LITR 5535: American Romanticism

Sample Student Research Project 2005

Joni Thrasher

April 25, 2005

Charlotte and Cora: Female Rebellion in American Romanticism

Charlotte Temple and Cora Munro, two rebellious females found in the literature of American Romanticism, explore early American women’s issues, presenting some questions that society may not have been prepared or equipped to address. In the Encyclopedia of the Romantic Era, Ian D. Copestake offers the following on romanticism: “Romanticism as a broad term is associated with the empowerment of the individual over and above forms of law and restriction (17).”  The individual’s placement above “law and restriction” results in rebellion being a fundamental philosophical issue of romanticism. Moreover, in American Romanticism, the period beginning less than fifty years after the American Revolution, ideas of revolt remain in the culture, thus the historical rebellion underlies the literary period. The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy indicates, “Romanticism has often been called a rebellion against an overemphasis on reason in the arts” (186). In other words, at its core, romanticism is rebellion.

Early American females were not “empowered” individuals, so if they were to rebel, they had to express it in alternative ways. Rebellion in American Romanticism is at times as individual as the literary characters. Whether conscious or unconscious, private or public, and through speech or action, rebellion is part of the spirit of American Romanticism. In Charlotte Temple, Charlotte’s rebellion surfaces both in action and silent inaction, and in The Last of the Mohicans, Cora’s emerges at birth and in speech and action. Charlotte seems unaware of her rebellion, yet rebel she does. Cora’s rebellion is found in specific acts and in her nature.

Charlotte’s rebellion is presented in a sentimental novel, while Cora’s is expressed in an adventure tale. Both women ultimately die in the novels. Before Charlotte’s death, she has the chance to develop her character and mature into adulthood, where she can finally make reasonable decisions that are in her best interest. Cora’s situation, however, is different. She lacks this same development and growth, presumably because she lacks the need for it. Charlotte Temple and Cora Munro, two rebellious but nearly opposite characters, exemplify at once the potential and the limits of women in early American culture. Rebelling against established order and determined to make their own choices, a naïve schoolgirl and a resourceful woman represent the rebellious spirit in American Romanticism, an era of significant cultural change.

In Susanna Rowson’s Charlotte Temple, a young naïve girl rebels against her parents, though her rebellion is depicted as being essentially accidental. The narrator, revealing the hope that the story will “save one hapless fair one from the errors which ruined poor Charlotte,” (1) suggests that Charlotte is responsible for her actions and is certainly not admired for being true to herself or for choosing her own path. Instead, her act of rebellion is seen as a rejection of her family’s and society’s morals and values.  

Although Charlotte is portrayed as being so naïve that she is nearly unaware of her actions, causing her elopement to seem accidental, she still does ultimately leave England, heading to America with the hope and promise of marrying Montraville. Regardless of her innocence and her seeming lack of disobedient intentions, because she acts in a rebellious manner, both when she sneaks out to meet Montraville, the “monster of seduction,” and when she runs away with him, her actions may be interpreted as rebellious in nature. Her decisions can be construed as acts opposed to social norms; however, in viewing them in the context of the definition of Romanticism, she certainly does not appear to be an empowered individual, which partly forms the basis of the audience’s sympathy.

Besides the outsiders’ deceptions and betrayals, Charlotte deceives and betrays herself, which ultimately leads to rebellion, regardless of the fact that she does not admit it until much later. She decides to quit seeing Montraville, but her “treacherous heart betrayed her,” and she “was unable to resist” (8). In effect, she relinquishes responsibility by blaming her heart. Again, she rebels against herself, seen in her comment to Mademoiselle, “Indeed I do repent […] from my soul: but while discretion points out the impropriety of my conduct, inclination urges me on to ruin” (10). In other words, she releases herself from responsibility. As Caroline Garner states in her midterm, “Another way to view Charlotte’s rebellion has to do with resisting her own conscience. She constantly tells herself she will ’never repeat the indiscretion’ (381), but she does so time and time again” (Garner). Charlotte’s actions never match her words: she says one thing and then does another. The reader may surmise that the tantalizing lure of an adventure across the ocean to a new, unknown land with a handsome man appeals to her romantic sensibilities. Or perhaps she is well aware of her actions and that because of social restrictions, she does not feel free to declare her intentions. Maybe her only choice to follow her own path is to do so silently, passively. Regardless, for whatever reasons, after firmly deciding to “sacrifice love to duty,” she allows herself to be literally, physically picked up and put in the chaise (11, 12). She never explicitly says she will rebel against her parents and upbringing, yet rebel she does when she either gives up her voice and will to act (or never had the voice with which to express her desires) and when she repeatedly rebels against her better self. Only after she is living in America and has a child does she finally take responsibility for her actions, seen when she refers to her child as “the offspring of disobedience” (12).

On the other hand, Charlotte has been groomed to comply with the wishes of others, in an effort to please them. She has been trained to obey, with little or no voice of her own, which leaves her vulnerable to the schemes of people who do not have her best interest at heart. She has not been taught to think for herself and to decide what is best for her. She has been trained to do exactly what she does—feel and show empathy for others and do whatever is in her power to help, even if it is at her own expense. Putting others first would seem natural to a dutiful daughter like Charlotte. Viewing her situation from this perspective suggests the possibility that she does operate within the established order when she allows herself to be taken to America. After her first meeting with Montraville, she reveals a key aspect of her upbringing—decorum: “The levity of the gentlemen and the freedom of their conversation disgusted her” (1). Yet despite the disgust, she continues to see him. Perhaps her need to please and help others overrides her revulsion and her better judgment. Releasing Charlotte from the some of the responsibility, Cathy Davidson, in Revolution and the Word, suggests “She is a victim not so much of her wayward desires but of a shoddy education, of evil advisors (including one schoolteacher), of her legal and social inferiority” (217). The novel “provided the reader with strategies for valorizing women degraded and demeaned according to the social mores of the time [ … ]” (Davidson 234). The audience may demand that she take responsibility but clearly, Charlotte gains sympathy, regardless of her contribution to her plight.

 From Charlotte’s first meeting with Montraville until she leaves with him, the reader, sympathetic because of her extreme vulnerability, is hesitant to blame her for her actions. Charlotte is never told the truth about any situation that later causes her problems and lacks the savvy to perceive the hidden reality. Mademoiselle repeatedly tricks her, lying without hesitation in order to selfishly get what she wants. Montraville persuades her by proclaiming that he literally cannot live without her, which, of course, proves to be untrue, since he later abandons her. Because Charlotte is so ill-equipped to recognize the truth in these situations, she elicits sympathy. With her lack of experience and training to deal with the real world, she simply is not equipped to understand that others may not have her best interest at heart, which leaves her vulnerable. Charlotte’s situation stirs others’ compassion because of her plight and suffering, and the story suggests that if Charlotte had not been raised in such a traditional manner, one not so sheltered, one more similar to the way a son would have been raised, to look out for himself, then she would have been much better prepared for the circumstances. She was not taught to think for herself; instead, she was living in an environment where she was protected. But such dependence can only succeed if the protector is honorable. Because her protector proved to be dishonorable and because she lacked the skills to look out for herself, she suffers. A more independent Charlotte who could and would think for herself might have avoided the tragedy. Instead, as Stern points out, “Charlotte, symbolically no more developed than an infant, personifies unthinkingness [sic]” (46). 

Ultimately, Charlotte learns from her own and others’ mistakes, thus she has the chance to develop her character, growing and maturing into a thinking young woman. Because of her development as a person, earned at the expense of her great suffering, she does not repeat her error. Instead, she applies the lesson she learns to her life, relying on her newfound wisdom to guide her. For example, her resistance to Belcour illustrates this growth. In addition to her development of reasoning skills, Charlotte also reasserts her virtue when she “valiantly resists his overtures,” recovering at last from her “earlier lapse [of] virtue” (Davidson xviii). It is this decision regarding Belcour, made when she is more aware, informed, and educated that further demonstrates that her first decision was wrong. Simultaneously the situation hints at the possibility that if she had been told the truth by those who initially tricked her, she might have taken a different road. This point of view of Charlotte further confirms that her earlier action (or inaction) was rebellious in nature and highlights her growth and maturation.

Charlotte has one serious rebellious act, which is passive in nature, and it is viewed by all as a mistake. She suffers tremendously because of her rebellion: she is separated from her parents, lives in poverty and shame, and ultimately, dies. Yet she is portrayed sympathetically. Her suffering is not merely pitiful; it is viewed as tragic because it is not just an accident. She contributes to her suffering, and although the narrator, audience, and other characters demand that she take responsibility, at the same time, the audience sees that she has been deceived and misled and that she has not been taught to recognize those who may do her harm. With her innocent view of life and of humanity, she believes everything she is told. The audience insists that she take responsibility yet also insist that the price she ultimately pays is too high. Her rebellion is not celebrated. She is not deemed heroic because she stands her ground as a brave individual, demanding to live her life in the manner in which she chooses. Instead, her rebellion is seen in a more traditional view, as going against society’s rules, morals, and standards. Charlotte’s actions result in a portrayal of a sinner, not a saint, a rebel, but not a heroic one.

The audience’s sympathy for Charlotte may serve a function other than a method of connection between character and audience. In “The Plight of Feeling,” Julia A. Stern suggests that it is the through sympathy for Charlotte that the novel unites readers, crossing social boundaries. She points out that the response of the small audience who did not know Charlotte but were told the “little pathetic tale,” responded with, “’[W]here is she, Sir? we will go to her immediately. Heaven forbid that I should be deaf to the calls of humanity’” (67). Thus Rowson seems to predict and approve of the outer audience’s sympathetic response. This response of concern, Stern says, illustrates that Rowson created such a sympathetic figure that “the heroine need not be recognized, known, or even seen to inspire compassion in those who hear her story, both inside the novel world and in the reading audience” (67). 

Stern offers an alternative approach to Charlotte Temple, suggesting that meaning can not only be found by considering and analyzing the plot but can also be found by examining the role of the narrator, who Stern regards a mother-figure for Charlotte. She proposes that Charlotte’s story is a complex metaphor, representing America’s suffering during the Revolution and the individuals who were left out of the process of building a nation.  Stern says that Charlotte’s profound loss, her separation from her family, parallels the tremendous loss of lives during the Revolution. Speaking in general of the eighteenth-century American “novel of virtue in distress,” she says, “The task of this literature is to address and work through the unprecedented sense of loss Americans experience in the wake of a Revolution that inscribes with fraternal blood the immutability of rupture from the mother country” (32).  She says that the novel “becomes a vital touchstone for Anglo-American cultural disjunction in the Federalist period, attempting, if ultimately failing, to afford its readers a transparent vision of social relations that would radically extend the boundaries of the national body imagined in master narratives of the Founding” (32).

In this approach, the reader, indeed the entire audience, forming a bond with the narrator, contributes to meaning. “Charlotte Temple offers an alternative form of communion through which the witnesses to the heroine’s plight—characters within the novel and readers outside of it—come together and function as a unified corporate body” (Stern 33). As the “symbolic figure of the absent mother,” the narrator “does Charlotte Temple’s most important cultural work (35). Stern points out that toward the end of the novel, the narrator offers a “legendary account of the community’s sorrow, an oral tradition about the suffering and death of the heroine that springs up within the novel world” (33). This universal compassion for Charlotte has the potential to “enfranchise a post-Revolutionary community,” to include those who otherwise had been excluded because of racial, class, and gender distinctions (34).  It is the universal compassion for Charlotte, upon her death, that Rowson offers to serve as a redefinition of cultural values (37-8). Stern says, “The sacrifices exacted by the Revolution—symbolized by Charlotte Temple—and the work of mourning they inspire thus allow for the reimagining of the American polity as a body that is both more cohesive and more inclusive than its pre-Revolutionary avatar precisely because it is grounded in the sympathetic affective relations of its members” (37).

Regardless of the possibility of extracting meaning from reading Charlotte’s tale as a metaphor for issues surrounding the development of America as a nation, the reader cannot overlook the powerfully emotional story, centered on the character of Charlotte. Just as the thousands of real-life mourners who visited her grave, the grave of a fictional character, could not forget the tragic Charlotte (10), readers continue to be touched by Charlotte long after reading her tale. The metaphor approach may reveal insight into the nation, but it should not be at the expense of the character, the humanity of the story. 

            Charlotte and Cora are diametrically opposed in many aspects, though they live in similar socially restraining environments. While Charlotte silently rebels, seemingly unaware of the oppressive environment she defies, Cora boldly, successfully breaks through some of the social restraints, nearly completely disregarding social rules concerning acceptable female behavior. Sheltered, weak-minded, and naive, Charlotte more closely resembles Alice than Cora, who is mature, strong-minded, and experienced.

In James Fenimore Cooper’s forest romance, The Last of the Mohicans, Cora exemplifies rebellion because it is found not only in her speech and actions but also is present in her very being. For Cora, rebellion is automatic and involuntary, predetermined at birth. Revealing no self-consciousness about her rebellion and displaying no mulling over her decisions, she simply instinctively speaks and acts. She does not search for insight in order to discover more about her identity, which further strengthens the idea that her rebellion is automatic. Furthermore, her basic character does not change throughout the tale. The rebellious nature she inherits is present throughout the novel and throughout her life.

            Cooper presents Cora as having inherited her rebellious identity. Cora is a descendent, on her maternal side, of a black woman from the West Indies. Munro, her father, in the same speech in which this fact is revealed, also makes it clear that he, unlike most others at the time, does not consider one race to be inferior to another. He says to Major Heyward, “[. . .] you are yourself born at the south, where these unfortunate beings are considered of a race inferior to your own!’” (159). In her own home anyway, we can surmise that Munro has raised her with the idea that her mixed blood is not a disadvantage in any way.  However, Cora’s comment to Tamenund, “Like thee and thine, venerable chief [ … ], the curse of my ancestors has fallen heavily on their child!,” (305) suggests otherwise. But, showing her resourcefulness and strength of character, Cora ultimately seems to find a way to turn her status into an advantage, finding certain freedoms denied to her sister.  Unlike Alice, Cora does not have to act like ‘white’ restricted female. Shirley Samuels suggests in her essay, “Generation through Violence,” ‘That Cora, for example, has ‘a blood purer and richer than the rest of her nation’ indicates the uncertain crossings of gender, race, and nation” (107).  In a homogeneous society, the rules may not always be followed, but they are known, but with members of society who cross the borders, the rules become vague. Hence, Cora’s mixed blood would automatically allow the possibility of rebellion because of the absence of norms and standards for a mixed-blood society.

Unlike the typical image of early American women, Cora’s speech and actions illustrate a brave, outspoken nature, which can be construed as rebellious. For example, immediately after the Huron “dashed the head of the infant against a rock” and “drove his tomahawk into [the mother’s] own brain,” Magua “raised the fatal and appalling whoop,” summoning the Indians to fight, and “more than two thousand raging savages broke from the forest at the signal,” ultimately killing “between five and fifteen hundred” (176, 179). In the midst of this terrifying scene, when Magua invites Cora in the wigwam, she declines, and then courageously exclaims, “Monster! There is blood, upon thy soul; thy spirit has moved this scene” (178). He asks again, and she responds, “Never! strike if thou wilt, and complete thy revenge” (178). While hundreds are being slaughtered, Cora responds to Magua with tremendous courage, especially for a young woman in the forest in early America.

The most notable rebellious notion of Cora’s is she and Uncas’ mutual attraction. Her “mixed blood” seems to allow the attraction to Uncas but not the fulfillment of a relationship.  In “From Atrocity to Requiem,” Terence Martin suggests, “It is in relation to Uncas that Cora’s Negro-ness has a definite function [ … ]” (63), which is to raise the question of crossing the racial boundary. Martin contends,

[ … ] Uncas, as we know, is attracted to Cora, whom he admires silently, courteously, and unmistakably. [ … ]  In attending to the young women [ … ], Uncas shows a preference for Cora; in the first rescue of Heyward’s party he leaps instinctively to her assistance; during the final pursuit of Magua and Cora he bounds far ahead of Heyward and Natty Bumppo, impelled by a personal if otherwise unexpressed feeling. Uncas takes extreme risks on Cora’s account and finally dies in a frantic attempt to rescue her from the evil Magua […]. (62-3)

Another critic also addresses the function of this issue. In her essay, “How Men and Women Wrote Indian Stories,” Nina Baym agrees that Cooper suggests the possibility of a relationship between Cora and Uncas: “The Last of the Mohicans [. . .] makes explicit the implicit question of sex between Indian men and white women. The novel uses Cora and Alice to consider alternative ways of writing women into the story of white colonization of the North American continent” (72).  However, clearly, society was not ready to consider such alternatives. From the perspective of the society Cora inhabits, the idea that she would even consider being in a relationship with an Indian would be viewed as extremely rebellious and unacceptable. Indeed, even the reading audience would not even consider embracing such an idea. From a safe distance, at the end of the novel, the issue is addressed directly, once the possibility is over because both Cora and Uncas are dead.

Others’ opinions and feelings about the possibility of a relationship between Cora and Uncas are revealed at their funeral. The whites continue to define the idea as rebellious, and while the Indians do not completely embrace idea, but they are much closer to accepting the idea than the whites. This revealing scene is a combination of an Indian ritual and a Christian burial. Several of the mourners’ conversations at her funeral reveal much about her character and her place amongst them. The maidens dance all around the topic of Uncas and Cora being meant for each other, and both sides seem to accept it, or at least no one interrupts in disagreement. After singing of Cora’s need for a protector in the afterlife, the Indian maidens sing of Uncas’ attributes, hinting at the idea that Uncas will be her warrior in the afterlife. The maidens even address the potential problem of their different races in the afterlife: “They advised her to [. . .] never forget the distinction which the Manitto had so wisely established between them” (343). Only Hawkeye acknowledges a problem with the idea, though done silently: “when they spoke of the future prospects of Cora and Uncas, he shook his head, like one who knew the error of their simple creed” (344). The narrator reveals that Heyward and Munro “knew not the meaning of the wild sounds they heard” (344). The maidens appealed to the Great Spirit, presenting the case that although Cora lacked Indian “arts,” her “matchless beauty,” “noble resolution,” and “superior excellence” “should prove more than equivalent for any little imperfections in her education” (342).  In other words, she was accepted to the extent that the Indians appeal to their god to view her as one of their own. 

            The Indians mourning for Uncas encompasses more than the loss of an individual—they mourn, and indeed the novel mourns, the loss of the Mohican tribe.  The loss of the potential relationship between Cora and Uncas, to a modern audience especially, could easily represent the loss of the possibility of an alternative ending, both literarily and historically – one of a merging of cultures, a melding of people, instead of the tragic loss and decimation of native peoples.

            Everything about Cora paints her as a rebel, whether by choice or not. A mixed-blood woman who shows unflinching courage while facing death, and one who hints at having feelings for an Indian all portray Cora as a complex, unique character. That she is admired by other characters, in spite of, or perhaps because of, her differences is in itself a rebellious idea. H. Daniel Peck, in his introduction to New Essays on The Last of the Mohicans, shares that ”Kay Seymour House, in her 1965 study of Cooper, recognized that his female characters, including Cora and Alice Munro, were more complex and interesting than a century of scornful commentary had allowed” (17). Cora’s unique qualities and circumstance invites discussion and speculation, regarding Cooper’s intent as well as the readers’ response.

            Although both Charlotte and Cora are rebellious characters from American Romanticism, they differ in character and in the way they express and reveal their rebellion. Cora’s rebellious nature, her outspokenness and strength stands in stark contrast to Charlotte’s silence and weakness of character. Charlotte does not possess the presence of mind to avoid tragedy and disaster. Her rebellion is expressed silently, and she does not even appear to be awake or aware of her dissent. On the other hand, Cora freely expresses her rebellious nature, but her rebellion may only be allowed because of her status on the border, or just outside of the culture. Still, even with her permission to act outside of the acceptable norms of a white society (that she occupies, regardless of them being in a forest), she is not free to act on every desire. She is allowed to be attracted to Uncas from a distance, but the realization of the relationship remains out of reach, beyond the boundaries of acceptance, even in American Romanticism, a rebellious era

            Charlotte and Cora both suffer as a result of their rebellion, which warrants sympathy, both in and out of the novels. In spite of demanding that she take responsibility, the audience deeply cares for Charlotte. The circumstances and the demand for accountability result in pressure on Charlotte to change, and she responds appropriately, finally maturing into an adult capable of making reasonable decisions. By contrast, Cora does not change much throughout the novel. Her circumstances change but do not pressure her to alter herself or to confront any inadequacies in herself. Without question, Cora’s suffering evokes sympathy, not only because of her loss of life, with her contributing nothing to her tragic death, but also because of the hints at the possibility that she missed out on love and the hints that had she lived, she might not have been able to find a place in which to flourish. The audience mourns the loss of these two women and is left to speculate about their potential, if they had lived. Charlotte and Cora both share the same ultimate result – both are denied love and life. 

            If Charlotte Temple would have been in the group traveling through the forest in The Mohicans, she would resemble Alice, helpless, defenseless, and vulnerable. Unlike Cora, Charlotte never has the opportunity to develop internal resources and inner strengths. On the other hand, like Charlotte, perhaps Cora might have wished for Uncas to physically pick her up and carry her away. However, the image of an Indian whisking a ‘white’ woman away from her people implies a different story altogether, which is the point. At a time when Americans knew of captivity narratives, the very idea of a white woman willingly departing with an Indian was unthinkable. This is the image of an idea whose time had not yet come. Cora seems to have sufficient confidence and certainly finds the voice to confront Magua but not the confidence and voice to reveal feelings for Uncas. Perhaps she would have found the voice to demand self-determination if she had been able to command a powerful voice, showing no qualms about demanding what she wants. But that idea was also one whose time had not yet come. Future cultural rebellions would allow such previously unthinkable ideas to flourish.

Works Cited

Baym, Nina. “How Men and Women Wrote Indian Stories.” New Essays on The Last of the Mohicans. Ed. Daniel Peck. Cambridge UP, 1992. 67-86.

Cooper, James Fenimore. The Last of the Mohicans. (1826). New York: Penguin, 2001.

Copestake, Ian D. “American Romanticism: Approaches and Interpretations.” Encyclopedia of the Romantic Era. Ed. Christopher John Murry. Dec 2003. Retrieved 4/20/2005 from

            <http://www.routledge-ny.com/ref/romanticera/american.com/>

Davidson, Cathy N. Revolution and the Word: The Rise of the Novel in America. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004.

---. Introduction. Charlotte Temple. By Susanna Rowson. (1791). New York: Oxford, 1986.

Garner, Caroline. “The Rebellious Spirit of Romanticism.” UHCL American Romanticism, Fall 2000.

Hirsch, E. D., Jr., Joseph F. Kett, & James Trefil, ed. The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy. 2^nd ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1993. 186.

Martin, Terence. “From Atrocity to Requiem: History in The Last of the Mohicans.” New Essays on The Last of the Mohicans. Ed. Daniel Peck. Cambridge UP, 1992. 47-65.

Peck, H. Daniel . Introduction. New Essays on The Last of the Mohicans. Cambridge UP, 1992.

Rowson, Susanna. Charlotte Temple. (1791). Ed. Cathy N. Davidson. New York: Oxford, 1986.

Samuels, Shirley. “Generation through Violence: Cooper and the Making of Americans.” New

Essays on The Last of the Mohicans. Ed. Daniel Peck. Cambridge UP, 1992. 87-114.

Stern, Julia A. The Plight of Feeling: Sympathy and Dissent in the Early American Novel.

            Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1997.