This question is difficult because Cooper's views are outdated in the present day. However, upon examination of the novel in the context it was written, the answer would, most likely, be "no." Remember, that in the nineteenth century, sexual relations between different races was illegal in the United States. However, Cora is presented as a woman of strength and courage—even though she considers herself "a violation of nature" due to her interracial background—and she is willing to give up her life for her sister, Alice.
With that being said, Cooper does portray many of the characters as stock characters such as the "noble savage." More interesting, however, is that Cooper kills off Cora and Uncas (rather than allowing their union), which could be interpreted as his abhorrence for racial mixing. But, on a deeper level, perhaps Cooper intended their death to illustrate and delve into the problematic moral issues facing the new republic—those based upon oppressing indigenous peoples and implementing racial division, which began with the founding fathers.
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Can we consider Cooper as a racist in his book The Last of the Mohicans?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Summarize the major research findings of "Toward an experimental ecology of human development."
Based on findings of prior research, the author, Bronfenbrenner proposes that methods for natural observation research have been applied in ...
-
One way to support this thesis is to explain how these great men changed the world. Indeed, Alexander the Great (356–323 BC) was the quintes...
-
Polysyndeton refers to using several conjunctions in a row to achieve a dramatic effect. That can be seen in this sentence about the child: ...
-
Both boys are very charismatic and use their charisma to persuade others to follow them. The key difference of course is that Ralph uses his...
-
At the most basic level, thunderstorms and blizzards are specific weather phenomena that occur most frequently within particular seasonal cl...
-
Equation of a tangent line to the graph of function f at point (x_0,y_0) is given by y=y_0+f'(x_0)(x-x_0). The first step to finding eq...
-
Population policy is any kind of government policy that is designed to somehow regulate or control the rate of population growth. It include...
-
Gulliver cooperates with the Lilliputians because he is so interested in them. He could, obviously, squash them underfoot, but he seems to b...
No comments:
Post a Comment