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(2015
midterm assignment) Sample Student Midterm Answers 2015 #2a: Short Essay (Favorite Passage) |
LITR 4328 |
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Elizabeth Myers
Inequality Then and Now
During the course of the semester, I have read many passages that have made me
stop, think, and reflect on what the authors were discussing in regards to their
overall purpose. However, the passages that have made the best impression on me
so far are from James Fenimore Cooper’s
The Last of the Mohicans due to them enabling readers to open up a dialogue
about race and inequality that is still relevant in modern America today.
In chapter sixteen, Colonel Munro
discusses Cora’s maternal bloodline, which is part African, with Major Duncan
Heyward and criticizes him for his likely discrimination against her, since he
does not want to marry the dark-eyed and dark-haired Cora, but instead her
younger, more immature, blonde-haired, and blue-eyed sister Alice.
Colonel Munro declares, “Major Heyward, you are yourself
born at the south, where these unfortunate beings are considered of a race
inferior to your own” and “. . . you cast it on my child as a reproach! You
scorn to mingle the blood of the Heywards with one so degraded-lovely and
virtuous though she be? . . .”
“
‘Heaven protect me from a prejudice so unworthy of my reason!’ returned Duncan,
at the same time conscious of such a feeling, and that as deeply rooted as if it
had been engrafted in his nature.”
The Last of the Mohicans is a good example
of how American Renaissance writers used literature as a means to highlight
problems within their society and to serve as a medium for change. Cooper’s
discussion about race and inequality is similar to how other American
Renaissance writers like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Harriet Beecher Stowe used
their literary works to argue for social changes, such as celebrating the
“individual” or the abolition of slavery. Moreover, the aforementioned passages
illustrate to readers that inequality not only existed for individuals with
African bloodlines when this novel was set and published, but it eerily
parallels the experiences of modern African Americans today.
Just as Major Heyward internally deems
Cora unworthy for marriage and for being the mother to his future children due
to her mixed bloodline, contemporary African Americans are still negatively
affected by the same inequality due to the continued negative connotation
associated with their ethnicity. For example, a video was recently made public
of members of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity from the University of Oklahoma
using racial slurs, derogatory, and threatening language while singing a chant
that referenced African Americans (“New Fallout”). The students in the video
illustrate that they, like Major Heyward, have similar feelings of African
Americans being inferior to Caucasians (“New Fallout”).
After reading
The Last of the Mohicans and
reflecting on current times, I became greatly saddened that America has come so
far in the name of equality since this novel was published, like the abolition
of slavery and the success of the Civil Rights movement, and, yet, we as a
society still have so far to go until equality for all ethnicities is fully
realized. I believe that Cooper’s poignant language makes it easy for readers to
empathize with Cora’s plight and those of modern African Americans or other
minorities after reading Colonel Munro’s stirring lament toward Major Heyward.
Although Cooper seems at times to be ambivalent toward racial equality and
interracial relationships due to the same stigma also shown toward Cora’s and
Uncas’ romantic feelings for one another and their ultimate demise, I believe
that Cooper’s novel still has the ability to open up a valuable dialogue about
the unfairness of judging individuals’ worth by their skin colors.
Work Cited
“New
Fallout from Racist Fraternity Video.”
CBS News. CBS Corporation, 10 Mar. 2015. Web.10 Mar. 2015.
