Marcia Toalson    

March 1, 2005 

                                     Romanticism:  Isolation and Separation

     In pre-Romantic and Romantic  Period  literature there exists the concept or feeling of isolation or separation.  It can mean physical separation as in a pre-Romanticism work called  “Rip Van Winkle” by Washington Irving or it can mean a physical and emotional separation as in the Genesis account.  All the pre-Romantic selections we have read will lead us into a full-scale example of isolation and separation found in our novel,  Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper, a literary movement into the Romantic era.

     In the Genesis account, isolation is no doubt more poignant than in any other selection.  God had chosen Adam to be His first physical link with the Universe with explicit instructions to not eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  From Adam God created Eve, a helpmeet so Adam would not have to be alone.  The tree looked so appetizing that Eve picked an apple off of the tree and offered it to Adam.  He was so tempted by the beauty of it that he indeed took a bite from it.  Immediately, the paradise which was to be theirs became a frightening place to them and God’s wrath was present everywhere.  The separation or isolation between man and God began here in the Garden of Eden.  Indicative of the isolation is a quote directly from the Genesis account.  “…therefore, the Lord God sent  him forth from the Garden of Eden to the ground from whence he was taken.  So he drove out  the man:  and he placed at the east of the Garden of Eden cherubim, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the Tree of Life.” 23 and 24

     The separation and isolation theme became very evident in the account of Columbus’ journeys.  Christopher Columbus had a vision of a possibility of finding a commercially viable route to Asia , via  the Atlantic Ocean.  It began as a quest for a New World, a sense of adventure, an appeal to the imagination and ended with Columbus’ sense of paradise lost just like the Genesis account.  Columbus’ voyages began with a sense of wonder and excitement and ended in bloody disorder and his name being slandered.  His series of four voyages between 1492 and 1504 all ended in the same way. “ Apparently, friendly relations with the Taino Indians on the island of Hispaniola in 1492 turned sour as the settlers Columbus left behind demanded gold and sexual partners from their hosts.  On his return there in 1494 none of the Europeans were alive.” N25   The disenchantment and disasters did not end there for Columbus.  A new settlement, established  near Cuba and Jamaica ,fell into such disorder and unrest that Columbus had to return to Spain to clear his name  because of charges which were politically motivated  made by other Europeans.  Because of Columbus’ separations and his isolation from his newly discovered areas, there was no order or government on the island and things fell to rack and ruin so to speak.  Due to the greed and illicit and sometimes illegal activities of the settlers who were left to colonize the islands,  Columbus’ endeavors soon failed.  On one occasion, he found himself brought back to Spain in chains and under arrest, thereby contributing to a mental breakdown and eventual early death. 

     Washington Irving is known for a story widely known by the American public of a well-loved figure in American folklore called Rip Van Winkle.  His isolation and separation  physically from his wife and all those that he loved became a central theme in the story.  Rip Van Winkle was a kind and mild-mannered man, a descendant of, soldiers, well liked by his neighbors, loved by children and dogs.  He would do anything to help anybody.  His main shortcomings were that he was not prone to do a lot of work around home and he was easy to get along with, easily molded and too malleable.  Because of this characteristic, he had allowed himself to be horribly hen-pecked by his wife.  He was always ready to attend to everyone else’s business but reticent to take care of his own.  He flew kites with the neighbor children, did odd jobs for the women in town, played with the neighbors’ dogs as well as his own dog Wolf.  Through his wife’s constant nagging he sometimes blocked it out and began wandering daydreaming into beautiful mountain-filled scenery, going fishing and  enjoying the day.  On one particular occasion, he began walking admiring nature and not realizing how far he was getting form home and how late it was becoming.  He became very tired and decided to lie down and rest.  When he awoke, it was the supreme isolation and it was twenty years later.  It was a romantic story of retreating into nature and also separating oneself from day to day activities which cause  stress.  This was a physical isolation and separation from his somewhat distasteful home life but he had already isolated himself years before by being a dreamer, dwelling in the myth-making gentle world which he loved.

     In the instance of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the separation occurred over a new nation’s struggle to sever relations with the mother country.  It was almost like a child’s struggle for independence from overly domineering parents.  The move was a definite step forward, a step out, filled with romantic vision and the ultimate beauty of freedom.  The signing of the Declaration of Independence was a true quest for the pursuit of happiness and ended with the promise of a new America, thus framing the Romantic Era. 

     The Charlotte handout was a story of very tragic circumstances brought about by a young girl’s physical separation from her family because of  her belief in a man’s love for her and romantic adventure.  In this case, her willing separation resulted in the loss of her innocence and her eventual tragic death.  Sadly, Charlotte’s child was all her parents had left of Charlotte.  All the years that Charlotte could have spent in a well-to- do home with loving parents instead were replaced by disappointment and abandonment.  Actually Charlotte was separated twice, once by choice when she left her parents and secondly, unwillingly left in squalor by the man she believed loved her.  

     All the above examples of isolation and separation in the literary selections  were from the pre-Romantic period but no selection, in my opinion, suggests isolation and separation any more than the Romantic period novel called Last of the Mohicans.  The isolation theme runs through it in terms of race and society.  The novel dealt with racial divide and explored Cooper’s own feelings about interracial mixing and the isolation that it can cause either within families or within cultures.  

     The physical isolations and separations that took place in the novel were brought quickly to bear by looking at a family separated by war.  Two girls, Alice and Cora, had a father who was serving as commander of the British forces at Fort William Henry.  His name was General Munro.  His daughters wanted to arrange to meet their father and to do this they found themselves in an uncharted land, totally different from their comfort level being escorted by an Indian by the name of Magua.  Also traveling in their party was David Gamut, a singing master and religious follower of Calvinism, also unrelated to the area.  Being thrust into an unknown territory was bad enough, but to find out that they were being led in the wrong direction by the Indian guide was still worse.  Major Heyward, a white southerner who was also traveling with them later also felt the isolation of civilization since he was totally out of place in the forest.  This pretty much covers the physical isolation.  The emotional isolation brought about by differences in race and prejudices  basically became one of the central ideas of the novel, if not the most central idea.

     The racial division then runs clearly throughout the novel and begins nearly immediately.  General Munro’s two daughters , Alice and Cora, were not from the same mother.  Alice’s mother was a childhood sweetheart of General Munro and Cora’s mother was a West Indian Creole with a drop of Negro blood, which accounts for Cora’s ruddy complexion and deep dark hair unlike her sister’s fair complexion and hair.  There was an attraction between Cora and Magua from the beginning but very much forbidden.  The attraction that developed between Cora and Uncas, a Mohican however, was a love match.  Cooper treated this relationship with sensitivity.

     Cooper was careful to present all races equally.  For every bad Indian like Magua, there was a good Indian too like Uncas, noble and honest.  Likewise, for every dishonorable white man, there was an honorable one.  For every romantic relationship that was successful there was one, though exciting and stimulating to the reader, could never be.  Such was the relationship between Cora and Uncas.  Though Cooper was strongly for keeping races separate and isolated, it was so unusual that he stretched his literary portrayal of Uncas and showed Unca’s admiration for Cora.  They were both considered outsiders.  He was an Indian and he and his father Chingachgook  were the last remaining members of the Mohican tribe.  So, Uncas was essentially without a people and so was Cora.  Cora was not completely white as mentioned before so they had an alliance, a connection for this reason.  Cooper at this time had to be very careful about his characters involved in interracial relationships because if they were not separated and isolated and the relationship worked, his books may very well have been banned.  But he still felt the need to express his views or at least inform, not to unduly influence.  He only wanted to give the reader and society time to think and consider possibilities.  Cooper had to doom the relationship between Uncas and Cora because the world was not ready for a love affair between an Indian and a white girl with Negro blood.    Since Uncas and Cora were both very strong admirable characters, Cooper was actually saying that it bodes well for happier race relations in the future.  As was pointed out in class, Uncas was punished for his taboo desires perhaps because Cooper thought that he should be punished and perhaps because Cooper thought that Unca’s close-minded society would punish racial mixing and separate them.  Cooper was entertaining the idea that possibly separation of the races may at one point stop but only a possibility not a probability.  Some say that since the main character in the novel was Hawkeye, a white scout who was actually a symbol of a bridge that would close the gap of isolation between the races.  His best friends were Uncas and Chingachgook.  The relationship between the three of them was not considered to be a forbidden interracial relationship because they were all of the same sex.  Hawkeye, some say Cooper’s spokesperson, did not condone a relationship which was interracial between a man and a woman.  Interestingly enough, it was believed that part of the reason that the American Indians were driven off of their lands was directly related to the fear that the white men had that their women, their wives, their daughters would become sexually attracted to the Indians surrounding the area.  It seemed that separation was the best thing. 

     The novel ended with compassionate pessimism about race relations.  General Munro wanted to express a hope that whites and Indians would someday meet in a place where skin color did not matter.  But, Hawkeye said that to suggest racial equality to the Delaware nation was to confront and contradict nature.  His words were ambiguous; they might have been the assertion of a racist man who did not believe in equality or they might have been the defeated words of a realist who knew that the Delaware would never know racial equality in their lifetime.  Separation and isolation existed and the novel remains an embodiment of nineteenth century ambivalence concerning races. 

     Hawkeye praised essential identity yet when he learned that Magua was a Huron, he pronounced him a bad man.  Though he had praised individuality, he assigned characteristics to a man based totally on his race.  While Cooper condemned Hawkeye’s racism, he wrote the plot that justified that racism.  There is a quote that I would like to use from a midterm paper that was written by April Davis called “Crossing Boundaries” that I thought was appropriate to my thoughts, since the barriers and boundaries that she spoke of allow separation and isolation to continue as themes throughout the Romantic period in literature.  “ Boundaries are limits placed on human existence.  Although most people exercise, to a great degree, an awareness of the boundaries that restrict their thoughts and actions, some individuals dare to cross the boundaries and explore the unknown.”