LITR 5535: American Romanticism
 
Sample Student Research Project, fall 2003

Emily Masterson
LITR 5535
Research Project
Dr. Craig White
Nov. 18, 2003 

From Genteel to Self-Made: Morphing Masculinity of the Romantic American Male in Cooper’s Last of the Mohicans and Irving’s Legend of Sleepy Hollow

James Fenimore Cooper’s Last of the Mohicans and Washington Irving’s Legend of Sleepy Hollow are valuable examples of literary heavyweights of the Romantic era, but in addition, can also be used to chart sociological changes within the male gender during pre-Romantic and Romantic years.  

            But because neither Cooper nor Irving’s works should be distanced from their cultural backdrops when considering the socially reflective nature of their work, exploring basic historical conditions surrounding the changing concepts of masculinity can serve as a useful move. 

            Masculinity is primarily a social construct, a definition that helps us to understand the inherent complexity of an idea or concept that affects half the population at any given time period (Grace 9).  But, making sense of this complexity can be problematic.  Labeling and classifying should be approached cautiously for fear that the overcomplicating, generalizing or simplifying of gender may occur (10).  Mindful of these caveats, we can view classifying devices as a way to analyze historical, social and cultural changes in notions of masculinity.    

The “Agrarian Patriarch Period” began around 1630 and lasted until the 1820s (qtd in Grace 10).  Before 1800, according to E. Anthony Rotundo in his book American Manhood, those seeking to learn about New Englanders’ ideas of manhood cannot expect to find many documented cases where words such as “manhood” and “masculinity” are used (Rotundo 10).  Gender was not a significant issue before 1800, though as Rotundo notes, gender would gain increasing attention in later years (10).  “People recorded their ideas of what it meant to be a good man, and they were influenced by religious texts and by new ideas pouring in from abroad” (10).  According to Rotundo, the ideal man was one who ruled as head of his household, believed in “the crucial concept of duty,” and upheld stern Puritan religious of morality and social behavior (as the “pleasant, mild-mannered, devoted man of the community”).  This “good man” image seems to coincidentally parallel the English patriarchal gentleman of the seventeenth century.

            Social and economic changes around 1820 to 1860 stimulated the “Commercial Period,” which produced two “distinct spheres of influence: the business world of men and the private domestic world of women” (Grace 10).  Instead of the home being “a means of production,” industry’s influence was being felt for the first time, and with its arrival, men became connected to the public realm more clearly, and conversely, women to the private realm (10). 

But some of the changes also stemmed from politics of the day.  At the time of the Revolutionary War, political upheaval pitched American sons against American fathers, and England’s social influence over her angered citizens began to wane (Manhood 18).  Michael Kimmel, author of Manhood in America: A Cultural History, comments on fledgling America’s disenchantment with British culture:

The American colonies had few noblemen, like Sir William Randolph, but they had plenty of substitutes, from upper-class political elites to Dutch landed gentry […].  There was a little tension between them and the laborers who worked near them.  The real problem was that as long as the colonies remained in British hands, it seemed to all that manly autonomy and self-control were impossible.  Being a man meant being in charge of one’s own life, liberty and property  (18).

It would not be until after the Civil War that male gentility would become fully extinct as the premier masculine model (39).  And so, the wave of gender reshaping that followed post-Revolutionary War America began to surface, morphing the genteel man of yesteryear into a man defined by his individualism—a man conscious of gender roles and governed by his own passions.  Literary men like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Nathaniel Hawthorne were among the first to show shifting values of masculinity in their writings and encourage men of their time to be self-sufficient (28). 

            Romantic writers reflect this gradual change in American definitions of masculinity.  In the pre-Romantic Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Romantic Last of the Mohicans, the slow obscuring of masculine gentility can be observed through the emergence of the new individualistic male.  Disenchantment with the genteel man can be seen in Irving’s satirical portrayal of Ichabod Crane, a kind of ridiculous caricature of the feminized aristocrat.  Physically, Ichabod is the antithesis of coursing masculinity.  Washington describes the school teacher as “tall, but exceedingly lank, with narrow shoulders […], hands that dangled a mile out of his sleeves, feet that might have served for shovels, and a frame hung loosely together” (Washington 2095).  While Ichabod’s physical appearance serves Washington’s humorous tale, the “feminine in Ichabod is his unmanly, superstitious, trembling and gullible side—he himself seems, in this tale, begrudgingly to acquiesce to the female sphere of Sleepy Hollow” (Plummer and Nelson 1).  Irving created a stunningly vivid character that succeeds in satirizing the traditional genteel man. 

            This apparent incompetent femininity discredits Ichabod from representing true neo-American maleness-- his similarities to English aristocracy are embellished to the fullest capability of Irving’s sharp pen.  Even Ichabod’s profession is mocked:

[His] existence in Sleepy Hollow is in virtually all situations characterized by association with women and with concerns traditionally considered feminine in American society.  As schoolmaster he holds one of the few positions that in his time could be filled by a woman as well as a man.  His manner of conducting school betrays unmasculine insecurity and immaturity.   (qtd in Arnold 35) 

Ichabod’s profession is not one that commands respect from the Sleepy Hollow residents.  The townspeople, according to Irving, are “apt to consider the costs of schooling a grievous burden, and schoolmasters as mere drones…” (Irving 2096).  Because of this, Ichabod can, at times, be viewed as a mother-surrogate.  His profession is domestic; he educates children (albeit for tender), and during his free time, “found favor in the eyes of the mothers, by petting the children […] and he would sit with a child on one knee and rock a cradle with his foot for hours” (2096).  Ichabod’s connection with domestic life, children and “the hearth”, strongly suggest his identity as Irving’s feminized male, or genteel model. 

            Irving’s development of Ichabod as a mockery of traditional genteel manhood allows him to artfully insert the strong victorious character of the story: Brom Bones.  In budding Romantic fashion, Irving develops Brom’s character as one of hyper-masculinity.  Brom is intense, brutish and has a “Herculean frame” and possesses “great powers of limb” (2100).  Whereas Ichabod is best suited to a pseudo-domestic environment, Brom is “foremost in all races and cockfights” (2100) and all activities interesting and necessary to an American man, namely, interests that occur outside domestic boundaries.  Brom is the embodiment of the coming American Romantic manhood of the frontier--a rural man with rural tastes.  While Ichabod schools children, Brom as the hyper-masculine male, or “rantipole hero,” is the mock-aristocrat of the townspeople, settling disputes and “attending every scene or feud or merriment for miles around” (2101).  Irving’s humorous tale successfully mocks the genteel fop of his time, attempting to replace him with an emerging independent man. 

            Another example of genteel mockery is evident in Cooper’s Last of the Mohicans, but is taken one step further, perhaps because Cooper is fully enmeshed in the Romantic period, a time when the new manhood was becoming more developed as a social construct.  The character of David Gamut bears striking similarities to the ridiculous Ichabod: “His head was large; his shoulders narrow; his arms long and dangling; while his hands were small, if not delicate.  His legs and thighs were thin nearly to emaciation […]” (Cooper 16). 

He also mirrors Ichabod’s “mastery” of horsemanship:

[…] He raised his tall person in the stirrups; producing, in this manner, by the undue elongation of his legs, such sudden growths and diminishing of the stature, as baffled every conjecture that might be made of his dimensions.  If to this be added the fact, that in consequence of the ex parte application of the spur, one side of the mare appeared to journey faster than the other […]. (23)  

After this passage, it is crucial to notice Heyward’s initial reaction to David’s entrance: “The frown which had gathered around the handsome, open, and manly brow of Heyward, gradually relaxed, and his lips curled into a slight smile, as he regarded the stranger” (23).  Heyward, another subtle model of genteel masculinity, seemingly expected to feel threatened by another male addition to the party; but after meeting David, visibly relaxes and can disregard him as masculine competition.

David’s inadequacy as a man is quickly assessed by other more “rurally masculine” men in the story, but interestingly enough, even men of another culture easily sense his shortcomings.  At one point in the novel, a captive David is assumed by the Huron Indians to be “the subject of mental alienation” (275).  His anti-male tendencies are almost portrayed by Cooper as anti-human; because David cannot mold to the frontier masculine model, he loses everything—in essence, his humanity.

            Cooper’s “Ichabod,” is purposely ridiculous, but David’s ineptness runs deeper than surface bumbling.  Compared to rural men of the frontier such as Uncas, Chingachgook and Hawkeye, his genteel education and knowledge of the arts and theology are fundamentally inappropriate for the task at hand—navigating through treacherous wilderness and fighting for survival among the aggressive Huron tribe.  David’s possession of unsuitable masculinity, or genteel feminine-maleness, is reflective of why it was culturally necessary for ideals of manhood to change with the untamed American frontier. 

At one point, in open hostility, Hawkeye contemptibly challenges David’s right to manhood as defined by the frontiersman: “Yes, he will do their singing!  Can he slay a buck for their dinner; journey by the moss on the beeches, or cut the throat of a Huron?  If not, the first cat-bird he meets is the cleverest fellow of the two” (Cooper 187).  Like the supply and demand model of capitalism, genteel men like David could not fulfill the necessary requirements of a rural American.        

Through both Ichabod (an early model) and David (a more developed model), one can preview and observe growing hostility toward the gentleman.  But in both Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Last of the Mohicans, a replacement man is offered in the forms of Brom Bones and Hawkeye.  This emerging self-made rural man is defined in opposition to the genteel man.  The self-made man is also defined by his anti-femininity--a separation from everything inside the realm of the feminine.

  According to Rotundo, “a man’s aggression was male; his conscience female; his desire to conquer, male; his urge to nurture female; his need for work and worldly achievement, male; his wish to stay home and enjoy quiet leisure, female” (Rotundo 8).  It is interesting that Irving’s Brom Bones seems to possess all of the qualities of maleness, and Ichabod possesses all of the qualities of the feminine.  Ichabod is “considered a kind of idle, gentleman-like personage” “carrying the whole budget of local gossip from house to house,” apparently resembling traditional womanly roles in his “superior elegance and address” (Irving 2097).  Brom, on the other hand, “would be heard dashing along past the farmhouses at midnight,” since the hearth symbolizes the domestic Brom who is always out of doors.  Also, since having a moral conscience is female, we find an unrepentant Brom who “burst into a hearty laugh at the mention of the pumpkin” (2111).  This opposition creates tension between the two characters as a literary device, but also serves to socially widen the gap between the gentleman and the emerging self-made man who is defining his identity by all that is anti-female.

Another self-made male whose masculinity is defined by the anti-feminine is Hawkeye in Last of the Mohicans.  Hawkeye could be considered the most heroic European rural man in Cooper’s novel.  Unlike Heyward, he does not belong to an exclusive genteel class and seems to have little regard for formal education. For Hawkeye, education is a compromise of masculinity.  Hawkeye states, “a man who is too conscientious to misspend his days among the women, in learning the names of black marks, may never hear of the deeds of his fathers, nor feel a pride in striving to outdo them” (Cooper 31).  This statement not only asserts that education without application is unnecessary, but at the same time, insults the educated man of status, Hayward, and “his days among the women” (31).  While Hawkeye is proficient with tools of frontier masculinity (shooting, tracking, survival, and so forth), Heyward is woefully unequipped for the perils of the wilderness.  “Heyward’s ideas never work; he trusts the wrong people; he uses wrong tactics and weapons; and he is rescued on four occasions […]: three times by Natty Bumppo” (Zhang 3). Cooper spins a tale that allows Hayward more respect than David, but exalts Hawkeye as the quintessential men of men.  Hawkeye is clear example of the hyper-masculine male; this seems to be his way of lining up his male identity with all that is anti-feminine (Gendered 33).

            Defining itself in opposition to femininity was one way for Romantic men to find their unique identities as American males.  But self-made men could also be characterized as men who lead passionate existences.  According to Rotundo,

[…] This new passionate manhood was in some respects an elaboration of existing beliefs about self-made manhood, but it stretched those beliefs in directions that would have shocked individualists of the early 1800s.  The most dramatic change was in the positive value put on male passions. […] Indeed, the body itself became a vital component of manhood: strength, appearance, and athletic skill […].  (Rotundo 6)

Allowing these new passions to surface placed “a new emphasis on the self that was essential to these changes” (6).  Because a man’s passions were essential to the self, passion became an acceptable trait of the new male (6). 

            In Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Brom, another independent male prototype, is defined by his passion.  He is dashingly attractive to the point of overt sexuality—he possesses physical strength and supreme “athletic skill” (6).  Irving describes Brom as having “the ascendancy which bodily strength acquires in rustic life” (Irving 2100).  In everything which Brom takes part, he participates whole-heartedly.  When vying for Katrina’s affection, the reader gets a sense that Ichabod never could compete against the passionate, masculine figure of Brom Bones.  His passion will not let him relinquish what he deems as belonging to him in this war of the two masculine identities.  Why would Brom go to such great lengths to rid himself of Ichabod and Ichabod’s romantic pursuits?  Brom’s gusto escalates into malicious, elaborate game of trickery—he uses Ichabod’s un-masculine fears to figuratively emasculate his “competitor,” even though Brom most likely would have won Katrina without humiliating Ichabod.  But, true to the new independent Romantic male, Brom’s enthusiasms are understandable considering that he is a product of a new wave of manhood that indulges in individual passions.       

Romantic male passion was certainly not limited to passionate appearances or macho behavior—it also manifested itself in socially accepted relationships with other men (Rotundo 7).  In fact, “the patterns of men’s relationships” were also altered during this period when the new definition of manhood was still developing.  Nineteenth century men experienced gender conflicts due to a culture that “seemed to place gender labels everywhere” (7).  Out of these conflicts, men formed passionate personal relationships with other men that were socially acceptable—“men’s physical and cultural world was separated from women’s much more than it is today” (7).  Though Last of the Mohicans does not seem to overtly suggest a homoerotic relationship between Hawkeye and Chingachgook, it does seem that a very deep friendship does exist between the two men that could never exist between themselves and the opposite sex. 

At one point, when Chingachgook is telling Hawkeye about his ancestors, he allows himself to be emotionally vulnerable with his friend: “’Then Hawkeye,’ he continued, betraying his deep emotion, only by permitting his voice to fall to those low, guttural tones, which render his language, as spoken at times, so very musical [...]” (Cooper 32-33).  Both men seem passionately linked through their gender, despite wide ethnic differences, because of their efforts to embody their cultures’ standards of masculinity.

No exclamation of surprise escaped the father, nor was any question asked or reply given for several minutes, each appearing to await the moment, when he might speak, without betraying womanish curiosity or childish impatience. (33 emphasis mine)   

Chingachgook and Hawkeye are bound together as men, but their relationship has the subtle nuances of the passion.  At the end of the novel, Chingachgook tells Uncas’ mourners that he is alone:

“No, no” cried Hawkeye, who had been gazing with a yearning look at the rigid features of his friend, with something like his own self-command, but whose philosophy could endure no more […].  The boy has left us for a time, but, Sagamore, you are not alone!” (349) 

Hawkeye shares Chingachgook’s grief, saying that the boy has left “us” and professing his undying friendship—they are a linked unit, a couple burying their son together. 

Chingachgook grasped the hand that, in the warmth of feeling, the scout had stretched across the fresh earth, and in that attitude of friendship, these two sturdy and intrepid woodsmen bowed their heads together, while scalding tears fell to their feet, watering the grave of Uncas, like drops of falling rain.  (349)

Hawkeye and Chingachgook share a relationship that seems to hint at an unknown sexual element, but whatever Cooper’s intent, the friendship is one of passionate loyalty at the very least.

            When the Romanticism era in American drew to a close, societies’ notions of manhood still continues to evolve.  From 1880 to World War I, a masculinity emerged that “sought to do away with the stark and artificial lines between (the) male/female construction” (Rosen 180).  This wave of change is often referred to as the “feminizing of masculinity” (180).  Many organizations such as the Boy Scouts and other “rural” or “hyper-masculine” outlets for males are thought to have originated from a general fear of “emasculation” or the fear of losing male identity during this period (182). 

It might be suggested that since the ameba of masculinity is constantly in motion, writers, rather consciously or unconsciously, will continue to allow these structures to slip into their writing.  As long as societies’ notion of maleness adjusts to the cultural and social climate, writers will continue to reflect those changes.  By reading Romantic writers such as Irving and Cooper, Americans have a limited view of life in pre-Civil war America.  Through their writing we can more fully grasp masculine identity for Romantic men and seek to understand their struggles to forge independent selves within a relatively new nation.  Great writers like Emerson will continue to have extraordinary visions for our deeply engendered culture.  In his essay “The American Scholar,” Emerson sought to inspire his 19^th century audience of men:

“We will walk on our own feet; we will work with our own hands; we will speak our own minds.  Then shall man be no longer a name for pity, for doubt, and for sensual indulgence.  The dread of man and the love of man shall be a wall of defense and a wreath of love around all.” (526) 

Works Cited

Aiping, Zhang.  “The Negotiations of Manhood: James Fenimore Cooper’s Ideology of Manhood in The Last of the Mohicans.”

Arnold, David L.G. “Fearful Pleasure, or ‘I am Twice the Man’: The Re-Gendering of Ichabod Crane.”  University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point.

Cooper, James Fenimore.  The Last of the Mohicans.  Penguin Books, NY: 1986.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo.  “The American Scholar.” The Norton Anthology of American Literature.  Norton Co.: NY, 2003.

Grace, Nancy McCampbell.  The Feminized Male Character in Nineteenth Century Literature.  Edwin Mellen Press, Lampeter, UK:  1995

Irving, Washington.  The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

Kimmel, Michael.  Manhood in America: A Cultural History.  The Free Press, NY: 1996.

Kimmel, Michael.  The Gendered Society.  Oxford University Press, London: 2000.

Leverenz, David.  Manhood and the American Renaissance.  Cornell University Press, London: 1989.

Plummer, Laura and Michael Nelson.  “’Girls Can Take Care of Themselves’: Gender and Storytelling in Washington Irving’s ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’”. Studies in Short Fiction.  30:2 (1993). 175-74.

Rosen, David.  The Changing Fictions of Masculinity.  University of Illinois Press, Chicago: 1993.

Rotundo, E. Anthony.  American Manhood.  Basic Books, NY: 1993.