of God, with that affection for all his creatures, that benevolence and faith, which glow as warmly in the hearts of the humblest and least educated, as in those of the great and learned. His mind was turned toward his Creator, and it converted the extraordinary view that lay before his sight into a vast, magnifi­ cent, gorgeous, though wild temple, for his worship and honor.

An equally effective presentation of the particularity of each leader's character and the fundamental identity of the two captains is to be found in their response to Stimson1 s suggestion that the Sabbath day be kept by the crews at Sealer's Land. On the one hand, Gardiner is less than enthusiastic about this proposal for two reasons: first, "Pride of reason" prompts him to wish to avoid "every thing like a concession to the faith of those who believe in the Son of God, " and, secondly, his deistic inclinations lead him

to believe that the divine blessing and government have little to do with the

details of sealing and the practice of Sabbath-keeping. However, even

though he has "no great reverence for the Christian Sabbath," the young

man is "a kind-hearted commander, " as well as a judicious reasoner on the

economy of his fellow creatures (pp. 239“40). Hence on humanitarian and

rational grounds, he accedes to Stimson's suggestion that his crew rest on

Sunday. On the other hand, Daggett objects to the resting on the first day

of the week for reasons which are in keeping with the individuality of his own

character. "Every minute of tim e," he argues, "is precious to men in our

situation. " When Stimson hints, by way of reply, that time is even more

precious than the grasping Daggett perceives, the commander answers that

"a sealin' v'y'ge is not place for a man to give himself up to Sabbaths and

12 The Sea Lions, p. 274. 110 religion" (pp. 270“71). Thus where Gardiner questions the Sabbath institution because of its association with Christian supernaturalism and yet concurs with the idea of a weekly day of rest on rational and m oral grounds, the New Englander accepts the idea of the Sabbath but does not wish to observe it on a sealing voyage because he does not wish to mix religion with his business. As in the meditation on the summit, Cooper's purpose is to show that despite their distinct individuality the two men are of one mind in their determination to serve self rather than the

"uncreated God."

The scene in which the Yankee seamen pursue and kill a huge whale in tropical waters reveals that the novelist's purpose is virtually to fuse the egoism of Daggett with that of the unrenewed Gardiner. Having seen the whales almost at the same tim e, both commanders immediately order the launching of the whale boats. The boats with the captains aboard touch the water practically at the same time. Although initially the men from the two ships pursue different whales, Daggett's line becomes entangled in the mouth of Gardiner's giant bull, with the result that Daggett's boat begins to hunt Gardiner's whale. Together the two crafts overtake the animal, and almost as one man the two captains drive their lances into the heart of the whale. After the death of the whale, Gardiner and Daggett strike a similar pose on its carcass, as indicated in the following comment by the author:

Gardiner and Daggett met, face to face, on the carcass of the whale. Each struck his lance into the blubber, steadying himself by its handle; and each eyed the other in a way that betokened feelings awakened by a keen desire to defend his rights. ^

*3ib id ., p. 186. I l l

It would seem evident therefore that Cooper's intention in this episode is to demonstrate, by way of ritual dance, that Daggett and Gardiner are

almost two sides of the same man.

III. COMPREHENSIVE DESIGN OF THE SEA LIONS

Doubtless a narrative pattern which involves an allegorization of a

sea voyage readily lends itself to a false idealization of maritim e life.

However, through m ost of his book, Cooper manages to avoid slipping into

this kind of corrosive artificiality, for it is only at the close of the tale

that the author tends to im part to his narration the mood of the conventional

romance. But unfortunately at the last moment the novelist sends the

converted Gardiner somewhat more of heaven on earth than seems likely

to fall to the lot of the ordinary Christian. Not only does the renewed

captain recover the pirates' gold from an island in the West Indies and win

the hand of the lovely heroine, but he also comes into possession of the

entire estate of the m iserly Deacon Pratt by virtue of his m arriage to Pratt's

niece. For this reason, Herman Melville, having passed highly favorable

judgment on the work as a whole, justly criticizes the sentimentalized tone

of the last pages of the novel. Concerning Gardiner, he states that "the

moist, rosy hand of our Mary is the reward of his orthodoxy. Somewhat in

the pleasant spirit of the Mahometan, this; who rewards all the believers 14 with a houri. "

Despite this unsatisfactory conclusion to the tale, there seems to be

^Melville, op. cit., p. 370. 112 every reason for concurring with W inters' view that the novel as a totality "displays great vigor of conception."^ Fundamental to this comprehensive design, this m aster purpose which governs the form of the tale, is the novelist's careful omission from his narrative of anything suggesting human power, wisdom, and glory in respect to men and ships.

Thus neither Daggett nor Gardiner is portrayed as a superb seaman in the noble tradition of Captain Heidegger in The Red Rover or Tom Tiller in The Water "Witch. Concerning the quality of the entire crew from

Oyster Pond, Cooper further observes:

It would not have been easy to give to the Sea Lion a m ore efficient crew; yet there was scarce a real seaman belonging to her--a man who could have been made a captain of the forecastle on board a frigate or ship of the line. Even Gardiner, the best man in his little craft in nearly every respect, was deficient in many attainments that mark the thorough sea-dog.

And like their crews the identical vessels efficiently serve their purpose as useful instruments, but they are never characterized in term s of

Cooper's favorite romantic simile, that is, with the vessel being compared to a sea bird lightly skimming the surface of the water. Hence, although

Cooper uses the conventional patterns of the sea rom ance--the long chase at sea, the shipwreck, and the discovery of buried treasure~“the dramatic action of the tale would seem to be more closely related to the realistic

15 Winters, op. cit. , p. 198.

^The Sea Lions, p. 113. 113 mode than to the romantic mode. 17

Closely allied to this careful omission of any m aterial which glorifies m an's heroic achievements is Cooper's presentation of the grand natural world in the region of the South Pole. Profoundly im pressed by the novelist's vision of the physical setting, Van Wyck Brooks states:

With his marked feeling for the sublime, he rose moreover now and then to moments of the noblest and most eloquent prose. Such were the descriptions of the icefields in The Sea Lions, -- a tale of American sealers in antarctic waters, --the vast mass of floating mountains, generally of a spectral white, through which the m ariners moved in an unknown sea.

When the sealers first encounter these impressive ice fields, they receive glimpses of "the ice in long mountainous walls, resembling many of the

ridges of the Alps. " From time to time "dense fogs clouded the whole view" so that the schooner is often compelled to "heave~to" to avoid

colliding with the "sunken m asses of ice" (p. 221). Then as the Sea Lion

works its way through the passages of floating mountains, the light of the

sun creates strange and gorgeous effects. "The icebergs," Cooper writes,

"were of all the hues of the rainbow, as the sunlight gilded their summits

or sides, or they were left shaded by the interposition of dark and murky

l^For an excellent discussion of Cooper's ability to create realistic detail by drawing upon his substantial reading in maritime literature, see Philbrick, James Fenimore Cooper and the Development of American Sea Fiction, pp. &12-26; and for discussions of his general indebtedness to the landscape paintings of Thomas Cole, see James F. Beard, James Fenimore Cooper: A Re-appraisal (Cooperstown, New York: New York State Historical Association, 1954) pp. 112-27; and Ringe, "James Feni­ more Cooper and Thomas Cole: an Analogous Technique, American Literature, XXX (1958), 26-36.

18Van Wyck Brooks, op. cit., p. 177. 114 clouds" (p. 222).

When the winter comes sooner than anticipated, the awful majesty of this world of ice and snow becomes increasingly apparent to Gardiner, if not to Daggett. In their unsuccessful attempt to make their way through the ice fields to the open sea, the two captains find themselves drawing near to a "wild and magnificent ruined city of alabaster that was floating about in the antarctic sea!" How the men view this sublime city in the

sea-"with mixed feelings of adm iration and dread--is suggested by the following quotation:

There lay the vast maze of floating mountains, generally of a spectral white at that hour, though many of the masses emitted hues more pleasing, while some were black as night. The passages between the bergs, or what might be termed the streets and lanes of this mysterious-looking, fantastical, yet sublime city of the ocean, were numerous, and of every variety. *9

Moreover, even the resolute Daggett is shaken from his complacency when the silence of the antarctic world is broken by the sound of an iceberg capsizing. Of this incident Cooper writes:

A heavy groaning sound had been instantly succeeded by such a plunge into the water as might be imagined to succeed the fall of a fragment from another planet. Then all the bergs near by began to rock as if agitated by an earthquake. This part of the picture was both grand and frightful. Many of those masses rose above the sea more than two hundred feet perpendicularly, and showed wall­ like surfaces of half a league in length. At the point where the schooners happened to be just at that moment, the ice "islands were not so large, but quite as high, and consequently were more easily agitated. While the whole panorama was bowing and rocking, pinnacles, arches, walls, and all, seeming about to totter from their bases, there came a wave sweeping down the passage that lifted them high in the air . . . . "20

^ The Sea Lions, p. 307.

2QIb id ., p. 309. 115

It is important to observe that as the adventure progresses this m ajestic physical setting increasingly demonstrates the absurdity of human pretensions, namely, the frailty of man and the ephemeral nature of his works. When Daggett's Sea Lion is caught by an ice floe, it is lifted into the air like a toy and deposited on the rocks more than twenty feet above the surface of the sea. The broken cakes of ice then bury the stranded vessel under a m ass of frozen blocks, leaving the sturdy craft a shattered wreck. Less violent but equally dangerous, the cold of the winter is so intense that no ordinary shelter of wood can shut it out. "The little needle­ like particles of frost, " Cooper notes, "would penetrate such a shelter, as their counterparts of steel pierce cloth" (p. 374). Hence when Daggett's

"boat-steerer" attempts to walk to Gardiner's camp in the dead of winter, his body is frozen "as rigid as a billet of wood. " Cooper says of the man's body that "every particle of m oisture had congealed, until the whole of

what had been a very fine and manly frame, lay little more than a sense­ less lump of ice" (p. 422). The full power and terror of the winter, however, is fully revealed only in the death scene which greets Gardiner

when he and his men enter Daggett's quarters in response to the cry of

the Negro cook. Because Daggett has caused the fire to be neglected

through his concern to save the wood of his ship, practically the whole of

his crew has frozen to death either in their bunks or in a lifelike sitting

position. And Daggett himself, with his limbs already frozen stiff, finds

that no m atter how resolute is the human will man cannot long survive

lengthy exposure to the polar winter. 116

Cooper's governing purpose, then, is realized by portraying man in all his limitations and nature in all its vast scope and power. As aptly sum m arized in the preface, the grand design in the book "has been to portray man on a novel field of action, and to exhibit his dependence on the hand that does not suffer a sparrow to fall unheeded" (p. 5). Of course, one may choose to concur with Ringe's judgment that this conception of a narrative action, namely, the concentration on the behavior of egocentric character types placed in an isolated and dependent condition in an awsome 21 natural setting, had by now become trite in Cooper's late fiction. Have not M iles Wallingford in the novel of that name, Harry Mulford in Jack

Tier, and Mark Woolston in The Crater been portrayed on novel fields of action? In response to this question, one must acknowledge that Cooper's general methodology in The Sea Lions follows a pattern which was manifested previously in his fiction published during the eighteen-forties. However, one also m ust note that never before had Cooper created such an awsome and deadly physical setting as this antarctic world and that never before had the frailty of man been as evident as it is in this environment. Accordingly, it is Cooper's bold design to use this region with its floating ice mountains, its ruined alabaster cities, and especially its incredible cold to demonstrate m an's total dependence upon a God whose ways are just and wise but infinitely mysterious.

M oreover, once the critic perceives that the region of the Antarctica functions as a prim ary metaphor in the narrative he is able to appreciate

^R inge, James Fenimore Cooper, pp. 139“40. 117 the extraordinary inventiveness evidenced in the construction of the book and to bring the whole tale, including the parallel themes of greed and intellectual pride, into clear focus. Using somewhat different language,

Philbrick nonetheless agrees with this view that the world of the South

Pole must be seen as central in the story. "In Cooper's mind, then," he writes, "the icy barriers of Antarctica become the analogues of the m ysteries which ultimately confront all rational inquiry and mark its 22 farthest limits. " Having been thus confronted by this mysterious barrier,

Gardiner abandons his faith in his own powers and the sovereignty of human

reason and then through his Bible reading comes to trust in the mystery of 23 the incarnation of the Son of God. Subsequently in keeping with the

symbolism of the story, a renewed Gardiner (the type of regenerated man)

is able to use the m aterials from Daggett's wrecked vessel to reconstruct

his own Sea Lion and again, as it were, sail upon "the sea of life." But

the Antarctica also seems to be intended to symbolize the justice and

majesty of God in that it is an instrument for bringing upon Daggett the

consequences of his tenacious greed. One of the most unforgettable of

22Philbrick, James Fenimore Cooper and the Development of American Sea Fiction, p. 232. 9 o A. note in Cooper's diary (March 5, 1848) reveals that shortly before he began to compose the Sea Lions he was intrigued by his reading about the incarnation of Christ in the epistles of John. "The celebrated passage touch1 ing the divinity of C hrist," he states, "is so embedded in similar doctrine that it strikes me the whole chapter must go if these two verses go. But is not the entire new testam ent full of this doctrine? The pride of man makes him cavil at that which he cannot comprehend, while everything he sees has a mystery in it" (op. cit. , II, p. 743)! 118 24 Cooper's characters, Daggett is so confirmed in self-seeking that the dread majesty of nature at Sealer's Land makes very little impression upon his consciousness. In terms of the logic of the narrative, it is fitting therefore that Daggett’s life, as well as his ship, is brought to an untimely end through his refusal to observe the lim its imposed upon man by the natural world as it is epitomized in the physical setting at Sealer's Land.

Critics like Lounsbury depreciate The Sea Lion on the ground that

Cooper "meant to inculcate a lesson, and the only lesson that can possibly be drawn is the sufficiently absurd one that dwellers in the chilly spiritual clime of Unitarianism can be cured of their faith by being subjected to the 25 horrors of a polar winter. " If Lounsbury1 s critique had been directed against the excessive didacticism of the book, there would be considerable justification in his criticism . Doubtless the late fiction of Cooper is over­ burdened with explanatory comment, and The Sea Lion certainly exhibits

Cooper's desire to inculcate a lesson. Nevertheless such assessments of the work as Lounsbury's frequently reveal that their authors have not taken the trouble to note Cooper's marked success in harmonizing his compre­ hensive purpose with the parallel themes of cupidity and skepticism and with the symbolic pattern of the narrative action.

24 For an evaluation of Daggett, see Joseph Conrad, Notes on Life and Letters (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Page, and Company, 1921), p. 5^1 "It is hard to believe that . . . Daggett, the tenacious commander of the Sea Lion of M artha's Vineyard, must pass away someday and be utterly forgotten. " 25 Lounsbury, op. cit., p. 260. THE WAYS OF THE HOUR: DEMOCRACY WITHOUT JUSTICE

C H A P T E R VI

I. OPINION TRIUMPHANT OVER PRINCIPLE

The discussion in the preceding chapters indicated that Cooper is attempting in his late fiction to relate social questions to a religious view of existence, a conception of life which is based, in general, upon the novelist's orthodox Episcopalian convictions and, in particular, upon his profound awareness of the majesty of God as expressed in nature and history. Accordingly, the student of Cooper may be somewhat puzzled to discover that the author's last book, The Ways of the Hour (1850), omits some of the distinguishing features of the four other late novels. For instance, this final tale lacks the fam iliar pattern of violent physical action set in the great theater of nature. Equally significant, particular Christian teachings about divine providence and the incarnation and crucifixion of

Christ only rarely find expression in the narrative action or in the author's commentary upon it. The somewhat embittered tone of the narration, in addition, would seem to suggest that the qualified optimism which charac" terizes the other late works is missing from this last story. Nevertheless, before one concludes that this book represents a return to the fictional mode of the problem novels of Cooper's middle period and to the pessim istic tone of The Redskins (1846), it is necessary first to ascertain the precise nature

of the w riter's formal intention in The Ways of the Hour and to assess his 120 choice of literary means for expressing this critical concern.

As the title of the book suggests, the novel treats a wide range of social evils, so many, in fact, that some critics judge that the book is without a prim ary theme uniting all the author's ideas and interests. Kay

S. House thus im plies that this novel lacks a central motivation and con­ cludes that the book "fails because it attacks too many things . . . . "*

Although Robert E. Spiller agrees with House that the book treats a variety of topics “"namely, "the evils of divorce, the rights of property, the justice of social distinctions, and the ultimate submission of the human to the divine w ill"--he yet maintains that these "favorite principles" of the novelist are only "introduced incidentally" and that the "main purpose is to show how 2 a jury may be prejudiced to a point where obvious justice is impossible."

Like Spiller, Jam es Grossman thinks that the book is prim arily concerned with trial by jury, but Grossman finds that the novel develops a more gener­ alized statement of the problem. He takes the position that the primary impetus for the action is supplied by Cooper's conviction "that a fact will not submit to democracy, cannot be ascertained by counting noses, and that our noble concept of justice democratically adm inistered through trial by jury is in practice a shabby fraud. "

Grossm an's interpretation of the book as an attack upon the notion that truth is determined by majority opinion and upon the democratic faith that

*House, op. cit., p. 35. 2 Spiller, op. cit. , p. 314.

^Grossman, op. cit., pp. 239"40. trial by jury is the ultimate safeguard for American freedom would seem to be supported by the expressed statements of the author. In the preface he writes that "the object of this book is to draw the attention of the reader to some of the social evils that beset us; more particularly in connection with the administration of crim inal justice." In the same context he elab­ orates on his "object" by stating that "a hundred instances might be given in which the juries of this country are an evil . . . . " As an example of the many abuses of this legal system, he points out that "in trials between railroad companies and those who dwell along their lines, prejudice is usually so strong against the form er, that justice for them is nearly

4 h o p e le s s ."

This concern with the failings of "democratic justice" moreover is frequently and vigorously expressed by Tom Dunscomb, Cooper's principal spokesman in the novel. Early in the story Dunscomb, a distinguished trial lawyer, outlines the case against the jury system in a conversation with Jack Wilmeter, his nephew. His argument is that trial by jury was an excellent protection for the liberties of the people under the English monarchy but that under a democracy the people themselves have final authority in matters of government. Therefore, since the people, in effect, are the government, a citizen who has a conflict of rights with the state

(the people) will find him self judged by a jury made up of those who are to be identified with one of the parties to the dispute. In speaking to W ilmeter,

4 The Ways of the Hour, pp. vvi. 122

Dunscomb thus concludes:

"But according to your own admission, this is very much like making one of the parties a judge in his own case. A. insists that he has a right to certain lands, for instance, which the public claim s for itself. In such a case, part of the public compose the tribunal. "6

Hence Cooper seems to be saying that the conflict of interests involved in trial by jury in a democratic country is likely to eventuate in a complete collapse of the concept of justice.

If one may safely conclude that the failure of the jury system in the

United States constitutes the center of interest in the novel, it is important, nevertheless, to note that the speeches of Dunscomb and the didactic passages in the work reveal that this emphasis upon the collapse of the juridical processes exists within a larger circle of meaning. That the story actually has a master purpose encompassing a number of subordinate interests is implied by the following significant speech by Dunscomb who s ta te s :

"This is an age of emancipation; prudent grey-headed men become deluded, and exhibit their folly by succumbing to a wild and exceedingly silly philanthropical hurrah! Even religion is emancipated! There are churches, it is true; but they exist as appendages of society, instead of being divine institutions, established for the secret purposes of unerring wisdom; and we hear men openly commending this or that ecclesiastical organization, because it has more or less of the savour of republicanism. But one new dogma remains to be advanced-"that the government of the universe is democratical-"in which the 'music of the spheres' is a popular song; and the disappearance of a world a matter to be referred to the people in their prim ary capacity. Among other absurdities of

^Ibid., p. 18. Here Cooper through his spokesman is referring to an actual dispute in which he was involved. For a brief discussion of this conflict, see Spiller, op. cit., pp. 252-58. 123

the hour is a new law, giving to married women the control of their property, and drawing a line of covetousness across the bolster of every marriage bed in the State.

In this sermonette the crotchety Dunscomb descants on "the ways of the

. «*• hour"; he criticizes the sectarian Protestant churches for their republi­ canism, that is, for their responsiveness to the will of the m asses; he denounces the feminist movement which has led to the enactment of a new law in New York granting "married women the control of their property"; and, finally, he condemns the entire present age as a time when the spirit of emancipation prompts even "prudent grey-headed men" to "become deluded, and exhibit their folly" in the pursuit of sentimental philanthropy.

But what is central in this speech, what binds these distinct elements into a unified whole, is the negative proposition that "the government of the universe" is not "democratical." By implication, therefore, what is wrong with the philanthropical idealists, the leveling sectarians, and the advocates of woman's emancipation is that they are trying to democratize the divine government of the universe. And, of course, it is this same leveling tendency which afflicts the jury box. Under the influence of the democratic spirit, men who are called to this duty no longer concern themselves about divine standards of justice, but are induced by public opinion to turn civil and crim inal cases into popularity contests (pp. 219"21).

For this reason it seems safe to cbnclude that Cooper in this book is presenting a general view of society which appears to echo Shakespeare's

7 Ibid., p. 309. 124

Ulysses in Troilus and Cressida when he says: "Take but degree away, untune that string, / And, hark, what discord follows!" (I. iii. 109“10).

Although he is a liberal democrat in the tradition of Jefferson, Cooper believes that attempts to extend democracy beyond the political and civil sphere into other areas of life will inevitably bring social disorder. In accord with this approach, Anna Updyke, the author's second spokesman in the novel, invokes the authority of nature and the Bible in her argument with Mary Monson over the question of feminine emancipation. Having stated that she sees "nothing humiliating or depressing in a woman's submission to her husband, " Anna argues that for the woman submission is required by "the law of nature" and the teaching of the Bible (p. 484).

Consequently, Cooper is taking the view that what the country needs is not more liberty and equality but more humility and submissiveness to the divine will and wisdom, a judgment which is explicitly stated in the following didactic passage:

What the church is now enduring the country itself most sadly wants, --a lesson in humility; a distrust of self, a greater depen­ dence on that wisdom which comes, not from the voices of the people, not from the ballot-boxes, not from the halls of senates, from heroes, godlikes, or stereotyped opinions, but from above, the throne of the Most High. ®

By way of summary, then, one may state that the thematic focal point of this book is Cooper's quarrel with the jury system which, he believes, is increasingly productive of scandalous injustice because juries frequently are governed by a shifting public opinion rather than by unchanging

8Ib id ., p. 498. 125 principles. At the same time the novelist would have his reader see that this collapse of justice is occurring within the larger context of the anarchical "ways of the hour" which have come to pass as a result of man's determination to democratize the divine government of the universe. Seen in this light, Cooper's formal intention in the book thus is to use the inequity of the jury system as a supreme illustration of what he considers to be the widespread folly of substituting the opinions of the democratic m ajority ("the thing created") for the revealed standards of the "ever- living God.

This examination of the novelist's analytical pattern of thought indicates that The Ways of the Hour is thematically related to the other late works, but the preceding discussion does not show how the apparent pessimism of this

"m urder m ystery" harmonizes with the millenial anticipation of The Crater and The Oak Openings. At the outset one must grant that the author's

commentary on the action, as well as the observations on society offered by

Dunscomb, evidences a degree of bitterness which is not present even in

Jack Tier, one of Cooper's most violent and destructive tales. However, the

dark mood of the narration in this late work is not unqualified by hope for a

better future. For one thing, the novelist believes that the extravagances of

the day will provoke a reaction simply by virtue of their excess. "We have, "

he states, "a cycle of opinion to make . . . . " When this cycle is completed,

9 Although this novel says very little about particular Christian doctrines, the action presupposes that Christian standards for conduct are normative for all men. See, e.g ., Cooper's discussion of "the rules of conduct taught by the Redeemer" on p. 510. 126 he continues, "men may come back to their senses, and perceive the necessity of fencing in justice by some of the useful provisions that we are now so liberally throwing away" (pp. 83-84). Moreover, Cooper, speaking through Dunscomb, expresses confidence that "Divine Providence" will somehow "save us. " Dunscomb states hopefully that "it may not be his pleasure to let us perish, for it would seem that some great plan for the advancement of civilization is going on, and it may be a part of it to make us important agents" (p. 19). In particular, Cooper believes that the church (Episcopal) has and will enjoy protection during these chaotic times. "The hand which first reared this moral fabric, " he says of his church, "will be certain to protect it as far as that protection shall be for its good" (p. 497).

Although these citations reveal that Cooper is not ready to abandon his faith in the millenial age, it is apparent that he is m ore than ever convinced that no human agency can bring about the creation of a just— * society. ". . . Did the result depend on us, m iserable instruments in the Almighty hands as we are, " concludes Dunscomb, "woeful would be the end" (p. 19).

II. STORY AND PROBABILITY IN THE WAYS OF THE HOUR

At least until recently Cooper's most perceptive critics have ranked

The Ways of the Hour with the novelist's worst fiction, chiefly because,

in Lounsbury's words, "the events related in it" are considered to be "simply impossibilities. In comparing The Bravo with this book,

l^Lounsbury, _op. cit., p. 260. 127

W. C. Brownell states that "'The Bravo' is . . . as strong a story as

'The Ways of the Hour' is weak. Carl Van Doren judges that this last tale "lacks every charm of manner. "1 2 A£‘ And Yvor Winters, after noting

that the book expresses Cooper's "extremely acute criticism of his period

and ours," states that the work is to be classed as one of the author's

"extremely bad novels. "13 Since the Second World War, however, a number

of critics have come to look upon the tale with somewhat more favor than

had been customary in critical circles. Alexander Cowie concedes that the

book contains "a few good scenes" and especially commends the climactic

trial scene; 14 Howard Mumford Jones calls the book a "strange and unapprec 15 iated study" with a unique plot; and Donald A.. Ringe, one of Cooper's most

perceptive critics, concludes that this book "is superior" to the other late

novels "in both conception and execution.

As these marked differences in critical opinion suggest, the literary

significance of the book largely depends upon whether the plot of the novel

is incredible to the point of being absurd or whether the design of the work

is so highly original that conventional critical categories simply fail to do

justice to its uniqueness. To resolve this problem, one must carefully

^Brownell, op. cit., p. 8.

12Van Doren, op. cit. , p. 305.

^W inters, op. cit., p. 177. 14 Cowie, op. cit., p. 155. 15 Jones, "Prose and Pictures: James Fenimore Cooper, " History and the Contemporary, p. 78.

^Ringe, James Fenimore Cooper, p. 143. 128 examine the narrative structure of the story, a task which is best begun by noting that the book is a pioneer m ystery story with an unusual twist.

What is extraordinary about the book is that from the beginning it is rather obvious to the reader that the accused person (Mary Monson) could not have committed the crime. At the coroner's inquest which leads to M ary's indictment, the testimony of the medical witnesses reveals that the two victims were killed by a single blow of a blunt instrum ent, a fact which plainly indicates that this delicate young woman could not have m urdered M r. and Mrs. Peter Goodwin as charged. Mary, in addition, seems to be with­ out any motive for taking the life of this couple. Since she is obviously a woman of substantial wealth, it appears to be ridiculous to suppose that she had coveted Mrs. Goodwin's small hoard of gold. And, finally, Dr.

McBrain, an expert anatomist from New York City, suggests to the coroner's jury in Biberry that there is good reason even for questioning whether any crime has been committed. In his opinion the skeletons are those of two women, a puzzling circumstance which would seem to justify further inquiry before one concluded that the deaths were caused by crim inal action and not by an accident.

Having thus indicated Mary's innocence, Cooper then sets him self the difficult task of showing how this young woman is indicted for m urder, tried by a jury of her peers, and sentenced to be hanged-"without placing undue

strain on the reader's sense of psychological probability. In a large m easure

Cooper accomplishes his object by reproducing the truculent mood of a

somewhat typical American village of his day. Swiftly and firm ly in the

opening scenes of the book he sketches a picture of a parochial village world in which prejudice and pride vie for m astery. The women of the village resent Mary because they believe that the aristocratic young woman is proud, an opinion which is re-inforced by her statement to the coroner's jury that while living with the Goodwins she rarely associated with them.

Similarly, the men cannot under stand why, if the young woman is a law- abiding citizen, she chooses to use an assumed name. On their part the members of the coroner's jury are disturbed by Mary's generosity in

"giving away pieces of gold" (p. 75). When she states that the gold

Italian coin found in her purse was not taken from Mrs. Goodwin's hoard but that instead the coin in the landlady's collection was a gift from her to

Mrs. Goodwin, the jury men dismiss this explanation because they are unfamiliar with the generosity which distinguishes some members of the upper classes. In the context of this ignorant and gossip-ridden village, it is therefore altogether believable that this young woman could be indicted for committing this "crim e," principally upon the grounds that she is an eccentric personality whose habits are misunderstood by the majority of the people.

Intimately related to the villagers' prejudice against M ary's aristo­ cratic ways is their conviction that in instances of doubt truth lies on the side with the greatest numbers. Without attempting to assess the quality of the conflicting opinions as to the medical facts in the case, the official investigators simply conclude that the majority report of the five country doctors is more reliable than the opinion of Dr. McBrain. "M ajorities, " writes Cooper in commenting on this phase of the case, "are the primum mobile of the common mind, and he who can get the greatest number on 130 his side is very apt to be considered right, and to re$>p the benefits of being so" (p. 64). What is even worse, it becomes apparent after Mary is indicted that the majority opinion innthe community is a highly artificial thing, created by the gossips of the lowest class in society and reproduced in the press by the senational journalists. Hence when the newspaper accounts of Mary's indictment appear, there is "a seeming respect for her rights, " but, in reality, the reader is "left to infer that her guilt" is "not only beyond question, but of the darkest dye" (p. 94).

In a number of respects, the jury trial proves to be an intensified re-enactment of the proceedings which led to the filing of formal charges against the young gentlewoman. The streets and taverns of the small city and nearby New York City gristle with rum ors damaging to the interests

of Mary. The newspapers continue to try the case in their columns, to the detriment of the truth. The jurors are thoroughly infected by the pre­ vailing spirit in the community. And the courtroom itself is afflicted with

so much democratic liberty that when the state's attorney brings up the matter of Mary's harp playing as evidence of her guilt the judge hardly

dares "curb this licentiousness" on the part of the prosecutor because it

assumes "the aspect of human rights" (p. 291). So strong and so wide­

spread is the presumption in favor of the guilt of the eccentric young

aristocrat that even Dunscomb begins to think she may be guilty.

Although no critic contends that these aspects of the action are in

themselves psychologically improbable, commentators on Cooper's fiction

often maintain that his handling of Mary Monson's role in the action is

purely arbitrary. Thus Grossman describes the book as "an improbable 131 m urder mystery that remains a mystery" only because it is M ary's "insane whim to be acquitted by the jury on the ground that the evidence against her is insufficient. " 17 What Grossman fails to consider, however, is that a novelist is not absolutely bound by the canons of psychological realism which derive from ordinary experience. On the contrary, he may well choose to intensify and distort the mental states of his characters in order to accom­ plish his narrative purpose. Of course, this intensification cannot be arbitrary; it must be in keeping with the inner logic of the work of literary art. And in this instance the evidence would indicate that, however bizarre

M ary's conduct may appear to be, it is in almost perfect harmony with the total fictional life of the book. Granted that her thinking is irrational, it is no more confused than the reasoning of Williams who serves as the prose­ cuting attorney. An extremely clever fellow who knows how to use the press and the public for questionable ends, Williams nonetheless has the queer notion that this refined young lady is the agent of a crim inal gang which has its headquarters in New York City. Similarly confused, the coarse Timms,

Dunscomb's assistant defense attorney, believes that she is guilty of double m urder, but he also wishes to m arry her, with the confident expectation that this lovely murderess will help him in his rise to political power. And

M rs. Burton, the real thief, who has the temerity to manipulate the evidence and give false testimony incriminating Mary, is so blinded that when her guilt is revealed she insists that she was "ignorant of what might be" the consequences of her lying under oath (p. 475). Furtherm ore, even the

^Grossman, op. cit. , p. 238. 132 aristocratic Dunscomb is not immune to the insanity which is rapidly becoming epidemic in the world of the novel. Because he partly inclines

to the view that his client is guilty (despite the obvious evidence to the

contrary), he commissions Timms to influence the jurors in the same

manner as Williams has done.

III. STYLE AND SCENE IN THE WAYS OF THE HOUR

Having seen that Mary Monson's conduct does not violate the inner

logic of the story, the investigator must now consider what is probably

the prim ary weakness of the book, namely, its style. To begin with, the

novel is without that grand rhetoric which is integral to the fictional life

of Cooper's best stories. Perhaps the subject matter of the book was

not sufficient to stimulate his poetic imagination, or it may have been that

his energies were flagging during the last months of his life; but whatever

the reason the writing in this book lacks the colorful vitality which distin­

guishes many of the best passages in a work like The Crater. Closely allied

with the novelist's tendency to fill his pages with pedestrian prose is his

evident carelessness in constructing his sentences. Never a careful literary

craftsm an in the tradition of great English writers like Jonathan Swift and

Jane Austen, he is frequently indifferent to the niceties of style even in his

best fiction. But in The Ways of the Hour, the pedestrian quality of the

prose suggests either that Cooper has composed the work in great haste or

7 0 that his creative energy had finally waned.

18in the preface (p. v) Cooper hints that he did in fact have trouble com ­ pleting the book. "So long a tim e, " he writes, "hasintervened since the thought occurred, and so many interruptions have delayed the progress of the work, that it isfeltthe subject has been very imperfectly treated . ..." 133

But probably the most important stylistic defect in the book stems from the intensity of the novelist's didactic interest, a motivation which leads him to burden his tale with m oral instruction for the benefit of his

reader. Not only are there long passages in which Cooper comments upon

social problems in the United States, but there also are extended conver­

sations between Dunscomb and Timms, as well as between Anna Updike

and Mary Monson, which are alm ost equally didactic. In respect to Dunscomb's

numerous homilies, one may reasonably suggest that Cooper seems to have

ended up the prisoner of his own literary methodology. In giving this

personage fictional being, the novelist created a vigorous spokesman for

his own opinions, but he is, in addition, a mouthpiece who is something of a

bore. That Cooper knows the talkative Dunscomb is a tedious character

and yet takes perverse pleasure in this fact is indicated by an incident

which occurs in the last part of the book. According to his custom Dunscomb

is attacking the new legal code recently adopted by the electorate in New

York state. But when the loquacious attorney is "obliged to stop for breath, "

the reader is told that John W ilmeter and Anna Updike take this "opportunity

to walk away" (p. 490). The implication is that the young couple wish to

escape from the endless lecture being given by Dunscomb, a desire which

the weary reader can readily understand.

Nevertheless, these limitations in the style of the book hardly warrant

the inference that the novel is a total failure. In spite of the weaknesses in

the writing, Cooper achieves a kind of fulness and power in this work which

reminds one of the fiction of Theodore D reiser. The picture of the gossip-

ridden Biberry, the detailed discussions of legal procedures and extra-legal 134 practices involved in the jury trial, and the treatment of the coarse private manners of the country attorneys give the novel a realistic authority some­ what similar to An American Tragedy. During the course of the action, the

reader finds himself thoroughly instructed in the illegal methods of influencing jurors outside the courtroom . Within the courtroom he is perm itted to observe

the actions of small town attorneys who may now know much law but who are

highly adept at playing upon the prejudices of men. In the office of Duns­

comb, he is treated to a realistic scene in which Timms demonstrates how ^

the typical country lawyer is able to blow his nose without the benefit of a

handkerchief. The following passage apparently is a faithful reproduction of

accepted manners in a country town prior to the Civil War;

Here occurred the great tour de force in manners of Squire Timms. Considerately turning his person quartering towards his host, and seizing him self by the nose, much as if he had a quarrel with that member of his face, he blowed a blast that sounded sonorously, and which fulfilled all that it promised. Now a better mannered man than Dunscomb it would not be easy to find. He was not particularly distinguished for elegance of deportment, but he was perfectly well-bred. Nevertheless he did not flinch before this broad hint from vulgarity, but stood it unmoved. 19

The full vigor of Cooper's unadorned style, however, is only manifested

in the creation of a series of excellent scenes in the second part of the book.

For example, during the swearing in of the jurors, an unknown "doctor"

appears who is "a celebrated quack. " Because the man is a completely

unscrupulous person "who made pills that would cure all diseases, " the

honest Dunscomb perem ptorily challenges him. He then explains to Timms

that "there is quackery enough in this system of a jury, without calling in

^9The Ways of the Hour, p. 1313. 135 assistance from the more open practitioners. " Nevertheless the more realistic Timms disagrees with the senior attorney when he replies:

"I'm afraid, 'Squire, he is just the sort of man we want. I can work on such spirits when I fail altogether with more every- day kind of men. A. little quackery does no harm to some causes. "

Since the ironic force of the incident largely depends upon the m atter-of- fact tone of the writing, it is difficult to see how this highly effective scene could be improved upon by the novelist's employment of a different style.

Equally effective is the handling of the lengthy episode in which M rs.

Burton, the prosecution's chief witness, testifies as to her knowledge of the flawed Italian coin and undergoes cross-exam ination by Dunscomb.

Fam iliar with the operations of law courts, Cooper takes pains to show that this woman qualifies as a highly effective witness. In areas where she is uninformed, she acknowledges the fact without hesitancy. In addition, her manner commands respect because she gives her testimony with "reserve and reluctance" which contrasts with "the pert readiness of

Mrs. Pope and her sisters, " the preceding witnesses for the prosecution

(p. 426). Concerning the central facts of the case, she chooses her words with care, but she does not hesitate to swear "point blank" that she has previously seen the marked Italian coin found in M ary's possession in the collection of Mrs. Goodwin (p. 427). As Cooper notes, Mrs. Burton^s, in general, very careful to tell the truth- -even though he hints that she is at the same time suppressing important information about the case.

When on the following day Dunscomb is to have his opportunity to

20Ibid., p. 345. r> 136 cross-exam ine the witness, the writer successfully evokes the atmosphere of the courtroom as indicated in the following passage:

The first act of the day opened by putting Mrs. Burton on the stand, for her cross-examination. As every intelligent person present understood that on her testimony depended the main result, the fall of a pin might almost have been heard, so profound was the general wish to catch what was going on. The witness, however, appeared to be calm, while the advocate was pale and anxious. He had the air of one who had alept little the past night. He arranged his papers with studied care, made each movement deliberately, com pressed his lips, and seemed to be bringing his thoughts into such a state of order and distinctness that each might be resorted to as it was needful. ^1

The psychological subtlety of Cooper's handling of this scene is made fully

evident when the cautious and deliberate duel between the attorney and the witness is brought to a climax by Dunscomb1 s sudden warning to M rs.

Burton that "the life of the prisoner at the bar will, most probably, be affected by your testimony. " In response to this admonition, the witness

"trembled from head to foot, " but does not retreat from her position that

the coin in question is the one she has seen in Mrs. Goodwin's collection

(p. 433). However, under this pressure Mrs. Burton for the first time

begins to exhibit a nervous mannerism. More than once she raises her

hand to her brow and darkens her face as evidence of her inner distress.

Sensing that he is close to discovering the truth, Dunscomb strikes at the

heart of the m atter by asking Mrs. Burton if she herself ever had "access

to the piece of gold found, or said to be found, in Mary Monson's posses­

sion, except on the occasion of the inquest" (p. 437). Although Dunscomb

has perceived that M rs. Burton is in some way involved in the case, his

2 hbid. , p. 432. attempt to get at the truth is defeated because the witness maintains her story in spite of her momentary nervousness.

There is therefore in this episode a vividly realized particularity which is evidence, on the one hand, in the logic of Dunscomb's questioning and his gentle but intense manner and, on the other, in Mrs. Burton's tendency to answer firmly and thoughtfully and in her attempt to be strictly truthful while suppressing information which would save Mary and incrim ­ inate herself as a thief. This episode moreover prepares the way for the bitterly ironic denouement which occurs shortly after the young lady is convicted of murder by the jury. Once the verdict is announced, Mary is permitted to speak, and in doing so she lays bare the folly of the proceedings which have led to her conviction without a shred of real evidence. She

observes:

"I have been told that crim e must be brought home by unanswerable proof, in order to convict. Who can say that such proof has been adduced in my case? It has not even been made certain that a man was killed, at all. Most respectable witnesses have testified that they believe those revolting “ remains of poor humanity, belonged once to women. Nor has it been shown that any one has been murdered. The fire may have been accidental, the deaths a simple consequence of the fire, and no one guilty. "22

Paradoxically, Mary, who turns out to be insane, is the only one at the

trial (except for Mrs. Burton) who knows the truth, for her interpretation

of the facts is almost immediately confirmed by the unexpected appearance

of the late Peter Goodwin.

The discussion of the prose in The Ways of the Hour has indicated 138 that the style has some rather serious limitations. However, it should be apparent that in spite of these defects in style the novelist's use of realistic detail and his creation of the ironic scenes in the last chapters powerfully harmonizes with his formal intention. In particular, the collapse into absurdity of the case against Mary is practically a parable illustrating the social and m oral disintegration that, the author believes, ensues when the opinions of men are substituted for the principles of truth and justice.

In commenting on the disintegration of order which occurs in the book, Howard Mumford Jones states that "in some sense the force of 23 cynicism can no further go. " However, this judgment as to the cynicism of the book may be easily misunderstood. Although the tone of the book is somewhat harsh, if not embittered, Cooper's ultimate design is not to teach the absurdity of all human existence. Instead it is to teach men hum ility--to show them that "infinite Wisdom" has placed them in a "condi­ tion of trial" subject to "the power that is still left in the hands of the

Father of sin" (p. 313) and that only by "admitting their weaknesses" will they be able to secure the divine aid in distinguishing truth "amidst the fogs of error" (p. 510).

23 "Prose and Pictures: James Fenimore Cooper, " History and the Contemporary, p. 78. CHAPTER VII

THE ESSENTIAL QUALITIES OF COOPER'S LAST FIVE NOVELS

I. A RESUME OF THE THREE STAGES OF COOPER'S FICTION

In this concluding chapter the intention is to complete the study of the last five novels of Cooper by summarizing their essential qualities. But in order to give edge and outline to this summary of the distinguishing features of the late books, one must first consider these works against the background of Cooper's evolution as a novelist, a pattern of development which seem s to divide into three rather well-defined stages. During the first period (extending from 1820 to about 1830) Cooper's novels, in the words of

Spiller, "criticize American culture only incidentally in an enthusiastic and imaginative presentation of the immediate past. Although it would be a mistake to pass over the evidences of realism in the writer's first books, there can be no doubt that this decade saw the publication of novels which present a highly romanticized treatment of character and natural setting.

In novels like The Red Rover (1827) and The Water-Witch (1830), the mood is clearly romantic, so much so that these works would almost appear to have been written by an admirer of Lord Byron. But during the second stage

(from 1831 to 183 8) Cooper's novels manifest a radical shift in emphasis from romantic individualism to realistic social criticism. Drawing upon his knowledge of European society acquired through an extended visit abroad,

^Spiller, op. cit., p. ix. 140 the novelist began, in works like The Headsman (1833), to analyze and compare the old and new worlds. Initially, European life suffers from the comparison, but in 1838 Cooper mounted an aggressive attack on leveling tendencies in American society. In that year he published Home as Found, and what he found at home was not to his liking: in his opinion commercialism, New England radicalism, and frontier egalitarianism were endangering American democracy by vulgarizing manners and disrupting the established social order.

During the final stage (from 1840 to 1850) his novels reveal his determination to formulate his social philosophy with increased fulness.

Apart from a brief return to the romance novel in The Deerslayer (1841), his books in the first part of this last decade reflect his twofold conviction that even a democratic community must have a pattern of authority and subordination and that society functions m ost effectively when authority is safely lodged in the hands of the landed gentry. In the Littlepage (’1844-1846) trilogy this conservative view of society came to what would seem to be its comprehensive expression. In Satanstoe (1844) and The Chainbearer (1845), the novelist pictures a healthy society in which leadership is provided by the gentleman members of the Littlepage family. But in the third book, The

Redskins (4846), leadership passes from the Littlepages into the hands of the conniving Newcomes, who lead the antirenters in their violent attacks on the persons and property of the great landlords of New York. Hence in The

7 For a brief discussion of Cooper's role in the struggle between land­ lords and tenants in the "Anti-renters W ar," see Arthur A. Ekirch, Jr., The Idea of Progress in America (New York: Peter Smith, 1951), pp. 179"82. 141

Redskins, Cooper maintains that with the breakdown of "the aristocracy

of the best" (the landed gentry) civilization in the United States has degen­

erated to the point where there is no longer a possibility of reversing the

downward trend.

It is just at this juncture, however, that students of the novelist tend

to blur the perspective on the development of Cooper's fiction, principally because they tend to assume that the author's social philosophy was so fully

stated in the Littlepage stories that the books published afterwards consti-

3 tute little more than footnotes to the main body of his work. But as a matter

of fact, even though the late fiction treats many of the problems dealt with in

previous works and develops a line of thought begun over a decade earlier,

the last five novels differ from the Littlepage novels in at least three

significant ways: they are (1) more thorough”going in their antiromanticism,

(2) more experim ental in their conception, and/{3) more formalized in their

narrative structure. Hopefully these three basic characteristics of the late

fiction can now be brought into clear perspective by the summary which

follow s:

II. A. PROFOUND ANTIROMA.NTICISM

Like m ost of the novels of ideas published during and since 1838, the

last works vigorously denounce the sentimental optimism which, the writer

believed, originated with the leveling politics of the frontier and the radical

progressivist movements of New England. The antiromanticism in the

^E. g., see Spiller, op. cit., p. 313. 142 late fiction, nevertheless, moves on a profounder level of implication than it does in books like Home as Found and the Littlepage trilogy. To begin with, the late books omit what is an important feature of the earlier problem novels-"namely, the figure of the idealized country gentleman, a character type who, until now, had functioned as the m oral center of the narrative action.^ Although critics regularly pass over this significant change in the pattern of characterization, there can be no question that the omission of this "man of principle" ^a spiritual descendant of Washington and Jefferson) from the late fiction significantly darkens the mood of the late stories. In a sense the effect is much like taking the Littlepage family from the trilogy of that name and leaving the field to the lawless families of Aaron Thousandacres and Jason Newcome.

In addition, Thousandacres and Newcome, despite their cunning alertness for "the main chance," are far from being as radically evil as

Stephen Spike in Jack Tier and Scalping Peter in The Oak Openings.

Whereas the two villains in the Littlepage trilogy are little m ore than petty thieves, Spike and Peter are intensified and universalized figures that have an obsessional devotion to self which is almost demonic in character. In the context of the narrative action in Jack Tier, it is altogether natural for

Cooper to liken Spike's role to that of "the Father of Lies" who regards "all human strife" with "grim satisfaction. Thus like many of the political

^Mark Woolston in The C rater and Tom Dunscomb in The Ways of the Hour, of course, have aristocratic overtones, but they are hardly the equivalents of the gentlemen of the Effingham and Littlepage fam ilies. Sjack Tier, p. 478. 143 leaders who have come to power in the twentieth century, Spike and Peter are pictured by Cooper as fully capable of organizing and carrying out a program of m ass murder which would appear to be inspired by "the Father of Lies. " Again, it is clear that Joel Strides of Wyandotte1 (1843) is a vicious, greedy personage, but his corruption is simply not in the same class with that of the miserly Deacon Pratt and the grasping Daggett in

The Sea Lions, who heedlessly throw away their lives in a mad pursuit of w e a lth .

Equally significant, social corruption in the last books is not restricted to a few central characters; indeed in these works practically all of Cooper's men and many of his women are involved in some form of evil. In The Ways of the Hour even the distinguished attorney finds himself virtually compelled to employ questionable methods for influencing jurors. In The Sea Lions and

Jack Tier, the youthful heroes (Gardiner and Mulford) are beset by the moral evils of pride and inordinate self-trust. And in The Crater, the first impor­ tant act of Mark Woolston results in his breaking the commandment which enjoins respect for one's parents. Moreover, the women characters-- those whom Cooper previously treated with gentlemanly respect--do not escape the novelist's withering critical touch. For example, Mrs. Budd in Jack Tier epitomizes human folly and self-conceit and even befuddles the naive Rose with her presumptious claim to specialized knowledge of m aritim e m atters. In the same novel Jack Tier (Moliy Swash) is terribly sinned against, but she is in her own right a coarse, tobacco-chewing sinner. It is true that

Mary Pratt in The Sea Lions is an idealized heroine, but Bridget Yardley in 144

The Crater joins with Mark Woolston in rebelling against the authority of their parents. Mary Monson in The Ways of the Hour is both self-willed and mad, and those who testify against her--Mrs. Burton, M rs. Pope, and the latter's sisters-“are depicted by Cooper as morally depraved creatures even though they are respected members of the Biberry community.

It should be clear, then, that in the late fiction the novelist depicts a dark, often violent, world which is plagued by "the perverse and free workings of a very evil£ human_7 nature."^ It also should be evident that his purpose in developing this view of life is to reflect on and to warn about the dangers inherent in the continued decay of society in the United

States. At the same time one must note that the antirom anticism of the late books is not to be identified with the nihilism which pervades the contemporary "theater of the absurd" and the fiction of Jean Paul Sartre.

Instead, Cooper's m ature view of human depravity is specifically Christian, reflecting the influence of the Augustinian tradition in theology. Accord­ ingly, even though men and their societies are corrupt, or at least tend toward corruption, the novelist maintains that their revolt against the divine law actually serves a useful purpose because it is somehow included within the designs of a mysterious Providence that works all things together for the ultimate good of the human race. Or to express the m atter in different term s, one may state that the author in his late fiction is attempting to assum e the role of a Biblical prophet who interprets and judges the conduct of individual men and the state of society in the light of

^The Ways of the Hour, p. 337. 145 divinely revealed truth.

In order to illustrate this last conclusion, one need only observe the difference between treatm ent of social evils in the problem novels of the eighteen-thirties and in these late books. In the stories of the middle period, character flaws are presented as vices which are condemned because they threaten the rights of private property and the stability of society. But in the last tales behavior is judged strictly in terms of

Christian standards? consequently, social vices are converted into repre­ hensible sins, that is, into transgressions of the divine law which constitute affronts to the divine majesty. Gossip, for instance, is represented as vicious and reprehensible in Homeward Bound and Home as Found, but in The Ways of the Hour it is severely condemned as a form of idolatry which is inspired by the devil himself. Cooper thus states that the mind of the talebearer often "obtains some modicum of fact, mixes it with large quantities of stupid fiction, delights in the idol it has thus fashioned out of its own head, and sends it abroad to find worshippers as dull, as vulgar-minded, and as uncharitable, as itself"; the gossip itself is further characterized as the "parent of all lies" which "the Father of sin" employs n for putting "his falsehoods in circulation. " Similarly, in the moral world of The Crater, excessive devotion to one’s m aterial interests is more than mere greediness; it is setting up "the idol of commerce to worship in lieu g of the ever-living God. " And in this utopian tale the faith which radical

7Ibid., pp. 421, 313-14.

®The Crater, p. 417. 146 dem ocrats have in the power and virtue of "the people" is held to be an 9 attem pt to substitute "the voice of the created for that of the C reator."

In keeping with this emphasis upon man’s limitations and inner corruption, Cooper carefully omits from most of his late books anything which may glorify human wisdom, power, and skill. With the exception of

Stephen Spike, there is no seaman in the last books who can compare with

Long Tom Coffin and Captain Heidegger, and with the possible exception of

Ben Boden, there is no woodsman in the last works who can compare with the Deerslayer. In respect to ships, the brig in Jack Tier is pictured as a genuine achievement of the shipbuilder’s art; however, the vessel is so old that the underwriters will not insure it. The twin schooners in The Sea Lions are serviceable for many ordinary tasks, but these vessels cannot compare with the swift ship of Tom Tiller in The

W ater-W itch. Similarly, in The Crater the hamlet on the reef is placed in an im pressive natural setting, but the buildings themselves are unimpressive.

In The Ways of the Hour, the village of Biberry is typical rather than pictur­ esque, and in the same tale New York City is described as having made progress in its architecture but as still continuing as "a vast expansion of mediocrity. "

Thus far the summary of the antiromantic character of the late fiction has brought the following important facts into the purview of the student of

^Ibid., p. 494.

0 The Ways of the Hour, p. 1. 147 these five books: (1) the omission from the narrative action of the agrarian aristocrat, (2) the intensification and universalization of evil through the creation of wicked leaders like Spike and Scalping Peter,

(3) the inclusion of the majority of the characters within the circle of evil,

(4) the evaluation of human conduct by explicitly stated Christian standards, and (5) the elimination of m aterial exalting human wisdom and skill. In carrying this discussion forward from the last point mentioned (the removal from the late books of anything suggesting human wisdom and skill), it is now appropriate to concentrate one's attention on Cooper's remarkable stress in each one of these novels on the impotence of man. Nevertheless, this aspect of Cooper's thought can be treated more satisfactorily in the next division of this chapter, since the novelist’s emphasis upon human frailty points beyond his anti romantic ism to a m aster purpose which supplies the basic impetus to each of the last novels.

III. AN ORIGINAL CONCEPTION

In respect to literary form each of the five late novels is a highly original work. Jack Tier has the appearance of the typical sea romance, yet the form of the book is deceiving, for it actually reverses all the conven­ tions previously established in the nautical stories of Scott, Byron, and the early Cooper. Moreover, The C rater, which combines motifs from Robinson

Crusoe and Paradise Lost, is the first Utopian novel written in the United

States. Equally original, The Oak Openings and The Sea Lions integrate

Christian doctrine into their narrative structures. And no less revolutionary

in its form than the other books, The Ways of the Hour is a pioneer murder 148 m ystery which reduces the legal processes in New York state to an a b s u r d ity .

However, that which is fundamental to the original form of each book, that which all the novels have in common, is a pattern of narrative action which reduces human aspirations and behavior to the level of the absurd.

In four of the five novels, m an's actions are rendered absurd through the instrum entality of the physical setting. In Jack Tier, Mulford, who has great confidence in his own powers, is stranded on the bottom of a capsized

schooner in shark-infested waters in an episode which brings into sharp focus the impotence of man (Mulford) and the power of the natural world.

Similarly, in The Crater, Woolston is marooned on a rocky reef in a remote part of the Pacific Ocean in a vast setting of sky and sea which suggests that man is little more than a helpless "mite" in an immense universe. Using the setting of the forest glades of western Michigan, The Oak Openings has its white Americans cut off from civilization, and thereby rendered virtually helpless, by the fall of the frontier outposts to a combined British and Indian assault. But it is in The Sea Lions that the folly of human pretensions is made fully patent through the entrapment of two groups of Yankees in the polar

region during the winter season.

Although The Ways of the Hour differs markedly from a book like The

Sea Lions which brings its characters either to death or to humility through

their isolation in a frigid corner of the immense natural world, the form of

the action in this last tale sustains the motif of the absurdity of man's efforts

with equal effectiveness. In this m ystery story the reader is treated to the

spectacle of a democratic community observing the legal forms of a jury trial 149 when, in reality, a misguided public opinion has made the discovery of obvious truth practically impossible.

As previously indicated, Cooper's ultimate purpose in creating

"a literature of the absurd" is not to express a nihilistic anti romantic ism but to bring into view his unique conception of m an's essential relationships.

In evaluating this prim ary emphasis in Cooper's fiction, Ringe states that the w riter's "moral view of the world and of men" includes "social aspects" but that the novelist's moral vision "is basically concerned with man's relation first to God revealed in the order of nature and only then to his fellows in an ordered society."** Granted that this insight of Ringe's brings some illumination to the study of Cooper's fiction, it is, nevertheless,m islead­ ing to apply such a judgment as this one to the late fiction, for in these books m an's relationship to God through nature is not more fundamental than m an's actions within a social context. Instead, Cooper actually is saying that the fundamental relation between God and man is that of Creator to his dependent creature. Hence in the scheme of the late novels the primordial transgression is to pass over that boundary which separates "the thing created" from the

Creator, an act of revolt which can take place either in the world of nature or in the community of men. On the one hand, one will recall that Mulford,

Spike, and Daggett make the profound mistake of overestimating self and underestimating the power of God as revealed in the natural order; but, on

the other, the demagogic leaders in The Crater make the equally serious

mistake of supposing that "the voice of the people" can be substituted for the

^Ringe, James Fenimore Cooper, p. 146. 150

"voice of the ever-living God." Cooper's essential point then is that both classes of transgressors--those who are blind to the divine majesty- revealed in nature and those who disrupt the social order established by divine Providence--are equally motivated by self-trust and self-will, having forgotten that they are m erely images of the divine Original.

It is true, of course, that Cooper's presentation of nature is the chief way in which he adumbrates the distinction between the Creator and the creature. Except for The Ways of the Hour, the novels depict nature as a kind of enveloping action" which brings blessing or judgment upon individual man and communities, depending upon their acceptance or rejection of the divine will as revealed in the Ten Commandments. In this "enveloping action, " nature is virtually the equivalent of the divine presence, and the vision of the natural world is virtually the vision of the divine nature; or to

express the matter metaphorically, one may state that nature is both the majestic face of God through which he reveals his greatness and the hand of

God by which he shows m ercy to the humble and brings swift and terrible

judgments upon those who worship the creature rather than the Creator.

Coordinate with this religious interpretation of nature, man, and

society is the novelist's highly original attempt to integrate particular

Christian doctrines into the narrative action of the late books. Having

employed his vast landscapes to establish the absurdity of self-trust, the

author nonetheless seems to have sensed that he had not offered man any

positive hope for the future apart from the suggestion that divine providence

appears to be directing human history toward a millenial age. Therefore

as Collins notes in a recent study, Cooper also sought to show in the late 151 12 novels that "all barricades go down except those raised by grace."

However, the introduction of the crucifixion motif into the action of The Oak

Openings and the polemical statement on the divinity of Christ in The Sea

Lions call for stronger terms than those employed by Collins; that is, Cooper is implying that men need more than "barricades" which are "raised by

divine grace." Using the converted Scalping Peter as his spokesman, he is

saying that man needs the "force of de Holy Spirit" so that "de heart of stone"

may be "changed to de heart of woman, and we all be ready to bless our

enemy and die."^

The heart of the matter, then, is that Cooper's late fiction derives

its essential originality from the w riter's total conception of existence and

not m erely from his modification of conventional literary form s and the 14 invention of new ones. As an intuitive literary artist Cooper was probably

incapable of self-consciously fashioning a new literary mode, yet under the

impetus of a master conception like his fundamental distinction between the

Creator and the creature he could and did invent revolutionary new form s

with which to express his view of man’s place in the universe and society.

IV. A. FORMALIZED NARRATIVE PATTERN

The third and last essential quality of the late fiction has to do with the novelist’s tendency to build his stories around a rather highly form alized

12 Collins, op. cit., p. 93. 13 The Oak Openings, p. 497. 14 For an elaboration of this conclusion, see Howard Mumford Jones, "Prose and Pictures: James Fenimore Cooper, " History and the Contemporary, pp. 74~76. 152 narrative pattern, a practice which seems to derive from his religious view

of existence. A faithful reader of Milton and the Bible, Cooper carried over

into his last volumes not only the Biblical life-and~world view but also the

Biblical imagery and schematism. Hence in the late fiction men like Mark

Woolston and Ben Boden tend to become Adamic symbols, and the physical

settings (the reef and the forest glades} in which they live suggest the m eta- 15 phor of a new Eden. In The Crater especially the Adamic metaphor is

expanded so that the experience of Woolston and the colonists becomes an

image of universal history as well as being an allegorical representation of

"the American dream. "

The schematism which distinguishes the late books, however, is not

limited to metaphors derived from Milton and the Bible. In The Oak Openings,

for example, white and red men are arranged in pairs or doublets in order

to suggest sim ilarities and contrasts between the two races. In Jack Tier

the two ships”_the Molly Swash and the naval sloop~~typify two kinds of

human society, the one subject to disorder and the other under proper

authority. More directly allegorical than Jack Tier, The Sea Lions depicts

twin ships and twin commanders who symbolize two kinds of unregenerate

men, the man given over to cupidity and the man who worships his reason.

As formal in its design as The C rater, this tale of the Antarctica uses the

two ships to symbolize the voyage of life and to adumbrate the fate of those

who persist in self-assertion.

1!*It is of interest to note that R. W. B. Lewis in The American Adam; Innocence, Tragedy, and Tradition in the Nineteenth Century (Chicago; The University of Chicago Press, 1955), pp. 98-105, says nothing about the Adamic motif in Cooper's late fiction. 153

Although it is necessary to draw attention to the particularized design in each of the late tales, one also must emphasize that the same general pattern appears in all five volumes. Basic to this common scheme is, first, the microsociety which provides the social setting in each book.

This small community may be a shipboard society as in Jack Tier and The

Sea Lions, an isolated settlement as in The Crater and The Oak Openings, or a village as in The Ways of the Hour; but whatever the particular modd of social existence, the story of universal man or the history of the United

States is effectively adumbrated by developments within each of these m icro- cosmicsocieties. Secondly, Cooper peoples everyone of these communities with characters that are not so much well-rounded personages as they are remarkable two-dimensional figures that embody his allegorical intention.

Usually they are types who incarnate the various moral, social, and intellectual corruptions which, Cooper thought, were coming to prevail in

American life; and, finally, in four of the five novels, the microsociety is involved in a historical process in which the actions of the members of the community lead either to the life or to the death of the community. Thus the well-ordered society of the naval sloop in Jack Tier, the band of whites led by the regenerated Scalping Peter in The Oak Openings, and the group

of Yankees directed by the renewed Gardiner find the way of life; but by contrast the communities connected with the Molly Swash in Jack T ier, the

schooner of Daggett in The Sea Lions, and the colony of Woolston in The

Crater are brought to total destruction by the power of nature.

It should be clear, then, that one of the essential qualities of the late

novels is the formal narrative structure which is present in each of the books. 154

Through books which are semiparabolic (Jack Tier, The Oak Openings, and The Ways of the Hour) or almost pure allegory (The Crater, The

Sea Lions), Cooper gave vivid expression to both his vigorous anti­ romanticism and his religious view of life.

V. A GENERAL ESTIMATE

Viewed in the light of this summary of their distinguishing features, the last five novels of Cooper appear to have a literary and intellectual significance which has often gone unrecognized in critical and scholarly circles. Indeed, the analysis of these books suggests that Cooper's imaginative powers, moral intensity, and intellectual force continued unabated almost to the time of his death in 1851. Therefore even though these books are clearly inferior to the Leather stocking volumes, it is probably safe to conclude that at least The C rater, The Oak Openings, and

The Sea Lions compare favorably with outstanding novels like The Wept of

W ish-ton-W ish, Wyandotte', and The Chainbearer and are clearly superior to romantic novels like The Water-Witch and The Red Rover. It is true,

of course, that in many passages the style in these late works fails to

support the bold conception of the plot, but it is equally true that in many

scenes the rhetorical force of Cooper's prose is sufficient to bring the narrative action and the intellectual theme into striking harmony.

As Ringe observes, the modern reader has difficulty entering into

the spirit of books like The Crater because "the century that has

intervened . . . has almost totally obscured the world view in term s of which"^ a man like Cooper worked. In addition, the contemporary reader will be troubled in reading these novels because the style is very old- fashioned. But these limitations, which, in fact, attend almost all of

Cooper's fiction, should not prevent one from recognizing that in respect to the late books his achievement often is, paradoxically, superior to his method, a conclusion aptly expressed by Joseph Conrad when he said:

He knows the men and he knows the sea. His method may be often faulty, but his art is genuine. The truth is within him. The road to legitim ate realism is through poetical feeling, and he possesses that-"only it is expressed in the leisurely manner of his tim e. ^

^Ringe, "Cooper's The Crater and the Moral Basis of Society, " p. 380. 17 Conrad, op. cit., p. 56. BIBLIOGRAPHY BIBLIOGRAPHY

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M elville, Herman. "Review of Sea Lions, " Literary World, IV (1849).

Philbrick, Thomas. Introduction to The Crater; or, Vulcan's Peak. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1962. APPENDIX PLOT OUTLINE OF JACK TIER

The narrative action in Jack Tier is prim arily concerned with a series of sea chases in which Captain Stephen Spike, the m aster and owner of the Molly Swash, is a central figure. In the opening episode,

Mrs. Budd and Rose Budd, M rs. Budd’s niece, board the brig as passengers at a Manhattan wharf much to the dismay of young Harry

Mulford, the first mate of the vessel, who suspects Spiked intentions toward his passengers. Not long after the ship sails down the East

River, a mysterious seaman named Jack Tier overtakes the Molly Swash in a small boat and is accepted as a member of the crew by Spike.

Although Spike’s stated intention is to sell a csargo of flour at a rendezvous at Key West, he bends every sail to escape when he is pursued by a revenue cutter. In the chase which follows, Spike demonstrates that he is a superb sailor and a man of unusual cunning, a combination of qual- ities which enables him to elude the cutter and sail free into the Atlantic

O cean.

In his relations with the two women, however, Spike proves to be unusually maladroit. As the ship moves into tropical waters, he tries to propose to Rose, but does it so clumsily that Rose’s aunt thinks Stpike is

seeking her hand. This em barrassing incident is temporarily closed by the appearance upon the horizon of the Poughkeepsie, an American man-

of-war. Since the sloop is taking part in the naval blockade of Mexico

during the war with that country, her officers are understandably suspi­

cious of any vessel sailing as far south as Santo Domingo. Nevertheless, 167

Spike tem porarily allays their suspicions and is permitted to continue on his way.

Having altered the course of the brig to lose the Poughkeepsie,

Spike guides his ship to a secret rendezvous in the Dry Tortugas, where a Mexican schooner lies at anchor. Although Spike seeks to conceal his traffic with the enemy by identifying the ship as Cuban, the real nature of the transaction becomes evident when a flour barrel is accidentally broken open, exposing a powder keg inside. After receiving one bag of gold as payment for the gun powder, the treasonous captain plans to earn another by selling his brig to Senor Mont ef aider an, the representative of the Mexican government. But before the treasonous captain consummates the sale, a tornado sinks the Mexican schooner and drowns all her crew.

Prom ised a second bag of gold by Senor Montefalderon for raising the schooner, Spike almost completes this task when the Poughkeepsie appears and forces the brig to take flight in order to escape the sloop's heavy guns.

Left on the island are Rose, Mrs. Budd, and Biddy Noon, M rs.

Budd's Irish servant woman. With them are Jack Tier--who has used a pistol to prevent Spike from taking Rose with him in the brig~«*and H arry

Mulford, the latter having abandoned Spike now that it is clear that Spike is a traitor to his country. Under Mulford*s leadership, the little group embarks in the Mexican schooner with the intention of returning to the

United States. But largely through the fault of Rose and M rs. Budd the

schooner capsizes, and through the clumsiness of Mrs. Budd the painter is lost. As a consequence, Mulford, Jack Tier, and three women are left

stranded on the bottom of the slowly sinking schooner. After the little band 168

undergoes a fearful struggle with thirst, Mulford swims through the shark-

infested seas, recovers the painter, and rescues Jack Tier and the women from the sinking schooner.

Soon, however, the painter is overtaken by Spike, who then leaves

Mulford to die, marooned on a naked rock among the Carribean reefs.

But without Spike's knowledge Jack Tier and Rose secretly steal the painter,

find Mulford, and then land again at the rendezvous in the Dry Tortuga s.

When the Swash returns a few nights later to the Florida Reef to pick up an

anchor chain, Spike is stunned to see Mulford, whom he supposes to be

dead, standing against the lighthouse in the moonlight. In the confusion

Jack Tier again boards the Swash which then sails to the place where the

Mexican schooner has been wrecked. Subsequently Mulford and Rose are

rescued from the Dry Tortugas by a party from the Poughkeepsie. The

couple are m arried by the chaplain while the naval vessel patrols the seas

in pursuit of Spike's brig.

Spike is determined to raise the schooner once again in order to

obtain the gold doubloons prom ised him by Senor Montefalderon. Before

the schooner can be raised, however, the shores give way and the

carpenter is drowned. The next morning Spike is suddenly compelled to

abandon his task by the appearance of the Poughkeepsie. In the chase which

follows the long range guns of the sloop wreck the brig. Spike and his crew,

along with Senor Montefalderon, Mrs. Budd, and her servant woman,

escape in the yawl, which, because it is overloaded, is in danger of being

swamped by the heavy seas or being overtaken by the cutter from the naval

vessel. In a desperate attempt to save himself by lightening the yawl, 169

Spike coolly engineers the murder of all the passengers, beginning with

Senor Montefalderon and ending with Mrs. Budd's servant. His method of execution is simply to have selected crew m em bers joustle or push the passengers and the other sailors into the sea. In the frightful chaos which ensues, nearly all the crew members are drowned along with the passengers. Jack Tier, however, manages to survive by swimming to the cutter. But at this point the free-trader's bold effort to escape is brought to an end by a shot from the cutter which m ortally wounds the captain.

In the denouement which follows, the dying Spike in the hospital at

Key West learns that Jack Tier is actually his wife (Molly Swash) whom he had abandoned twenty years before. Hardened as he is by his misdeeds,

Spike cannot bring himself to a genuine repentance for his past life although he asks for and receives his wife's forgiveness. After he dies with both prayers and curses upon his lips, his body is interred in the sands of the shore. Shortly afterwards, a mighty hurricane uncovers his grave and sweeps his corpse into the sea. Chastened by this entire experience,

Mulford returns with his bride to New York, accompanied by Molly, who, in time, ceases to mourn for Spike and begins to recover something of the appearance and habits of a woman. OUTLINE OF THE PLOT OF THE CRATER

In its broad framework, The Crater is a Utopian novel which pictures the rise and fall of an ideal society located on an isolated island in an uncharted part of the Pacific Ocean. The book is divided into two volumes: the first volume (Chapters I"XV) treats the founding and the development of the colony; the second volume (Chapters XVI-XXIX) presents the ideal society as it moves from prosperity into decadence and destruction.

The first volume is organized around Mark Woolston's experiences as the pioneer leader of the colony. A. native of Bristol, Pennsylvania,

Mark wilfully enters into m arriage with Bridget Yardley contrary to the wishes of her father and without the consent of his own parents. The repentant Mark then sails to the Pacific as the first officer of the

Rancocus, an American ship, owned by wealthy Quakers. Through the pride and folly of the captain and the second m ate, one evening the

Rancocus is trapped among reefs and pounding breakers shortly before sunset. Finally, Mark, assisted by Bob Betts, a seaman, brings the ship to anchor, but in the confusion of the night the captain and the rest of the crew appear to be lost amidst the heavy seas.

With the return of daylight and calm weather, the two survivors discover that they are near a long, low reef crowned with an extinct volcanic crater. Shortly thereafter, Mark and Betts are able to steer the ship into a haven near the barren island. Drawing upon the supplies of the vessel, Mark plants seeds on the side of the crater, having first 171

mixed bird dung with the volcanic ash to create soil. But when the crops

are beginning to grow, Mark suffers another disaster. Having built a pinnace from m aterials found in the hold of the Rancocus, the two men are

making preparations to launch their craft when a hurricane sweeps the

boat to sea_"with Betts in it. Thus Mark loses both his man Friday and

his hopes of returning to civilization in one moment.

Alone now on the island, Mark is profoundly impressed by the con­

trast between the power of God as this is mirrored in the majesty of the

stars at night and his own finite strength. This impression of the

omnipotence of God and his own helplessness is heightened by a siege of

fever which nearly causes his death. Upon recovery Mark gratefully

acknowledges that he is totally dependent upon divine providence for sus"

taining his simplest needs.

The first volume closes with a humbled Mark beginning to enjoy

increased prosperity. His crops produce rich harvests and an earthquake

lifts more land from the sea, greatly extending his oceanic paradise.

Having built a second sm all boat, he explores his new territory and

discovers that his island is now part of a chain which is dominated by a

large volcanic mountain which he names Vulcan's Peak. His joy is made

complete when Betts appears in the pinnace at the mountain and informs

M ark that he has brought his wife and other colonists to help develop the

new lan d .

The second volume of The C rater pictures the island increasing in

the numbers of its citizens and in the material prosperity of its inhabitants.

As governor for life, Mark is a generous leader who rules justly. In 172 particular, he insists that the property rights of each man be respected.

As industrious Americans, the colonists build ships and engage in whaling and trade between the islands and the rest of the wor-ld. An attack by Wally, a native chieftan from a neighboring chain of islands, ends with the invaders being routed by the colonists. Subsequently, the courage of the craterinos is further attested by their ability to meet and defeat the forces of Wally leagued with a pirate fleet of Europeans.

With the successful conclusion of the "Pirate-W ar, " the citizens begin very quickly to exhibit evidences of pride and self-trust. They assume that the general prosperity of the island society depends upon their own efforts and strength. They now come to speak of themselves as the "people **as though they themselves had made the lovely paradise in which they live. Thus the community is ripe for the machinations of unscrupulous leaders when more colonists arrive from the United States.

Among these emigrants are to be found a printer, four clergymen, and a lawyer. The printer sets up the Crater Truth-Teller, a newspaper chiefly noted for success in propagating lies, selfishness, and vulgarity in the name of democracy and majority opinion. The new m inisters prove to be schismatics who quickly overwhelm Mr. Hornblower, the

Episcopalian clergyman, in a series of sectarian quarrels. Money­

lenders begin to multiply and to oppress the property owners with high

interest rates.

Matters come to a climax in the Crater Truth-Teller's call for a

new constitution, which supposedly will make the government more

responsive to the will of the people. Over M ark's opposition, a new 173 constitutional document is drawn and Mark is removed from the governor*s office. The final insult comes from a lawsuit, pressed by the new attorney-general, which is meant to deprive Mark of the owner" ship of the crater, his original home when he first landed upon the is la n d .

In dismay a disillusioned M ark leaves the colony for an extended trip to the United States. After many months he sails again to the Pacific paradise, but, to his astonishment, it is no longer to be found. A second earthquake, more severe than the first, has submerged the whole colony under twenty fathoms of water. All that remains of the island group is Vulcan's Peak.

4 PLOT OUTLINE OF THE OAK OPENINGS

Set in the forest glades of western Michigan during the War of 1812, the narrative action of The Oak Openings is concerned with the fate of a small band of white Americans isolated from civilization by the fall of several frontier outposts to a combined B ritish-Indian attack. Although the opening scenes in which Ben Boden, the bee hunter, traces a bee to its hive are outwardly peaceful, there are numerous hints given by the novelist that physical conflict between the white Am ericans and the

Indians is to be expected. For example, Gershom Waring, the sottish whiskey trader, frequently checks the priming of his rifle and closely watches Pigeonswing and Elksfoot while Boden is following the bee to its tree. Shortly thereafter, Pigeonswing, who proves to be an Indian messenger from the American commander at Chicago, secretly informs

Boden that war between the United States and England has already broken out and that the British have used their Indian allies to capture several important frontier outposts held by the Americans. Pigeonswing then commits the first act of violence in the tale by killing Elksfoot, the

Pottawattamie warrior, who apparently has been planning to take the scalps

of Boden and Waring.

The unfolding of the narrative action thus far would seem to confirm the impression that the story is moving toward a climactic battle between the white men and the Indians. Nevertheless, the ensuing conflict takes

a different direction from that which is usually found in Cooper's forest

romances. Although Boden is a highly skilled woodsman somewhat like 175

Hawkeye, he prefers to avoid physical conflict with the tribesmen.

Therefore, he descends the Kalamazoo River with Gershom Waring, hoping to find the latter1 s wife and sister, and then to depart for a safer region.

His plan of escape goes awry, however, when Gershom becomes so drunk that he cannot travel. In addition, Pigeonswing is taken prisoner by hostile braves who plan to torture the young Chippewa w arrior. Almost miraculously, Boden is able to slip into the camp of the Pottawamies and free Pigeonswing without taking a single life of his enemies; and even when he falls into the hands of the tribesmen, he escapes without using force by pretending to be a great medicine chief who knows the location of a "whiskey spring. "

The arrival of Parson Amen and Corporal Flint in the company of a mysterious Onoah, or Scalping Peter, further complicates the action and heightens the suspense. Although this mysterious chieftain has a reputa­ tion as an implacable foe of all whites, Parson Amen believes thewarchief*s

assurances that the gathering of the leaders and w arriors of the various

tribes in the oak openings is for peaceful purposes. Obsessed by the strange

notion that the American Indians are the descendants of "the ten lost tribes

of Israel, " the ignorant but pious Methodist m issionary is easily led into a

trap by Scalping Peter, who, in turn, is obsessed by the notion that he is

called to unite the tribes in order to destroy all white men by means of fire

and tomahawk.

Over Boden's protests, the party ascends the Kalamazoo River to the

Indian gathering in the oak openings (meadows in the oak forest), where

Amen plans to explain to the Indians that they are descendants from the 176 ancient Hebrew tribes. Motivated by a desire to protect Gershom

Waring's wife and Margery, his lovely sister, Boden reluctantly returns to his cabin in the forest glades and, assisted by Corporal Flint, he labors to convert his home into a log fort. While he is in the process of fortifying his dwelling, the Indian chieftains form themselves into a council and listen to Scalping Peter's plan to create a confederation of tribes in order to wipe out all white men, including the British as well as the Americans. During one of the sessions of this Indian council, Amen is permitted to attend the congress of warriors and expound his eccentric idea that the Indians are derived from the lost tribes of Israel.

Led by Scalping Peter, the Indians scornfully reject this strange explanation of their origins and then determine to begin their campaign to annihilate the white race. But before they initiate this bloody work, they assemble in the meadows to watch Boden trace bees to their hives. Hardened as he is, Scalping Peter is im pressed by Boden's rudimentary knowledge of science which enables him to "line" the bees to their honey trees with amazing accuracy. Moreover, Peter is softened by M argery's kind manner and her sympathetic concern for the Indian people. Consequently he decides to save Margery by urging Boden to m arry her, knowing that the Indian warriors are reluctant to touch a medicine chief like Boden or any thing that belongs to him.

Shortly after Amen m arries Boden and Margery, the warchief delivers the unsuspecting divine and the corporal into the hands of the red w arriors.

In this climactic scene the two men are denied the easy solution of the

romanticized escape or heroic death. Instead, the physical conflict between 177 white men and Indians is largely transcended by a spiritual contest between Amen and Peter. In this struggle Peter assumes the role of the reform er who proposes to renew society through the use of force. Further­ more, he scorns Amen's teaching about a dying Son of God who forgave his m urderers. Because he has never seen an Indian or a white man forgive his enemies, he states that he will not believe such a thing unless he sees it with his own eyes. Thus Peter is completely unprepared when Amen, the man whom he has betrayed, asks his God to forgive Peter for bringing about his death. With his heart already touched by the Christian concern of M argery Waring for his people, Peter is shaken to the foundations of his being by this act. And in his bewildered mental state, he virtually identifies

Amen's martyrdom with the death of Jesus. As a result of this Christ- like death of the missionary, the Indian reform er is left with an overwhelm­ ing sense of the reality of Christ's atonement.

But while Amen undergoes a m artyr's death and Peter is experiencing a revolution in his character, Corporal Flint determines to die a soldier's death and, if possible, to revenge himself upon his enemies. He harangues the Indians in order to provoke them into killing him quickly, hoping by this expedient to escape the tortures devised by the savages. When this verbal assault fails to bring results, he seizes a tomahawk and kills one

Indian and wounds several others. Having failed in his attempt to escape,

Flint is tied between two bent saplings, which, at the moment they are

released, will begin to pull him to pieces in m id-air. Ironically this cruel death between two trees vaguely reminds Flint of the cross of Christ, but

the hardness of his heart prevents his obtaining any comfort from this thought. 178

Fortunately he is delivered from this terrible death by a m erciful shot fired by Pigeonswing.

During the time the w arriors are engaged in torturing Flint, Scalping

Peter slips away from the encampment and warns the remaining whites of

their danger. A. changed man who is on his way to conversion, Peter

guides the little company down the river to civilization. During the flight

M argery furthers Peter's knowledge of the Christian faith by instructing

him in its doctrines and practices. As a consequence Peter becomes in

his own words, "another Injin," who now confesses his faith in the Great

Spirit who "let his own Son die for all men. "

In the epilogue the story moves forward thirty-three years to the time

of Cooper's trip to Michigan (1847). In this closing scene Peter is

pictured as an ideal Christian who shows by his love for all men how human

hatred may be overcome so that all races may live in peace with one

a n o th e r. PLOT OUTLINE OF THE SEA LIONS

Reduced to its essential framework. The Sea Lions relates the experiences of two rival groups of New Englanders in their efforts to exploit some rich seal islands in the antarctic region and to locate a cache of pirate gold buried in the West Indies. The conflict between the two groups is initiated by the appearance of a dying sailor named Daggett in the community of Yankees who have settled at Oyster Pond, Long

Island. Deacon Pratt, a moderately wealthy member of the local Congre­ gational Church, manages to learn of the location of the coveted islands from

Daggett's charts after the seaman dies. But Daggett's relatives living in

M artha's Vineyard suspect that the dying man was on his way home with valuable information which now is in the deacon's possession. Therefore they secretly build a schooner which corresponds in every detail to the

Sea Lion being outfitted by Roswell Gardiner for Deacon Pratt. With a touch of ironic humor, the Daggetts of M artha's Vineyard even call their vessel by the same name as Pratt's.

Before Gardiner departs for the south Atlantic, however, Mary Pratt, the deacon's niece, informs the young captain that she will not m arry him because he rejects the divinity of Jesus. The tension created by this difference in outlook suggests that the conflict in the book is as much over ideas and principles as it is over the quest for m aterial wealth, a conclusion which is borne out by the circumstances which lead to a near tragedy off

Cape Hatteras. Embarking in the Sea Lion, Gardiner discovers that he has

an identical consort which is commanded by Captain Daggett, the nephew 180 of the deceased seaman. When the twin schooners approach Cape Hatteras,

Daggett (the symbol of greed) stays close to Gardiner's vessel because he suspects that Gardiner intends to pass through the West Indies in search of pirate gold. On his part Gardiner (the symbol of intellectual pride) views

Daggett's running near the land as a competitive challenge and, therefore, tries to keep his ship nearer the coastline than Daggett's Sea Lion in order to demonstrate his skill and fearlessness. But as a consequence of Daggett’s aggressive pursuit of Gardiner's ship and the pride of the young captainfrom

Oyster Pond, both vessels are almost lost in the breakers off Cape Hatteras.

Only a sudden change in the weather prevents the twin schooners from carrying their crews to watery graves.

Because the mainmast of the Sea Lion from Oyster Pond has been broken by the pounding seas off the Carolina coast, Daggett generously renders assistance and accompanies the damaged ship to Beaufort Harbor, where it can be repaired. His purpose, of course, is not only to help

Gardiner but also to persuade the young man to accept him as a partner in the venture. But Gardiner rejects the offer of association, knowing that greedy Deacon Pratt would never agree to such an arrangement.

The taking of a whale less than a week's sailing time from Rio de

Janeiro, however, generates new tensions between the two captains. In pursuing a herd of whales, Daggett's harpoon line becomes entangled with a huge whale that Gardiner has already harpooned. When both leaders participate in the killing of this giant animal, their mutual claim to the

whale appears likely to lead to violence, a development which is prevented 181 only by Daggett's grudging admission that Gardiner has the prior right to the kill. In a letter to the deacon and Mary delivered by a passing ship,

Gardiner explains that Daggett’s spirits subsequently were restored by his success in returning to the herd and taking three other whales. In the same letter the conflict between the hero and the heroine is further emphasized by Gardiner's rem ark that he continues to read the Bible as

Mary has suggested but that his skepticism seems more firmly rooted than ever.

After stopping at Rio de Janeiro to ship the whale oil home, Gardiner sails his schooner to Cape Horn, where he manages to lose his escort in a gale. From there he directs the Sea Lion into the icy waters of the

southern seas. Eventually he passes through the awesome ice fields and arrives at a group of islands which abound with fur seals. Landing on the principal island (Sealer's Land), Gardiner has his crew erect a "warehouse" and commence the slaughter of the seals. When the hold of Gardiner's vessel is well on the way to being filled, Daggett's Sea Lion appears on the horizon. But before Daggett can sail his ship into the ice free haven at

Sealer's Land, it is trapped in the ice floes. Joining Daggett in a whale boat, Gardiner and his crew help him save the ship by putting up supports in the hold while the men from M artha's Vineyard cut away the ice which

threatens to crush the schooner.

After the vessel is freed, Daggett and his crew aggressively attack

the seal herd because the season is already far advanced. Unfortunately

the seals become shier than hitherto because of the increased activity and

for a time almost disappear from the island. Furthermore, the work of 182

Daggett's crew is handicapped by their captain's having broken his leg while climbing down from the summit of the mountain which dominates the island. The cunning Daggett, however, plays upon Gardiner's

sympathy for his crippled condition in order to keep the young man with him to help fill his hold even though Gardiner's ship is already loaded.

Gardiner decides to remain, but when the ice begins to move into the

anchorage, he argues with Daggett for an immediate departure. Never­

theless, even with this mounting danger, the covetous Daggett insists

upon continuing his work until his ship is completely filled with furs.

By the time the ships £ ready to leave the seal rookery, masses

of ice block the seaway to the north, and, in the attempt to break through,

Daggett's schooner is trapped in the ice and quickly converted into a

worthless wreck. Forced to return to the anchorage to sit out the dreaded

winter, the two groups at first live together peaceably in the warehouse

built by the men from Oyster Pond; eventually, however, Daggett and his

company are offended by Gardiner's sensible observation that it may be

necessary to use the wrecked ship for fuel in order to save their lives

during the terrible winter. Therefore, still determined to rebuild his ship

in the spring, Daggett returns to his ruined ship to protect it from Gardiner's

men whom he suspects of planning to steal the wood.

As the fierce antarctic winter increases in its unbelievable intensity,

Gardiner's character is gradually transformed. He is awed, indeed

practically overwhelmed, by the majesty and alm ost unlimited power of

nature in the world of the south Atlantic. At the same time he has continued

his Bible reading and carried on conversations with Stimson, a seaman 183 who vigorously defends the Trinitarian faith against G ardiner's Uni tar- ianism. Under this combination of influences, Gardiner becomes daily more aware of his own limitations as a finite creature.

By marked contrast the degeneration of Deacon Pratt and Daggett continues unabated. Now that his ship is many months overdue, the deacon at Oyster Pond is actually worrying himself to death. And it is clear from Daggett's conduct that his determination to preserve a com­ pletely ruined vessel is an irrational obsession. After returning to his own quarters, Daggett insists upon sparing the fuel in order to save the wood of his ship, but in doing this he permits the fire to go out in the fearful cold of the antarctic winter. Consequently Daggett and practically all of his crew are dead or dying when they are discovered by Gardiner and Stimson.

Deeply shocked by Daggett's death, a humbled and renewed Gardiner manages to keep his crew alive by burning the planking from his ship.

With the coming of spring, he uses the materials from Daggett's vessel to rebuild his schooner and then sails to the West Indies to locate the buried pirate treasure. Having found the gold hoard, he returns to Oyster

Pond, only to learn that the miserly deacon is dying as a consequence of his long months of anxious waiting for word from Gardiner. After the deacon's death, Gardiner, who is now a Trinitarian, m arries Pratt's niece and comes into the possession of the m iser's property. PLOT OUTLINE OF THE WAYS OF THE HOUR

The story in The Ways of the Hour centers on the murder trial of

Mary Monson, a mysterious young woman who has recently come to live in the village of Biberry near New York City. In the introductory episode,

Tom Dunscomb, a distinguished New York City attorney, is drawn into the defense of Mary, who is strongly suspected by the villagers of murdering

Mr. and Mrs. Peter Goodwin and attempting to conceal the fact by arson.

But the evidence justifying the indictment of the Goodwin's house guest

seems to be very insubstantial. For one thing, the inquest reveals that

the two people who were consumed in the fire died from a single blow

which fractured both their skulls, a circumstance which indicates that the

delicate young woman could hardly be the m urderer. For another, it is

difficult to see what motive she would have for committing the crime. Mrs.

Goodwin's modest gold hoard is missing, but Mary is obviously a person

of considerable wealth and, therefore, not likely to be interested in her

landlady's collection of coins.

However, M ary's refusal to identify herself, her aristocratic deport­

ment, and her possession of an Italian coin alleged to have belonged to

M rs. Goodwin cause the grand jury to indict her for double murder-»over

the vigorous opposition of Dunscomb and Dr. McBrain, a prominent New

York surgeon. That this indictment is based prim arily on antiaristocratic

prejudice is evident from the grand jury's refusal to consider seriously

the careful judgment of the distinguished surgeon who points out that the

charred skeletons appear to be the remains of two women, not of a man 185 and his wife. Having lightly set aside McBrain's expert judgment, the coroner and the coroner's jury accept the united opinion of five country doctors who maintain that the two skeletons are unquestionably those of the drunken Peter Goodwin and his shrewish wife. In addition, the official investigators practically ignore the question of the disappearance of the

German servant woman who lived with the Goodwins. The truth of the m atter is that if it were not for Mary's upper class manners the German

servant woman would appear to be a more likely suspect.

This opening episode establishes rather clearly the nature of the conflict in the book: the basic contest is between truth and justice, on the

one hand, and a prejudiced public opinion, on the other. As the story unfolds, however, it becomes increasingly apparent that this legal struggle is very one-sided—that the press and the gossips work together powerfully to re-enforce the opinions of the majority of the people who resent Mary because she is different from them. On her part the imprisoned Mary

makes m atters worse by doing such "foreign" things as playing the ha.rp,

speaking French to her maid, reading French literature, and, rather

foolishly, ostentatiously displaying her wealth. To complete her entrap­

ment, a nephew of the deceased couple hires a lawyer named Willsams, a

highly skilled manipulator of public opinion, to assist the district attorney

in the prosecution of the case.

Before the jury trial begins, both Dunscomb and Mary appear to stand

firm ly for the cause of truth and integrity. But in the face of mounting

opposition, Dunscomb feels compelled to employ the unscrupulous Squire

Timms to influence a public opinion in his client's behalf. To deepen the irony, Dunscomb eventually learns that Mafcy also has set herself to

influence the attitude of the people toward her. Without informing her

senior attorney, she has paid Timms large sums of money to spread

exaggerated rum ors about her past life in order to provoke a negative

reaction among the people. With considerable guile she reasons that if

she can send out a sufficient number of wildly impossible rumors about

herself eventually people will tend to discount all the stories about her

as incredible. This compromising of the position of the defense does not,

however, significantly affect the direction of the trial. Community

prejudice is so deeply entranched that it cannot be readily influenced by

the half "way m easures taken by Dunscomb and Mary.

Increasingly Dunscomb senses that he is living in a world where all

knowledge of principle has been lost, where opinion is king. He is not,

therefore, surprised when the jury members appear to be more impressed

by the five country doctors' opinion as to the medical facts than by M cBrain's

judgment that the charred skeletons are both female. True, Dunscomb is

able to shake the testimony of M rs. Pope, the neighbor of the Goodwins who

stated at the inquest that she had seen M ary's Italian coin in the possession

of Mrs. Goodwin. But this victory is short-lived. To Dunscomb*s dismay,

Mrs. Burton, a respected neighbor of the Goodwins, is called as a surprise

witness by the prosecution. Mrs. Burton calmly identifies M ary's Italian

coin as the one she has previously seen in M rs. Goodwin's collection.

As far as the jury is concerned, this testimony settles the question of

M ary's guilt. Guided by one of W illiams' personal friends who has been

planted on the jury, the members of the jury convict the defendant of m urder, and the judge sentences her to hang. Before the jury can leave the courtroom, however, the absurdity of the whole process is made evident by the appearance of the drunken Peter Goodwin. A. new jury of shocked citizens is quickly impaneled, and Mary is speedily acquitted of the indictment after M rs. Burton confesses that she was the person who

stole the gold. A. re-exam ination of the facts reveals that Peter Goodwin had left his wife the night before the accident and that Mrs. Goodwin had asked the servant woman to sleep with her. During the fire the women were struck and killed by a plough share which fell from the garret floor above them.

The picture of m oral chaos is not finally completed, however, until

Dunscomb discovers his client's true identity. She is the very wealthy

M. de Larochforte, the American wife of a French nobleman whom she

has deserted. Protected by the M arried Women's Property Act and free

to seek a divorce in some state with liberal laws, she is a proud victim of

the ways of the hour--which allow excessive liberty to women. In a final

ironic touch, Dunscomb learns that his fair client is insane. At any

point in the trial she could have saved herself by disclosing her identity

or m erely telling all that she knew about Mrs. Burton's part in the case.