Well, to get back to where we were, talking about the ideas that I just
mentioned, if there are any two authors that match up and one can be
explained in contrast with the other, I think it's Washington Irvin and
James Fenimore Cooper because we're in this moment of American literature
and American art where everything is truly American. Up to the moment,
we've been using American culture, American literature in a relaxed manner
because it was actually not something purely American. It was just a
reenactment of things that were going on in England and it was a repetition
of patterns and imitation of authors that were not American. That took
place in the motherland overseas. When we talk about American literature, I
think that everything that is prior to, I would say Benjamin Franklin,
maybe an only part of Benjamin Franklin's work, has to do more with the
pre-revolutionary period and therefore lacks that sentiment of trying to be
uniquely American. We already saw with Benjamin Franklin that there is
already this sentiment of trying to make something authentically American
and that's the search that we're going to see in this new unit. In this
unit, we're going to contrast the work of Irving that we've already been
talking about with the work of Cooper and actually his name was Cooper. He
took his mother's last name, Fenimore, at the age of 30 approximately but
the entire name has always been used for him, Fenimore Cooper. Fenimore is
the last name of his mother and Cooper is his father's last name so he was
James Cooper for a big portion of his life and he changed his name to James
Fenimore Cooper. We're going to see something very similar and for really
interesting, interesting reasons when we get to, for example, to Nathaniel
Hawthorne. We can bring some contrast between the search towards Europe for
inspiration. In the case of Fenimore Cooper, there's going to be the
creation of an American mythology. Something that I probably didn't have
time to comment last, last week. My writing is terrible with this board.
It's because of Binteka software. If something is not understandable,
please ask me. I'll rewrite it or I'll say what that is. In the case of
Washington Irving, last week, something that I probably didn't mention is
that since his vision was always towards the east in terms of, you know,
looking to Europe, looking to Germany, looking to England, looking to
France, looking to Spain for sources to import. Then when Washington Irving
came back home, he discovered that because of the times, because America
was already a young republic and it was already, it already had an interest
of its own, its political interest was westward. So there is a creation,
there is a shift of the interest from the east to the west. Whereas Fenimer
Cooper not only writes about the west, he is the creator and the inventor
of many of the motives and legends or the legendary, let's say, spirits of
the west. Some of the, some, some of the ideas that, as romantics both
Washington Irving and Fenimer Cooper have problems dealing with the idea of
nature. Because if you remember, I think that last week there was a slide
that talked about romanticism in general and stated that for romantics,
nature was always a topic that was important for romantics. It's very
difficult to match having a priority or a likening for untouched nature
with what was going on in America. If something was being touched, it was
nature. Indians were being removed en masse towards the west. The pressure
was incredible in moving thousands and thousands of Indians and receiving
thousands, sometimes tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of immigrants
every year and establishing them in territories that were previously,
previously occupied by Native Americans. And therefore, the role of the
Native American was either in a semi-enslaved status in working for
American purposes or in a state of despair fighting with other Native
Americans for a piece of land or, or rebelling against the cause of being
forced to be removed from their territory and creating that mythology that
was the Wild West. The Wild West was all about ferocious Indians, Indians
that were very angry. This idea of the angry, evil, mean Indian comes from
this. It comes from people being displaced and being desperate to survive.
It wasn't a matter of Indians just wanting, wanting to take revenge for
whatever reason. And this has more to do with the mythology that was, that
was created by, among others and more significantly by authors like James
Fenimore Cooper. And I think that James Fenimore Cooper spent more time of
his, of his creative period creating a few, a few stereotypes about the
Native Americans. Basically, two. The good Indian, the one that fights with
me, the bad Indian, the one that fights with the other army, whoever the
other army is, normally French or British. Okay, so basically there was
this naive way of simplifying Native Americans into good or bad, but both
savage. The unreliable, the unreliable savage. Again, something that seems
taken out of the pages of Captain John Smith, John Smith's account and
maxed up to the, to its highest degree. These, these unreliable Native
Americans proved two ideas that were predominant and were absolutely
necessary for Americans' move Midwestward. So, Fenimore Cooper, James
Fenimore Cooper was a defender of the mainstream ideas of the ruling class.
One was the Indian removal policy and the other one was the idea of racial
superiority. Oops, I'm writing in a place where some people aren't going to
be able to see. Racial superiority. So, if, if we have a group of people
that we consider inferior to the, the civilized whites, we have, we, there
is a process of dehumanization that is evident and that is going to justify
any type of act that is a retaliation against them, like displacing them,
like taking away their lands, using them as, as military henchmen,
executing them when they're not necessary for the cause, using them as, as,
as costless militia and any type of abuse because you are not acknowledging
their full humanity since you're, you're denying them their full humanity.
You, you are, you are implying certain elements that have already been
implied, for example, with the, with the Africans that have, that were
brought as slaves. You are implying that they're not as human as you are.
You are implying that you have no value for their, you do not value their
lives. You are implying that they're, they are to be used as, as labor.
They, they are to be used as, as military power but they're, they don't
have the same rights as the rest. Of course, one of the worst things that
could happen in the case of Native Americans under this perspective was
interracial marriage. Interracial marriage, interracial relationships are
one of the most, um, the most, uh, horrifying things for the people of this
time and if you have a look at the glossary in the, in letter M there is a
word miscegenation that, uh, on page 207 of the study guide that says a
term derived from the Latin words misere and genus meaning mix and species
which was applied to the mixing of races by interbreeding.
Anti-miscegenation laws which were also known as miscegenation laws in
America banned interracial marriage. Okay? So, miscegenation is one of the
key components that underlies in Fenimore Cooper's mythology. Everybody
that does not follow the natural law, the natural and I'm, and I'm air
quoting this and I'm being very careful to air quote this because it's, of
course, it's not my opinion. It's the, the opinion of the author. Anything
that, that is supportive of breaking miscegenation rules is normally
destined to tragedy in these stories. Everything that means preserving the,
the white purity, the, um, the European Eurocentric purity is bound to a
happy ending and, uh, to, uh, a different ending in the stories than, um,
in the other cases. Let's go to the, to the presentation and have a look
at, at, um, some of the elements that we've been talking about. As you
know, I, I never remove any of the presentations. Um, if you're, if you've
ever, if you're ever missing any of the PDFs, you just have to, you can
download them from, uh, from the environment of, um, uh, the, um, uh, the
place where, where, uh, we, we record these units from Inteka. Um, in the
case of, of, uh, James Fenimer Cooper, as you can see, he lives in a period
that is post-revolution and very onto the first, um, the first half
century, a bit more, of the American Republic, which is the entire Romantic
period. So he is as romantic as it gets because he lives until the very
peak of Romanticism, which is around the 1850s. Even though that's the end
of his life, the 1850s is normally considered the pinnacle of, uh,
Romanticism. As we said before, both James Fenimer Cooper and Washington
Irving can be considered Romantic writers from the point of view that
America is creating a mythology of their, of its own. It's creating a
mythology of its own, but this is still proto-Romantic if we, if we take it
into consideration from the point of view of quality. It is going to be the
second generation of, of Romantic writers, the one that is going to take
American Romanticism to its highest heights and is going to, to, um, uh,
earn a status of, of great literature for, um, American literature. These
writers are going to be very popular, but at the same time they're going to
be highly criticized. So they're going to live a duality. They're going to
be, uh, very popular for their readership. Sometimes they're going to be
very well respected by their, by their contemporaries, but normally critics
that come afterwards are going to be highly criticizing, uh, with their,
with their work. Just let me read, um, a couple of lines, uh, about, uh,
about this, this fact referring to James Fenimer Cooper. Um, James Fenimer
Cooper, um, drew on the age's widening range of narrative voices. Those of
the historian and the exploring scientist. Those of the satirist and the
writer of romance. These voices were so many and drawn from so many sources
that he looked at them and looked clumsy to many readers. As Mark Twain
demonstrated with ease in his delightful literary parody, Fenimer Cooper's
Literary Offenses, 1895. So already one century after Fenimer Cooper, there
were the writers that, that had the, the impression that Fenimer Cooper was
not a great writer. On the contrary, he was a, a writer that had muddled up
the, um, a realistic picture of what the, the Native Americans were and
what the reality of America was. But, at the same time, um, his literary
simplicity and his superb mythography make us see him today as primarily a
writer of boys' books, the originator of many of the essential Western
motives of the American popular imagination. To the people of his time, to
Scott, to Balzac, it's not any names, Walter Scott, um, and Balzac, as well
as Gustave Amard and Carl May, he was a major presence, an originator of
modern fictional romance because everything that was coming out of, of the
American West seemed absolutely fresh. It's true that it's a remaking and a
rethinking of things that already existed to a certain extent. And he
borrows heavily, as Mark Twain, uh, um, satirizes only a century later, but
he does it in a very skillful way. He creates an American mythology and
that, that's why, um, between the ferocious criticism one century after his
lifetime and the admiration of his contemporaries, the mainstream view
remains in that he was a, a writer that was very, was, uh, very attractive
for young, not very demanding readers, um, and that was, he was a creator
of most of what we understand nowadays as a Western mythology. Okay, so all
these ideas of the, of the Western, of, uh, the rugged person trying to,
eh, to, um, move West and, um, aspire to a better tomorrow and at the same
time meeting the Native Americans and, and these Native Americans being
deceitful and, um, eh, having basically two categories being the good and
ignorance or evil and, and devilish. Those two, um, eh, types of, of Native
Americans were, um, a stereotype that he created and that were, that
remained very, very harmful eh, for the Native Americans because it's, it's
perceived as something, something realistic even nowadays. So, it's, it's
been a very, um, harmful stereotype for the Native Americans. Um, if we,
uh, eh, talk about, eh, the things that we want, eh, to walk away knowing a
bit more about because I think that, uh, the objectives of this unit are
especially, um, are especially ambitious because we don't have enough, um,
literary material to, uh, for example, learn enough about, uh, about the
second, the second item on our, on our list. Um, eh, we, I think that
what's important to walk away with is to understand that Fenimer Cooper was
a fundamental writer for the time, a creator of a mythology upon which many
other writers created other kinds of mythology but at the same time to
understand that, eh, everything came at a price and the, the boiling down
of Native Americans that, eh, take place with Fenimer Cooper without having
first-hand, um, contact with Native Americans was very harmful for the, eh,
for, eh, for, eh, the perception that people had about Native Americans and
about the, the, eh, all of, all of their, eh, descendants that have
suffered from this stereotype, eh, being generation after generation. Um,
in, the first, the first topic that, that we have as an objective is to
understand how, um, eh, Fenimer Cooper's contribution stacks up with
Washington Irvin's contribution and, uh, we can say that there were never
two writers that were less similar and that's probably why there's, it's so
important to study one after the other because it gives us a very
important, perspective of Washington Irvin wanting to bring those gothic
German tales and, and make an American setting and, and have his eyes
always looking towards the east in, um, search of inspiration until a very
later part of his life and Fenimer Cooper always looking towards the west
for inspiration. Um, eh, we can, we can understand that Fenimer Cooper is
probably the, the first, the, the nation's first major novelist. Remember
that we always refer to Washington Irvin as a romance writer, a writer of
the short story. Fenimer Cooper, um, wrote longer pieces. He's, he's
considered the first American, uh, the first American novelist. Um, we're
going to try to come to a brief understanding and I think that it's
insufficient and it's probably one of the shortcomings because of the, the
amount of material that we have of how, um, one saga in particular of
Fenimer Cooper, The Leather Stocking Tales exalted one of the character
Natty Bumpo as a typical American hero and created that idea that we've
talked about, um, of the American frontier. Um, and, eh, when, when we were
talking before, let's see if it changes. Okay. Um, so, when, when we, when
we talk about the American frontier, um, after, uh, the, the American
Revolution, um, very soon America starts to acquire enormous portions of
land that, that are equivalent to, um, portions of a continent and what is
a, a Puritan principles turn into part of this, um, eh, American frontier.
Oh my gosh. Eh, there you go. These Puritan principles turn into part of
the American dream. Which ones? Um, eh, a search, eh, towards the West. The
West as something that is unexplored, full of mystery, full of adventure.
As you can see, these are, all of them are romantic tenets. So they have to
do nothing, they have nothing to do with the realism. It's all about the
unexplored, the mysterious, the adventurous, the exciting, um, but what are
the Puritan principles? Those of, of being a chosen people. Um, suddenly
the Americans seem to realize that, eh, some of those pilgrims, um, they
correspond, eh, to the core of, of what the American values are. And they
consider themselves suddenly to be the inheritors of the, that, of those
chosen people. And they consider the entirety of the continent from the
East Coast to the West Coast, whatever they find, their chosen territory,
their chosen land. So, um, they, they acquire these principles, the Puritan
principles, and this turns into the American frontier. The American
frontier represents everything that goes to the West. Do you have any
problems understanding anything there? Okay. Um, and, eh, all of these
ideas mesh into to an idea that prosperity moves West. Eh, while, while
there is, uh, eh, a necessity to, to remain dominant on the East,
everything that, eh, goes towards the West is our, our new opportunities
for prosperity. If you think of, about all the ideas that come to mind when
we think of Westerns, we think of borderland action, borderland adventure,
but always with the hope of a better tomorrow, always with the, eh,
seeking, uh, new lands, seeking new territories where there are, um, new
crops to, that can be harvested, new cattle that, that can be, eh, attained
and, and, and grown. Um, new opportunities like, for example, very soon
after only one, eh, half a century after what we're talking, uh, at the
same time as the peak of, of Romanticism, we're going to have the
California gold, gold rush. Um, eh, the search for gold in, in, in America.
Everything around, eh, the West seems to attract adventure, um, the promise
of a better tomorrow, of fortune, and that's what the American dream is all
about. The American dream is a, is, if you wish for it, if you fight for
it, if you work for it, you can, you can achieve it. And it really doesn't
matter whether you're very powerful or you're a self-made man. Uh,
opportunities are going to be there for everybody, unless you're not white.
That's, that's the, the, this, the fine print in that contract. If you're
not, if you're not white, you're not entitled to any of that, and you have
to, um, eh, you, your, your destiny is probably a subservient, eh, destiny
of either, if you're black, working for the whites, eh, um, as, eh, cheap
labor. If you're in Native America, if you're a Native American to, to be
pushed out of your land and to be mistreated, and finally to be
exterminated, because at the end of the day, the majority of the, uh, of
the Indians, the majority of the Native Americans were exterminated. They
weren't, um, put into Indian reserves. They were, they were terminated in,
in, in revolts, in wars, in, in clashes, um, with, with that, uh, young and
growing, growing American sentiment that had the feeling of authority over
all the land. All the territory was there for, theirs for the taking. And
no empire got in their way. France sold Louisiana to America very quickly.
Um, eh, Spain conceded, eh, Florida, parts of Texas, me, eh, Mexico, once
it became, uh, a, a nation, eh, tried to fight the war and, and, um,
against the, the Americans and, and, and lost. Eh, everything seemed to be
very, eh, very much in favor of the destiny of, of American territory to
bully itself towards the West with, with, um, no one getting in the way.
And I think that's, that, that would be a way of, of putting it. In the
case of Fenimore Cooper, he's a tremendous, he's a tremendously prolific
writer. He wrote over 30 novels. Um, but there is one stock, one saga in
particular, the leather, eh, the leather stocking tales that remain as, um,
the ones that we remember the most from those leather stocking tales. One
book in particular, the last of the Mohicans has remained as the piece
that, that we, um, eh, that, that we remember the most. Not only because it
was a widely read, which it was, and is still widely read, but because for
our generations and probably for the, eh, for the following generations,
it's going to be connected to, um, a movie that, that ties into that
mythology of the native American and having that stereotype of the two
types of, of native Americans, the romantic, eh, the romantic, and tragic,
eh, Indian destined to a fatality and the evil and devilish, eh, Indian
also destined to fatality. So it was fatality one or fatality two, um,
everything, eh, the odds were against him in, in, in both cases. Um, eh,
we're going to, um, read from, from Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans, um,
to understand what America, an American romance means, and to understand
that in substitution of, uh, of, um, of, um, the captivity narratives as an
extension of the captivity narratives. And I already talked about this when
we talked about Mary Rowlandson, um, James Fenimore Cooper is going to feed
on the idea, but fictionalizing captivity narratives and using them as a
framework to tell the story of, to tell his fiction. So this is a
fictionalization and we cannot, uh, confuse and you shouldn't confuse if
you have to write about this. You can say that, um, captivity narratives,
eh, were an enormous source of inspiration, but, eh, the reliability that
captivity narratives have, James Fenimore Cooper's works do not have.
That's one of the criticism that, that he receives. Um, eh, there seems to
be, um, ambivalence regarding the settlers because Cooper had this, this
thing. He, he believed in, in romantic, eh, in romantic, eh, romanticism
and it's respect for nature. But at the same time, he believed in America's
rights and America's, um, manifest destiny, which is a word that we haven't
used, but we could go back to that slide and, and write it down there, eh,
to take, what, whatever they wish and whatever they think is theirs. Even
more than the chosen people and the chosen land, manifest destiny probably
boils down the idea even better of, uh, of, of what the idea of this
American frontier actually meant. Manifest destiny to do as they wished.
Um, eh, we're going to, eh, identify some of the elements of any romantic
story and, and this is going to be, useful not only uh going into james
fenimore cooper but going into the next semester um when we talk about um
nathaniel hawthorne when we talk about herman melville when we talk about
edgar allen poe these elements of adventure these elements of fantasy these
elements of improbability extravagance myth and treatment of social issues
through allegory okay so we're going to use all of these elements to uh
identify what romanticism is um the dichotomies in the last of the mohicans
support um the indian removal policy and we're going to see how cooper's
work is extremely influential to shape these ideas of savagism and racial
difference from a biographical point of view um fenimore cooper's uh life
resembles um the washington urban in terms of coming from the east coast
from this um new jersey new york scene and um and belonging to a very big
family um they're different to to irving's family his his family was
strongly religious and they were quakers that moved towards puritanism even
though we said that puritanism was going to disappear from our literary
lives doesn't mean that disappeared from the world only from our literary
lives so as much as puritanism was not the driving force of america it was
still a very strong religious uh movement that had many followers but they
just weren't influential for american culture anymore in the in the way
they had been in this in the 17th or in the 18th century um he was expelled
from yale in 1805 for a prank something that reminds us almost to the big
generation and he tried to run away to the sea um which is something we'll
see in a little bit but i'm going to stop there for now and we'll be back
in the next segment at 5 p.m. next week. more than once in this course, and
I always wonder about this fact, about how enrolling in a boat as a sailor
was a way of escaping from the lifestyle that you had. But his father
managed to enroll him in the U.S. Navy. Using Adventures at Sea as a way of
receiving a proper education or at least a cultural education that was
distinct to a life in land is something that we've already heard about. If
you have to connect the dots and you have very different authors, such as,
for example, Fenimer Cooper and Olaudah Equiano, one of the things that you
can connect is how both of them have a life at sea. And you'll see that
before we finish the course, we're going to have a couple of other
examples. That their life at sea proves very relevant in their biography.
She sailed to England twice and served as a frontier outpost in Lake
Ontario. I don't know if you know where Lake Ontario is in between
Wisconsin and Michigan, but for that to be the frontier outpost indicates
how little America was in terms of the actual size it has now. A frontier
post was Lake Ontario, which is... still considered very much the East
Coast of America nowadays. It's not even part of the Central Territory. And
it goes to show what an early stage of American history we're still at. Of
course, this is part of the Jacksonian America that from the economic point
of view was very speculative and from the expansion point of view was very,
very ambitious, trying to move west and create new states. And if you know
this, it has nothing to do with the course, but it'll be useful when we
study other authors that have to do with the American Civil War. America
grew two states at a time because of the way that power was balanced. Every
state had the right of sending one senator to Washington. And for every...
non-slave state, there was a slave state that was created at the same time.
So there was always a balance and a deadlock between the amount of slave
states and the amount of non-slave states. So it was a problem that
lingered for a very long time of states only being able to be created when
there was another non-slave state that could be created at the same time.
That's why when you see the shapes of the states and the years, the years
that they were created, they're normally matched two by two until the
beginning of the Civil War or the years prior to the Civil War. Very soon
he was responsible for having to pay back a huge debt that wasn't entirely
his fault. And... he started to write in a manner that reminds us to other
cases that we'll read about in the second semester. His daughter Susan
explained how he began to write his career in a coincidental manner. A new
novel had been brought from England in the last monthly packet. It was, I
think, one of Mr. Opie's or one of that school. My mother was not well. She
was lying on the sidewalk. And he, James Fenimore Cooper, was reading this
newly imported novel to her. It must have been very trashy. After a chapter
or two, he threw it aside and was claiming, I could write you a better book
than that myself. Our mother laughed at the idea. As the height of
absurdity, he who disliked writing Eve a letter, that he should write a
book. He persisted in his declaration, however, and almost immediately
wrote the first pages of a tale, not yet named, a scene laid in England as
a matter of course. So, as many writers of the time began, and you can
think about how old he was when he ever had the idea of writing. He was
already 29 years old. He came to the conclusion... Sorry, he was 31 years
old. He came to the conclusion that he could write better than the books
that he was reading. And he just started to create stories that were...
were fascinating for his family, but afterwards exceeded the realms of his
family and became something that was internationally acclaimed. So, a
writer by chance, if ever there was one. That means that at the same time,
it probably wasn't part of his life plan to become a writer. So, as a
consequence of that, I think we should not be... very criticizing with how
well prepared he was to talk about certain tales. I think that his
popularity soon outgrew his capacity of writing over things that he knew
sufficiently about to remain accurate. And very soon, he just let his
imagination go and turned into a writer that was excessively eager to
move... to move facts towards a fictional perspective and to impose his
underlying ideas in the way the tales were shaped. He took his family to
Europe at the height of his popularity on a seven-year stay. And if
Washington Irving is responsible for creating America's first distinct
fiction, he's responsible for... creating what is considered by everyone
America's mental independence, America's capacity of creating something
that is America's own, their own mythology, their own legends, something
that Washington Irving had approached from a different perspective. Cooper
was able to land in a successful way with two ideas, with the idea of the
Westward Movement and this mythology of the American West. He is
responsible of what the slide says, this folk epic. The American coming to
age, this American... this American middle age where everything is... all
of America's attention is moving west to continue growing, to continue
becoming relevant for the world scene. He was much more popular at home
than his contemporary Washington Irving because of his choice of topics.
His life had some controversies and I've already talked about, for example,
how Mark Twain or others criticized mainly two aspects. How he did favor
some social classes over others. And the lack of relevant female characters
in his books. Female characters followed the same stereotype as female
characters did in his generation or the generations previous to him. The
roles of a patriarchal view where women's happiness depended... well,
women's happiness and even their physical safety and livelihood depended on
choosing correctly their partner or making a mistake in choosing their
partner and therefore having to endure the consequences of that choice. If
we talk about the work of James Fenimore Cooper, there is a traditional
pattern that many authors undergo and sometimes many literatures undergo
when they're young. Sometimes they... they go through a process of
imitation. In his case, his first and second novels imitates works of Jane
Austen and Sir Walter Scott. Again, Sir Walter Scott appears in his works.
Even though Walter Scott is going to be one of his biggest offenders in the
later part of his life, this helped him garnish a critical acclaim and a
growing readership. In his third novel, The Pioneers, there is one of the
most influential portraits of frontier life. And as he starts to grow ideas
of his own, he starts to formulate the theory of racial difference in his
work and this ideology of the savage, the unreliable evil savage, and the
also unreliable, not very intelligent but very nice savage. So there was
the good and the bad, the white and the black. Probably I shouldn't use a
color trope to define this, but basically two versions of Native Americans,
very simplistic, very oversimplified, where one was brutal and evil and the
other one was... Dumb, unreliable, and inferior to white people. The
frontier narrative has the inner conflict of the Western movement and how
he's acknowledging the manifest destiny of the Americans, but at the same
time, he has a likening for nature. And he wrote first, the Leather
Stocking Tales, and then 11 narrative novels that we'll see with Herman
Melville were tremendously popular at the time because they connected very
well to the readership that was anxious for adventure and for plots that
were interesting from that perspective. If you have a look at the years, of
his different novels, you can see that there are certain periods where he
manages to write three different novels in the same year. The span that
goes between 1841 and 1846 is especially productive because it produces,
over the span of five years, it produces eight or nine, nine novels. As you
can see, there is a point in his life where his work becomes extremely
frenetic in terms of his creative contribution. If we focus on The Last of
the Mohicans before we start reading it from the book, and we see if we
have time to read the entire thing, I really hope so, we see that The Last
of the Mohicans is an example of a romance. Even though the author wanted
it to be read as historical narrative, and it's funny that he should have
that aspiration when The Last of the Mohicans lacked any kind of historical
accuracy or any research that would make it worthy of being read as a
historical narrative. It's subtitle seems to indicate that that aspiration.
It's called The Last of the Mohicans, a narrative of 1757. So if you
remember Mary Rowlandson, it takes us back to the French-Indian wars that
we talked about when we talked about Mary Rowlandson, where the French and
the English allied with different Native American tribes. And if you've
watched the movie, I don't know if you've watched the movie. Have you
watched the movie, The Last of the Mohicans? Okay, you can notice that
surprisingly, the English are able to ally with Native Americans that are
super nice, super loyal, and hardworking. And the French are very
unfortunate because they align with devilish creatures that seem to be
taken out of the worst horror stories that you can imagine. So that
dichotomy is already expressing the type of stereotyping, of very heavy
stereotyping that is taking place. The French are going to be as
unfortunate to bump into the devilish Indian half. And the English, of
course, they're playing the good guys in this narrative, are going to be
fortunate enough to be in the hands of these, these more noble Native
Americans. The story is a mix of factual history and romantic fiction,
sometimes more blatant than others. Cooper's plot does something that is
very common for storytellers, which is to take real events that happen, mix
them with fictional facts and make it impossible to discern where fact ends
and where fiction starts. So that is something that is used as a trope even
nowadays. So there is, of course, heavy borrowing from captivity narrative,
historical romance, and even epic history. There are two heroines in the
story and their ending cannot be more divergent. One lives happily ever
after. The other one dies tragically. Can you give me a hint as to why that
could be? There are two heroines in the story. One dies tragically. This
can be answered by anyone at home. Maybe you've already read the story and
you can come to conclusions. There are two heroines in the story. One dies
tragically. The other one lives happily ever after. Can you imagine the
reasons? And I noticed that when we finished the mission, the the heroine
that makes the right choices in life and chooses a white um i was going to
say blog but you can imagine what i mean the white partner is going to live
on to lead a happy life so so so that um that duality is what's going to
reflect this idea of of a of of connecting to a to a dual story where um
the fate is connected to the choices in life and it's and it's very aligned
with a patriarchal view a classic um a patriarchal view eurocentric
patriarchal view of society and the role of women the role of women uh is
to marry and and be fertile and and and be loving mothers and and wives and
whatever steps out of that area it leads towards tragedy okay so i think
that's that's the um that would be a way of boiling down the idea tell me
what it is miscegenation what page is that 168 i mean let me read that to
everybody before i go on so you the the miss when it says the miscegenation
issue is raised in the novel by the presence of corey monroe in that part
I'm being a bit harsher with the author than Professor Givert is in the
book. In the book, Professor Givert says, the racial union between Uncas
and Cora would probably have been unacceptable to Cooper's audience,
whereas the consummation of their marriage in heaven, as imagined during
the Indian funeral ceremonies of the last chapter, was a satisfactory
conventional resolution of the miscegenation issue. Obviously, we should
not infer from this that Cooper himself had a personal horror of biological
miscegenation and cultural hybridization. We cannot ascribe to the author
the intention of excluding non-whites from America's future because in
other writings he envisaged the likelihood of a multiracial American
society in his notions of the world. In his writings of the Americans,
1828, he explained, as there is a little reluctance to mingle the white
with the red blood, I think an amalgamation of the two races would in time
occur. But in The Last of the Mohicans, he was telling his readers not only
a story of vanishing Indians, but also that of other vanishing Americans
who were facing extinction. The wilderness scout Natty Bumpo, wifeless and
childless, is also the last of his kind. Because his way of life is doomed.
Nevertheless, in spite of all the violence, numerous death, and general
sense of doom pervading The Last of the Mohicans, there is some hope at the
end. In the last chapter, Tamenun, the old Delaware sage, evokes the
cyclical theory of history still current in the 19th century, which leads
him to the logical conclusion that his people, almost extinct at present,
may return someday. Okay, well. One fell in love with a native, exactly,
yes. Alberto was answering here in the chat. I'm sorry for not seeing that
before. Exactly that. I think this comment by Professor Givet is really
interesting because it gives a more nuanced view of what I was explaining.
Okay. Do we... Do we see eye to eye on this case in particular? No. I tend
to be a bit harsher with Fenimer Cooper's point of view because I really
think that it's very consistent in his work, the fact of backing
miscegenation, whether it be because it supported his personal view or
because he believed that his readership would not accept it. But I think he
was very consistent in his work and it would be troublesome to say
otherwise. So understanding that I have a slightly different point of view
of Professor Givet on this topic, if you have to answer this matter in
particular in the exam, I would say go with Professor Givet. I would say go
with Professor Givet's point of view because he's going to correct your
exam. So, I mean, you're entitled to your own opinion. If there's something
and you sustain that your own opinion is based on something, I think that
you can have a slight discrepancy with Professor Givet despite the book
being written by her and being thoroughly reviewed by herself. And I think
that being very faithful to what she thinks, about each of these authors. I
always face Fenimer Cooper and a couple of other authors in the book with
mixed feelings. I think they're necessary to understand the entirety of
American literature, but they're not my cup of tea exactly. So I find it
very difficult to deliver an absolutely balanced point of view as Professor
Givet is more successful than I am. I'm a bit more critical. I'm more on
Mark Twain's... Mark Twain's boat or wagon on this one in particular
because I really think that he took a stance and that stance was very
harmful for the Native Americans and the future generations of Native
Americans. So, the second to last point. This idealized binary opposition
of good Indians and bad Indians Unable to become civilized is what has been
understood as the ideology of savagism. And I think that it's one of
Fenimer Cooper's most infamous contributions to American culture. I don't
think it's something to feel proud about, but it's something that he
definitely contributed to society. There are deep racial facts that might
explain narrative decisions in the story and the possible faith of
Koranunkas Alice and Captain Duncan Hayward. We're going to read from the
work in this story in particular. We're going to read from two sections,
chapters 17 and 32. Why 17 and 32? Because it's the middle of the book. The
book was written in two parts. So it concludes the first part of The Last
of the Mohican. So it's right at the center, and 32 is towards the end. In
the first part, we're going to cover the seven days preceding the surrender
of Fort William Henry to the French troops, and the seven days that follow
it. In chapters 1 to 17, we experience the journey of the two heroines. I'm
reading from page 169 in case you want to follow me. And the men escorting
them to Fort William Henry, and also narrate the events leading to the
massacre. The scene of the massacre in which the Hurons slaughtered
hundreds of retreating English soldiers and civilians concluded the first
volume of the original 1826 edition. I want you to think again, again about
Mary Rowlandson's story when you read this, and how Mary Rowlandson was
very elegant, not to get very much into the gory details that she
experienced firsthand. And I want you to contrast that very sharply with
Fenimer Cooper's willingness to engage in tremendously gory detail as a way
of framing this idea of savagism in the Native Americans and also to create
a cliffhanger effect that would serve as anticipation for the next volume.
So, So while Mary Rowlandson decided to include or exclude details based on
their didactic purpose for the elements of the story, Fenimer Cooper's
decisions are more based on what could be what the readership demanded at a
certain point. And you can see that it gets much gorier in the case of
Fenimer Cooper, probably much more than is necessary. In the second part,
chapters 18 to 33, chart the course of the second journey in which Hawkeye,
his two Mohican friends, and Duncan Hayward track Magwa and the captive
heroines. The final climatic scene narrates the unsuccessful attempt to
rescue Korah, who has become Magwa's object of desire. And Unka's death
signifies the end of the Mohicans. The epic confrontation between Unkas and
Magwa. Takes on the significance of a mythic struggle in which the noble
savage dies on the mountaintop and the ignoble savage perishes in the
abyss. So there is a sort of connection to a better fate in another life,
in another afterlife for the noble savage. But it isn't very clear what is
that, like a sort of limbo. Where Native Americans inhabit, which is lower
to the heaven. What exactly does that represent? It's not very clear. But
it's satisfactory for the readership of the time. From the last of the
Mohicans, 1826, chapter 17. The advance with Hayward at its head had
already reached the defile and was slowly disappearing when the attention
of Korah was drawn to a collection of stragglers and a sound of contention.
A truant provincial was paying the forfeit of his disobedience by being
plunder of those very effects which had caused him to desert his place in
the ranks. The man was of powerful frame and too avaricious to part with
his goods without a struggle. Individuals from either party interfered, the
one side to prevent the other to aid in the robbery. Voices grew loud and
angry, and a hundred savages appeared as it were by magic where a dozen
only had been seen a minute before. It was then that Korah saw the form of
Magwa gliding among his countrymen and speaking with his fatal and artful
eloquence. The mass of women and children stopped and hovered together like
alarmed and fluttering birds. But the cupidity of the Indians was soon
gratified and the destruction of the country was not yet over. The
different bodies again moved slowly onward. The savages now fell back and
seemed content to let their enemies advance without further molestation.
But as the female crowd approached them, the gaudy colors of a shawl
attracted the eyes of a wild and untutored Huron. He advanced to seize it
without the least hesitation. The woman, more in terror than through the
love of the ornament, wrapped her child in the coveted article and folded
both more closely to her bosom. Korah was in the act of speaking with an
intent to advise the woman to abandon the trifle when the savage
relinquished his hold of the shawl and tore the screaming infant from her
arms. Abandoning everything to the greedy grasp of those around her, the
mother darted with distraction in her mien to reclaim her child, the Indian
smiled grimly and extended one hand in sign of a willingness to exchange,
while with the other he flourished the babe over his head, holding it by
the feet as if to enhance the value of the ransom. And there you see a part
of direct speech that I think is very important to highlight the idea of
savage, of savageness that he wants to convey. That Cooper wants to put
forward. Here, here, they're all, anything, any, everything, exclaimed the
breathless woman, tearing the lighter articles of dress from her person
with ill-directed and frowning fingers. Take all but give me my babe. So, I
read that wrong. Here, here, there, all, any, everything, take everything,
okay? So she's absolutely desperate to get her baby back. And this direct
speech is going to help us understand that. To understand the urge, the
importance of what she's saying. The savage spurned the worthless rags and
perceiving that the shawl had already become a prize to another, his
bantering but sullen smile changing to a gleam of ferocity, he dashed the
head of the infant against a rock and cast its quivering remains to her
very feet. For an instant, the mother stood like a statue of despair.
Looking wildly down at the unseemly object, which had so lately nestled in
her bosom and smiled in her face. And then she raised her eyes and
countenance towards heaven as if calling on God to curse the perpetrator of
the foul deed. I think that you can connect very, very strongly the account
of Mary Rowlandson's baby dying slowly to this savage account of a baby
being murdered in front of the mother's eyes, okay? So in one, it seems to
be a fruit of an accident provoked by general savageness. But in this one,
it seems something so intentional and so criminal that it makes you take
sides immediately. She raised her eyes and countenance towards heaven as if
calling on God to curse the perpetrator of the foul deed. She was spared
the sin of such a prayer for maddened at his disappointment and excited at
the sight of blood, the Huron mercifully drove his tomahawk into her own
brain. The mother sank under the blow and fell grasping at her child in
death with the same engrossing love that had caused her to cherish it when
living. At that moment, Magwa placed his hands to his mouth and raised a
fatal and appalling whoop. The scattered Indians started at the well-known
cry as coursers bound at the signal to quit the goal. And directly there
arose such a yell along the plain as through the arches of the wood as
seldom burst from human lips before. There is a couple of lines here that
you can take into consideration as if they were comment and they indicated
the intention of the author. They who heard it listened with a curdling
horror at the heart, little inferior to that dread which may be exerted to
attend the blast of the final summons. So he's connecting directly the idea
of Satan to the natives. So he's making a direct connection there. More
than two thousand raving savages broke from the forest at the signal and
threw themselves across a fatal plain with instinctive alacrity. We shall
not dwell on the revolting horrors that succeeded. He's been dwelling on
the horrors for two pages but now he decides not to dwell anymore, I guess
because he ran out of horrible ideas. Death was everywhere and in his most
terrific and disgusting aspects. Resistance only served to inflame the
murderers who inflicted their furious blows long after their victims were
beyond the power of their resentment. The flow of blood might be likened to
the outbreaking of a torrent and as the natives became heated and maddened
by the sight, many among them ever kneeled to the earth and drank freely,
exultingly, hellishly of the crimson tide. So what he's saying is that the
savages were drinking blood at the end of the day which is as devilish as
it gets. From chapter 32. At this moment, the form of all four were
strongly drawn against an opening in the sky and they disappeared. Nearly
frantic with disappointment, Uncas and Hayward increased effort that
already seemed superhuman and they issued from the cavern on the side of
the mountain in time to note the route of the pursuit. The course led up
the ascent and still continued hazardous and laborious. Encumbered by his
rifle and perhaps not sustained by so deep an interest in the captive as
his companions, the scouts suffered the latter to proceed him a little.
Uncas in his turn taking the lead of Hayward in this manner rock's
precipices and difficulties were surmounted in an incredibly short space.
That at another time and under other circumstances would have been deemed
almost insuperable. But the impetuous young men were rewarded by finding
that encumbered with Cora the Hurons were losing ground in the race. Again,
direct speech and there's going to be several parts in the next page where
there's going to be direct speech to change the rhythm of the story and to
help understand the action in a better way. Stay, dog of the Wyandottes
exclaimed Uncas shaking his bright tomahawk at Magwa. A Delaware girl calls
stay. I will go no farther cried Cora stopping unexpectedly on a ledge of
rocks that overhung a deep precipice at no distance from the summit of the
mountain. Kill me if thou wilt detestable Huron I will go no farther. The
supporters of the maiden raised their ready tomahawks with impious joy that
fiends are thoughts to take in mischief. But Magwa stayed the uplifted
arms. The Huron chief after casting the weapons he had wrested from his
companions over the rock drew his knife and turned to his captive with a
look in which conflicting passions fiercely contended. Woman, he said
choose the wigwam the wigwam wigwam is the tipi that Indians have as their
life sorry, as their house so he was saying either choose to live with me
or choose to die now. Woman, he said choose the wigwam or the knife of
Lesoutil As you can see he's using his friend's name as a way of connecting
the bad guys to their friends in a very gratuitous way. Cora regarded him
not but dropping on her knees she raised her eyes and stretched her arms
towards heaven saying in a meek and yet confiding voice I am thine do with
me as thou seest best. Woman, repeated Magwa hoarsely and endeavoring in
vain to catch a glance from her serene and beaming eye choose and what is
sort of incomprehensible is that while Hayward and Uncas are making serious
progress in terms of saving her she decides to give up and makes Magwa have
to decide on what to do with Cora when she is only minutes or a bit more
away from being rescued in the first place. So, the logic of the narrative
doesn't hold very well I don't know if you understand what I mean if she
was absolutely destitute of any hope it would make sense to create this
conflict but being so close to being rescued it doesn't make sense to
create this conflict that is going to end so tragically. But Cora neither
heard nor heeded his demand the form of the Huron trembled in every fiber
and he raised his arm on high but dropped it again with a bewildered air
like one who doubted. Once more he struggled with himself and lifted the
keen weapon again but just then a piercing cry was heard above them and
Uncas appeared leaping frantically from a fearful height upon the ledge
Magwa recoiled a step and one of his assistants profiting by the chance
seized his own knife in the bosom of Cora The Huron sprang like a tiger on
his offending and already retreating countryman but the falling form of
Uncas separated the unnatural combatants diverted from his object by this
interruption and maddened by the murder he had just witnessed Magwa buried
his weapon in the back of the prostrate Delaware uttering an unearthly
shout as he committed the dastardly deed but Uncas arose from the blow as a
wounded panther turns upon his foe and struck the murderer of Cora to his
feet by an effort in which the last of his failing strength was killed was
expended then with a stern and steady look he turned to Lesoutil and
indicated by the expression of his eyes all that he would had not the power
deserted him the latter seized the nerveless arm of the unresisting
Delaware and passed his knife into his bosom three several times before his
victim still keeping his gaze riveted on his enemy with a look of
inextinguishable scorn fell dead at his feet mercy, mercy Huron cried
keyword from above in tones nearly choked by horror give mercy and those
shall receive from it whirling the bloody knife up at the imploring youth
the victorious magua uttered a cry so fierce so wild and yet so joyous that
it conveyed the sounds of savage triumphs to the ears of those who fought
in the valley a thousand feet below he was answered by a burst from the
lips of the scout whose tall person was just then seen moving swiftly
towards him so here comes the white guy to save the day the Indian has
already fallen so again we see that there is a cliché there taking place
um with steps as bold as reckless as he possessed the power to move in air
but when the hunter reached the scene of the ruthless massacre the ledge
was tempted only by the dead his keen eye took a single look at the victims
and then shot his glances over the difficulties of the accent in his front
a form stood at the brow of the mountain on the very edge of the giddy
height with uplifted arms in an awful attitude of menace without stopping
to consider his person the rifle of Hatay was raised but a rock which fell
on the head of one of the fugitives below exposed the indignant and glowing
countenance of the honest then Magwa issued from a crevice and stepping
with calm indifference over the body of the last of his associates he
leaped a white fissure and ascended the rocks at a point where the arm of
David could not reach him a single bound would carry him to the brow of the
precipice and assure his safety before taking the leaf however the Huron
paused and shaking his hand at the scout he shouted the pale faces are dogs
the Delaware is women Magwa leaves them on the rocks for the crows laughing
hoarsely he made a desperate leap and fell short of his mark though his
hands grasp a shrub on the verge of the height height the form of the
Hawkeye had crouched like a beast about to take its spring and his frame
trembled so violently with eagerness that the muffle of the half raised
rifle exhausted himself with a fruitless effort the cunning Magwa suffered
his body to drop at the length of his arms and found a fragment for his
feet to rest on then summoning all his power he renewed the attempt and so
far succeeded as to draw his knees on the edge of the mountain it was now
when the body of his enemy was most collected together that the agitated
weapon of the scout was drawn to his shoulder the surrounding rocks
themselves were not steadier than the piece became for the single instant
that it poured out its contents the arms of the Huron relaxed and his body
fell back a little while his knees still kept their position turning a
relentless look at his enemies he shook a hand in grim defiance but his
whole loosened and his dark person was seen cutting the air with his heads
downward for a fleeting instant until it glided past a fringe of shrubbery
which clung to the mountain in its rapid flight to destruction so we can
see that's very dramatic in the end of this chapter and we can see two
climatic moments put together in a way that seems as artificial as a um
connecting to all of those tropes that we've talked about the way of
connecting the white people and the savages with the stereotypes that we've
talked about so thank you very much I'm gonna leave it here we'll talk
about Ralph Waldo Emerson next week last week before the Christmas break
really important author very very influential even though you've never
heard about him in your whole life you'll see how important he is for the
global state of things so thanks thanks a lot for connecting today or for
coming