DOCSLIB.ORG

Introduction to Last of the Mohicans • This Is a Novel Written by James Fenimore Cooper

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Introduction to Last of the Mohicans • This Is a Novel Written by James Fenimore Cooper Last of the Mohicans By James Fenimore Cooper Introduction to Last of the Mohicans • This is a novel written by James Fenimore Cooper. • It was published in 1826. • It was the third of five novels about Natty Bumpo or Leatherstocking, America’s first literary hero. • All five novels became known as his Leatherstocking Tales. • In LOTM Natty Bumpo is known as Nathaniel (his white name) or Hawkeye (his Mohican name). • Story set during the French and Indian War. JFC used the war as a backdrop for scenes of greatness: great courage, great treachery, and great love. Background for Last of the Mohicans • Even though this story was written in 1826, it is set during the French and Indian War, in the year 1757. • Think back to the unit we just studied. The year from which this film is set, is BEFORE what major event? – The Revolutionary War • This means that the characters in the film are still colonists and citizens of the British crown. • During this war, the British were fighting against the French and the Indians for possession of the “western” territories beyond the colonies. – After this war, anti-crown colonists began calling themselves “patriots” and actively protesting the British crown. – Birth of the Romantic “American voice.” Consider the Romantic… • Why do you think a war, from nearly 70 years before the novel’s time would be a desirable setting for a Romantic novel? – Hint: Think about the Romantic, idealized notion of war versus the realistic, actualities of war. Also, how does it emphasize American patriotism? • Look at your Romanticism notes. Which characteristic of Romanticism do you think the above concept best fits? Why? – (Hint: Think about the nostalgia and heroic myth of wars) Background for Last of the Mohicans Added Tension: • Many colonists who did not have enough money to come to the colonies became indentured servants. – Indentured servants were people (generally Europeans) who would work without wages for a period of time (usually seven years) in order to pay their passage. – Frontiersmen who were indentured servants often felt torn between loyalty to the British crown, who gave them their start in the colonies and loyalties to their community, which they help create out of the wilderness. • Therefore, because of this war, the colonists and frontiersmen's loyalties should be with the British crown, but tensions and frustrations of the Revolutionary War were already beginning. Characters in Last of the Mohicans • In this film, you will see two groups of Native Americans helping to fight the French and Indian War: the Hurons and the Mohicans. • Each tribe has aligned themselves with one of the opposing sides of the war: British French Mohicans Huron and Ottawa Nathaniel, because he is Because the Huron have white, can speak English allied themselves with and Mohican. the French, many of them can speak French. Characters in Last of the Mohicans Mohicans • Hawkeye: He is also called Nathaniel and is an adopted Mohican. He is the Romantic hero or protagonist of this film. • Uncas: He is Hawkeye’s Mohican brother • Chingachgook: He is Uncas’s father and Hawkeye’s adopted father Mohican’s Frontier Friends • John Cameron: He and his family live on the frontier • Jack Winthrop: He is also a frontiersman. He becomes the civilian militia “leader” when they are asked to fight with the British crown against the French. Characters in Last of the Mohicans British Soldiers and Family • Colonel Munro: He is the military leader of Fort William Henry. He is called “the Gray Hair” by his enemy. • Cora Munro: She is the Romantic Heroine of the story and Hawkeye’s love interest. • Alice Munro: Cora’s sister. She represents the “typical” female of that time period. • Duncan Heyward: He is a British officer that escorts Cora and Alice from Albany, NY to meet their father at Fort William Henry. He is in love with Cora and proposes marriage at the beginning of the film. And now the “Bad Guys” French Enemies • Magua: He is a Huron Native American. At the beginning of the film, he poses as a Mohican to gain the trust of the British. He has a vendetta against Colonel Munro, whom he calls “the Gray Hair.” • General Montcalm: He is the leader of the French army who is attacking Fort William Henry. Important Themes in Film • The beauty and inspiration of the natural setting reflects the ideas of the Romanticism characteristics. • The actions and beliefs of the Romantic hero emphasize Romantic ideals. • Personal morals and beliefs supersede societal laws. – Is it considered sedition (treason) if you follow your own moral code instead of doing what the government commands you to do? • Romantic characters have an awareness of what is the right choice for them based on their intuition..
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Episodes from a Hudson River Town Peak of the Catskills, Ulster County’S 4,200-Foot Slide Mountain, May Have Poked up out of the Frozen Terrain
    1 Prehistoric Times Our Landscape and First People The countryside along the Hudson River and throughout Greene County always has been a lure for settlers and speculators. Newcomers and longtime residents find the waterway, its tributaries, the Catskills, and our hills and valleys a primary reason for living and enjoying life here. New Baltimore and its surroundings were formed and massaged by the dynamic forces of nature, the result of ongoing geologic events over millions of years.1 The most prominent geographic features in the region came into being during what geologists called the Paleozoic era, nearly 550 million years ago. It was a time when continents collided and parted, causing upheavals that pushed vast land masses into hills and mountains and complementing lowlands. The Kalkberg, the spiny ridge running through New Baltimore, is named for one of the rock layers formed in ancient times. Immense seas covered much of New York and served as collect- ing pools for sediments that consolidated into today’s rock formations. The only animals around were simple forms of jellyfish, sponges, and arthropods with their characteristic jointed legs and exoskeletons, like grasshoppers and beetles. The next integral formation event happened 1.6 million years ago during the Pleistocene epoch when the Laurentide ice mass developed in Canada. This continental glacier grew unyieldingly, expanding south- ward and retreating several times, radically altering the landscape time and again as it traveled. Greene County was buried. Only the highest 5 © 2011 State University of New York Press, Albany 6 / Episodes from a Hudson River Town peak of the Catskills, Ulster County’s 4,200-foot Slide Mountain, may have poked up out of the frozen terrain.
    [Show full text]
  • Before Albany
    Before Albany THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK Regents of the University ROBERT M. BENNETT, Chancellor, B.A., M.S. ...................................................... Tonawanda MERRYL H. TISCH, Vice Chancellor, B.A., M.A. Ed.D. ........................................ New York SAUL B. COHEN, B.A., M.A., Ph.D. ................................................................... New Rochelle JAMES C. DAWSON, A.A., B.A., M.S., Ph.D. ....................................................... Peru ANTHONY S. BOTTAR, B.A., J.D. ......................................................................... Syracuse GERALDINE D. CHAPEY, B.A., M.A., Ed.D. ......................................................... Belle Harbor ARNOLD B. GARDNER, B.A., LL.B. ...................................................................... Buffalo HARRY PHILLIPS, 3rd, B.A., M.S.F.S. ................................................................... Hartsdale JOSEPH E. BOWMAN,JR., B.A., M.L.S., M.A., M.Ed., Ed.D. ................................ Albany JAMES R. TALLON,JR., B.A., M.A. ...................................................................... Binghamton MILTON L. COFIELD, B.S., M.B.A., Ph.D. ........................................................... Rochester ROGER B. TILLES, B.A., J.D. ............................................................................... Great Neck KAREN BROOKS HOPKINS, B.A., M.F.A. ............................................................... Brooklyn NATALIE M. GOMEZ-VELEZ, B.A., J.D. ...............................................................
    [Show full text]
  • The Making of a Mohicans Adaptation Barker, Martin
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Aberystwyth Research Portal Aberystwyth University A very American fable: the making of a Mohicans adaptation Barker, Martin Published in: Nineteenth-Century American Fiction on Screen Publication date: 2006 Citation for published version (APA): Barker, M. (2006). A very American fable: the making of a Mohicans adaptation. In R. B. Palmer (Ed.), Nineteenth-Century American Fiction on Screen (pp. 9-28). Cambridge University Press. http://hdl.handle.net/2160/1989 General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the Aberystwyth Research Portal (the Institutional Repository) are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the Aberystwyth Research Portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the Aberystwyth Research Portal Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. tel: +44 1970 62 2400 email: [email protected] Download date: 09. Jul. 2020 Comp. by: MuJayakumar Date:6/12/06 Time:16:07:37 Stage:1st Revises File Path://spiina1001z/cup_prod1/PRODENV/000000~2/000B86~1/S00000~3/ 000000~1/000000~2/000013662.3D Proof by: QC by: Author: Barker 1 A very American fable: the making of a Mohicans adaptation Martin Barker and Roger Sabin In 1936 the second major screen version of James Fenimore Cooper’s (1789–1851) The Last of the Mohicans was released by a small outfit, Reliance Pictures, through United Artists.
    [Show full text]
  • January/February 2011
    Schenectady County Historical Society Newsletter Volume 54 54 NumberNumber 1-2 1-2 JanuaryJanuary-Februar - Februaryy 2011 2011 3322 Washington Avenue,Avenue, Schenectady, Schenectady, New New York York 12305 12305 (518) 374-0263374-0263 Web site: http://www.schist.org • • Editor Editor email:email: [email protected] [email protected] FAXFAX:: (518)(518) 688688-2825-2825 Librarian email:email: [email protected] [email protected] • Curator• Curator email: email: [email protected] [email protected] FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH – A Brief History by David Vincent For its first century of existence, regular Christian worship at the Dutch Reformed Church in Schenectady was conducted only in Dutch. As the English-speaking population grew, so did a desire for services in English, primarily driven by members of the Church of England, the official church of the Province. The city‘s population, decimated following its destruction in 1690, was about 300 households in 1759 when land for an English chapel was purchased.1 Ground was broken the same year for a building originally planned as a chapel for all English speaking peoples,2 and Presbyterians and other ―dissenters‖ (non-Anglican Protestants) participated in both land and material acquisition. Construction began in 1762. As for the Presbyterians, while the actual date of organization is unknown, the best current approximation is 1760. Friction developed early on between the two competing English groups. A 1765 letter from the Schenectady Anglican churchwardens to Sir William Johnson sought his acceptance as a trustee and his support for a petition before the Governor to grant the congregation a ―Charter to Secure their Rights and privileges in the Church built here‖ in order to ―prevent for the future the presbyterians from making any unjust attempts on the priviledges in the Church.‖3 –Continued on Page 4 John C.
    [Show full text]
  • 5-B N. C. Wyeth, Cover Illustration for the Last of the Mohicans, 1919
    N. C. WYETH [1882–1945] 5b Cover Illustration for The Last of the Mohicans, 1919 The Last of the Mohicans, an American adventure tale by James from books or from stories passed down from his father. The Fenimore Cooper, became an instant best-seller when it was novel takes place in 1757, during the French and Indian War, published in 1826. Its popularity continued, and by 1919, when when the British and French fought over land that had long N. C. Wyeth illustrated a new, deluxe edition of the book, been home to Eastern Woodlands tribes. Wyeth was yet Cooper’s story had become a fixture in American boyhood. It another generation removed from those historical events; has since fallen out of fashion, but its importance to American like most Americans of his time, he possessed only the vaguest literature is firmly established: the protagonist, Natty Bumppo understanding of the original American peoples. (called Hawkeye), a white scout raised by American Indians, is Although rooted in history, The Last of the Mohicans was the first of many enterprising pioneer heroes to overcome the Cooper’s invention. To criticism that the characters were unre- perils of the frontier. And even though The Last of the Mohicans alistic, Cooper replied that the novel was intended only to had been illustrated before, Wyeth’s pictures, like George Catlin’s evoke the past. The illustrator took the artist’s poetic license paintings in the previous century (see 6-B), did much to create one step further. This image, which appears on the cover of an enduring image of the American Indian as a “noble savage.” the book, was apparently inspired by Cooper’s character Wyeth’s teacher Howard Pyle had taught him to work only Uncas, Hawkeye’s faithful friend and one of the last Mohicans: from experience.
    [Show full text]
  • Council to Act Tuesday on Midnight Curfew for All Bars Last Week's
    0 J Fornon Co til . ..•*, SUMMIT DAYS ARE HERE AGAIN! Read the Herald WVt 17, 18, If For Local Newi mud Summit Rtcvr 4 Y««r, No. S SUMMIT, N. A, THUMftAY, JUWf 10, If4? HAYEAi » PINTS Street and Sewer Car Stolen Here Code to Nave figures in $860 Council to Act Tuesday on Hearing July 15 Rim-flam Deal Midnight Curfew for All Bars Termed by Percy M. Bland of Summit police were notified Sat- Common Council as one of tbe Common Council is expected to adopt an ordinance urday that the IMS Ford »edan most important piece* of legisla Tuesday night regulating alcoholic beverage consumption. tlon ever to be introduced by stolen from Dr. Edmund L. Bobne Introduced June 17, the ordinance waa originalJy scheduled ^council, a public hearing will be of Elm street three weeks ago waa for adoption at Council's July 1 meeting following a public given to an ordinance introduced recovered by New Brunswick po- hearing. Objectipns raised by counsel for the Hotel Sub- July 1 '•prescribing standards and lice. urban and Hotel Beechwood asking clarification pertain- requirements with respect to the The car taken from the doctor's laying out, construction, dedica- ing to consumption of liquor on the premises and for an, tion, approval and acceptance of parking space at Overlook Ho»pi- extension of closing hours caused the delay until Tuesday. strata and other placos for public tal, was used as a pawn in "the -ry., y, .,.... _ i, After. Council had' recessed July use and sanitary drainage sewers old confidence man game," police 1 to.considedr hthr objections.
    [Show full text]
  • Historic American Indian Tribes of Ohio 1654-1843
    Historic American Indian Tribes of Ohio 1654-1843 Ohio Historical Society www.ohiohistory.org $4.00 TABLE OF CONTENTS Historical Background 03 Trails and Settlements 03 Shelters and Dwellings 04 Clothing and Dress 07 Arts and Crafts 08 Religions 09 Medicine 10 Agriculture, Hunting, and Fishing 11 The Fur Trade 12 Five Major Tribes of Ohio 13 Adapting Each Other’s Ways 16 Removal of the American Indian 18 Ohio Historical Society Indian Sites 20 Ohio Historical Marker Sites 20 Timeline 32 Glossary 36 The Ohio Historical Society 1982 Velma Avenue Columbus, OH 43211 2 Ohio Historical Society www.ohiohistory.org Historic American Indian Tribes of Ohio HISTORICAL BACKGROUND In Ohio, the last of the prehistoric Indians, the Erie and the Fort Ancient people, were destroyed or driven away by the Iroquois about 1655. Some ethnologists believe the Shawnee descended from the Fort Ancient people. The Shawnees were wanderers, who lived in many places in the south. They became associated closely with the Delaware in Ohio and Pennsylvania. Able fighters, the Shawnees stubbornly resisted white pressures until the Treaty of Greene Ville in 1795. At the time of the arrival of the European explorers on the shores of the North American continent, the American Indians were living in a network of highly developed cultures. Each group lived in similar housing, wore similar clothing, ate similar food, and enjoyed similar tribal life. In the geographical northeastern part of North America, the principal American Indian tribes were: Abittibi, Abenaki, Algonquin, Beothuk, Cayuga, Chippewa, Delaware, Eastern Cree, Erie, Forest Potawatomi, Huron, Iroquois, Illinois, Kickapoo, Mohicans, Maliseet, Massachusetts, Menominee, Miami, Micmac, Mississauga, Mohawk, Montagnais, Munsee, Muskekowug, Nanticoke, Narragansett, Naskapi, Neutral, Nipissing, Ojibwa, Oneida, Onondaga, Ottawa, Passamaquoddy, Penobscot, Peoria, Pequot, Piankashaw, Prairie Potawatomi, Sauk-Fox, Seneca, Susquehanna, Swamp-Cree, Tuscarora, Winnebago, and Wyandot.
    [Show full text]
  • Shekomeko: the Mohican Village That Shaped the Moravian Missionary World
    Bard College Bard Digital Commons Senior Projects Spring 2019 Bard Undergraduate Senior Projects Spring 2019 Shekomeko: The Mohican Village that Shaped the Moravian Missionary World Samuel J. Dickson Bard College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.bard.edu/senproj_s2019 Part of the History Commons This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License Recommended Citation Dickson, Samuel J., "Shekomeko: The Mohican Village that Shaped the Moravian Missionary World" (2019). Senior Projects Spring 2019. 205. https://digitalcommons.bard.edu/senproj_s2019/205 This Open Access work is protected by copyright and/or related rights. It has been provided to you by Bard College's Stevenson Library with permission from the rights-holder(s). You are free to use this work in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights- holder(s) directly, unless additional rights are indicated by a Creative Commons license in the record and/or on the work itself. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Shekomeko: The Mohican Village that Shaped the Moravian Missionary World Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies Of Bard College By Samuel Joseph Dickson Annandale-on-Hudson, New York May 2019 Acknowledgements I would like to thank my Senior Project Advisor, Christian Crouch for helping to encapsulate and solidify the threads that would eventually become my senior project, as well as all the 4:30 meetings every Monday after work. Without Chris Lindner's Archeology class, and reading Otterness’s Becoming ​ German: the 1709 Palatine Migration to New York, this project would have never ​ happened.
    [Show full text]
  • THE HUDSON RIVER VALLEY REVIEW a Journal of Regional Studies
    SPRING 2019 THE HUDSON RIVER VALLEY REVIEW A Journal of Regional Studies The Hudson River Valley Institute at Marist College is supported by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. This issue of The Hudson River Valley Review has been generously underwritten by the following: Peter Bienstock THE POUGHKEEpsIE GRAND HOTEL SHAWANGUNK VALLEY AND CONFERENCE CENTER …centrally located in the Historic Hudson Valley CONSERVANCY midway between NYC and Albany… Conservation • Preservation • Education www.pokgrand.com From the Editors While perhaps not at first apparent, the articles in this issue share a common theme—struggle. The Dutch colonists had to carve a home out of the New World wilderness. Two centuries later, descendants of the original inhabitants of a part of that world (which wasn’t entirely wilderness after all) tried to reclaim their sovereignty. Just fifty years after that, women undertook a march from New York City to Albany to assert their right to vote and gain adherents for their cause. Finally, while the rise and fall of Albany’s lumber district perhaps doesn’t readily seem to fit the theme, here, too, a struggle took place to establish and maintain a community on and around it. This latter essay underscores the essential role of technological innovation, a concept that leads us to a second underlying theme of this issue—progress. Sometimes welcome, sometimes not, for better or worse it is always unstoppable. Call for Essays The Hudson River Valley Review will consider essays on all aspects of the Hudson River Valley — its intellectual, political, economic, social, and cultural history, its prehistory, architecture, literature, art, and music — as well as essays on the ideas and ideologies of regionalism itself.
    [Show full text]
  • Becoming a “Nation of Statesmen”: the Mohicans' Incorporation Into the Iroquois League, 1671–1675
    ✦✧✦✧✦✧✦✧✦✧✦✧✦✧✦✧✦✧✦✧✦✧✦✧✦✧✦✧✦✧✦✧✦✧✦ Becoming a “Nation of Statesmen”: The Mohicans’ Incorporation into the Iroquois League, 1671–1675 evan haefeli HE 1670s were a pivotal period for the Indigenous his- T tory of New England and the eastern woodlands more generally. Most important was the war called King Philip’s or Metacomet’s that devastated the Indigenous communities of southern New England between 1675 and 1676 and contin- ued in Maine until the spring of 1678. The English victory owed more than a little to the intervention of the Mohawks of the Iroquois League, who struck an alliance with the New Englanders, prevented Metacomet’s people from resupplying themselves at Albany, and then forced them back to their na- tive country, weakened and lacking gunpowder. The Covenant Chain alliance that followed in 1677, mediated by the governor of New York, has dominated accounts of colonial Indian rela- tions as it reinforced the bond between the English colonists and the Iroquois League and guaranteed the subordination of the peoples who had fought with Metacomet. Having secured peace on their eastern border, the League could quickly van- quish the Susquehannocks and then proceed to attack Indige- nous nations further south. By 1680 the diplomatic landscape For their helpful comments on earlier versions of this article, I would like to thank my colleagues in Texas A&M University’s Caribbean and Atlantic Studies work- ing group, especially Ray Batchelor, Cynthia Bouton, and April Hatfield, as well as Side Emre, an anonymous reviewer, and Jonathan Chu. I would also like to thank the Texas A&M Arts and Humanities Fellowship, which made the archival research pos- sible, and the National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship that gave me the time to write.
    [Show full text]
  • The Texture of Contact: European and Indian Settler Communities on the Iroquoian Borderlands, 1720-1780
    W&M ScholarWorks Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects 2002 The texture of contact: European and Indian settler communities on the Iroquoian borderlands, 1720-1780 David L. Preston College of William & Mary - Arts & Sciences Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd Part of the Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons, and the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Preston, David L., "The texture of contact: European and Indian settler communities on the Iroquoian borderlands, 1720-1780" (2002). Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects. Paper 1539623399. https://dx.doi.org/doi:10.21220/s2-2kj3-rx94 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects at W&M ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects by an authorized administrator of W&M ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Reproduced with with permission permission of the of copyright the copyright owner. owner.Further reproductionFurther reproduction prohibited without prohibited permission. without permission. THE TEXTURE OF CONTACT: EUROPEAN AND INDIAN SETTLER COMMUNITIES ON THE IROQUOIAN BORDERLANDS, 1720-1780 A Dissertation Presented to The Faculty of the Department of History The College of William and Mary in Virginia In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by David L. Preston 2002 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ©Copyright by David L. Preston All Rights Reserved 2002 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. .APPROVAL SHEET This dissertation is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of D o cto r o f Philosophy David L Preston Approved.
    [Show full text]
  • Self- and Counter-Representations of Native Americans: Stereotypical Images of and New Images by Native Americans in Popular Media
    Intercultural Communication Studies XX: 2 (2011) LIU & ZH ANG Self- and Counter-Representations of Native Americans: Stereotypical Images of and New Images by Native Americans in Popular Media Kedong LIU & Hui ZH ANG Harbin Institute of Technology, China Abstract Historically speaking, American mainstream media have distorted Native American images, which has misled the formation of young Native Americans’ identity. The emerging Native American writer and film maker Sherman Alexie has countered the distortion by uttering his own voice and presenting his own image of the new American Indians. Alexie has replaced the reticent, subservient, disappearing “Noble Savage” with the expressive, free, and surviving new Indians. Alexie depicts successful and resilient American Indian characters and plots in films, novels (sometimes with cartoon illustrations). He has also disintegrated the stereotypical mascot and ushered in a new Indian image. Racial genocide, assimilation, and oppression are substituted by syncretism. Keywords: Native American, film, TV, radio, novel, cartoon Introduction American mainstream media have always tended to distort Native American images. The film, Dances with Wolves; the radio and TV Western, The Lone Ranger; and the novel, by Fenimore Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans, to name just a few, present negative or romanticized images of American Indians, either nasty or cruel, or subservient and laconic, but all disappearing. 1These distortions have severely misled the formation of young Native Americans’ identity. As a counter strategy, native writers and film workers began to counteract by putting whites in their lenses and representing their own lives and images. This study2 takes examples from several media: film, TV, radio, books, cartoons, etc., and focuses on the works of the emerging Native American Artist Sherman Alexie.
    [Show full text]