LITR 5535: American Romanticism

Sample Student Research Project 2006

Crystal Reppert

November 20, 2006

The View of a Myth From Outside the Culture That Produced It

            Captivity narratives played a significant role in the American frontier Romance novel. Actual and fictionalized captivity scenarios served to promote what historian and author Richard Slotkin has called “mythogenesis“(4). The American myth derived from the experiences that were put into print by the first Anglo-Europeans who attempted to forge an existence in the wilderness of the New World. As the wilderness developed into a nation, the growing mythology established a unique identity separate from the hierarchal European tradition but that effectively maintained white, male dominance. The captivity narrative, as part of the mythology, effectively placed non-Anglo-Americans in the role of the “other” and categorized the ideal woman as a dependant, second-class citizen. The works of Mary Rowlandson and James Fenimore Cooper illustrate the evolution of this dichotomous perception.

            The original frontier captivity narrative revolves around the interactions that occurred between Native Americans and persons of European descent. Rowlandson ( in the year 1676) was the first author to popularize this literary form when she wrote of her experiences as a captive during the aboriginal rebellion known as King Philip_s War. Rowlandson writes,

It is a solemn sight to see so many Christians lying in their

blood, . . . like a company of sheep torn by wolves, all of

them stripped naked by a company of hell-hounds, roaring,

singing, ranting, and insulting,; yet the Lord by His almighty

power preserved a number of us from death . . . . (137)

The allegorical representation of Christian blood spilt on the “English Israel” (Slotkin 94) to the blood of Christ spilt for the redemption of mankind contrasted to the representation of the Indians as “singing, ranting, and insulting” serves to draw a divisive line between the two peoples. Replacing English persons with the descriptive “Christians” and Indian persons with the descriptive “hell-hounds” effectively serves to further divide the groups beyond differences in race to differences in the right of one group over the other to forgiveness and acceptance in the eyes of God. “Rowlandson’s narrative expelled American Indians from the human race . . . And inscribed a female authorial and political subjectivity” (Smith-Rosenberg 486). Dr. Teresa Toulouse of Harvard University, argues that authorial and political subjectivity were made p ossible not only by the “spiritual justification” of her narrative as evidence of God’s grace, but also by the “secular justification” of her position in the social structure as a “gentlewoman,” the wife of “Lancaster’s minister,” Joseph Rowlandson. A further justification of her status is in the fact that “her father, John White, was the wealthiest man in Lancaster.” The duality of her male defined status served to overcome the “possibly uncomfortable decision to publish a woman’s narrative” and probably played a significant role “in her own willingness to have it published” (Toulouse 656). Reverend Increase Mather gave the final approval for publication of Rowlandson’s narrative. He provided a preface to her writing that enabled “him to ventriloquize his own political agenda against the Indians and  in favor of passive feminine purity” (Potter 164).

            In her narrative, Rowlandson employs a “Eurocentric” schema to maintain her “Puritan self-identity” (Potter 153). She describes an experience during the twelfth remove:

                        I complained it [her daily load] was too heavy, whereupon

she [her Indian mistress, the sachem Weetamoo] gave me a

slap in the face . . .; I lifted up my heart to God, hoping the                                 

redemption was not far off: and the rather because their

insolence grew worse and worse. (Rowlandson 142)

Toulouse theorizes that Rowlandson has learned the use of a word such as “insolence” through its definition within “the terms of a hierarchical social discourse” (657) established in her patriarchal society. Just as her status is assigned in White society by her relation to men, Rowlandson seems to justify her superior status among the Indians as a white Christian through her ability to use a male defined discourse. Her adaptation of the male discourse to position herself in Indian society would seem to signal her equality within her own society, but such is not the case. Rowlandson makes use of male discourse to define her relation not only to the Indians as superior but to define her relation to the overall situation as an inferior being. Proof of her inferiority in light of the patriarchal precepts of her own society is a crucial link in her re-admittance into White society.

            The status of women in Puritan society was based on interpretation of the “Old Testament version of the fall of man.” The genesis of humankind, in their eyes, was based on pain, suffering, and the necessity of man to reestablish his control after Adam’s temporary submission “to female authority” that resulted in their expulsion from Eden (Slotkin 46). Rowlandson writes of the loss of her child, “. . . I must and could lie down by my dead babe, side by side all the night after. I have thought . . . of the goodness of God . . . that I did not use wicked and violent means to end my own miserable life” (140). Motherhood, the judgment of God on women after “Eve violated the authority of both the paternal deity and her husband” (Slotkin 46), was viewed in Puritan society as a sign of a woman’s inferiority. Toulouse writes that components of the language of martyrdom, “self-sacrifice, submission, and self-abnegation,” were applicable in Puritan society to both men and women, but these traits for women “are reinforced not only by theology but also by specific historical/cultural attitudes toward women as a sex.” Rowlandson’s eleven-week period of captivity with the Indians placed her outside of her society. Her suffering as a mother and God’s goodness in protecting her from suicide prove “that she is special indeed” (Toulouse 659) and, as Mather explains in his preface, “a good woman is God_s ‘precious servant,’ a passive and subservient being . . . _ (Potter 156). A fellow captive, Mrs. Joslin, proves by her actions the insincerity of her devotion to God:

In the fourth remove it becomes clear that Joslin had not so

“waited” [for God’s deliverance], but, writes Rowlandson, “being

so near her time [the birth of her second child], she would be

often asking the Indians to let her go home,” until they, “vexed

with her importunity,” finally murdered her. (Toulouse 660)

Rowlandson continues after this description to focus on her “own agony of body and her despair about her separation from her other children.” Joslin does not kill herself, but her inability to quietly bear her suffering and await God’s deliverance is proof enough that Rowlandson is the superior martyr who “as mother, must continue to suffer both [bodily and mental pain], doing God’s will, waiting his pleasure, not her own” (Toulouse 660). Rowlandson juxtaposes her suffering and survival to the death of a woman who failed the test to prove that “a martyr’s affliction and redemption is the body, not the body as aggressive and actively competitive but as weak, passive, and enduring_all characteristics theologically recognized as Christian and culturally recognized as womanly” (Toulouse 659). 

            Rowlandson, as a woman, was exposed to a danger that was particularly offensive to the Puritan mentality - sexual assault from her male captors. The references Rowlandson makes to her children, “. . . I must sit in the snow, . . . with my sick child in my lap (139), . . . I went to see my daughter Mary . . . she would fall aweeping; at which they were provoked and would not let me come near her” (140-41), firmly establishes her maternity, “one of the true and universal qualities of true and valuable femininity” (Potter 156). Another of these qualities is “sexual purity.” Her maternal value is without question, but in establishing the Indians as non-Christian “hell-hounds” (137), Rowlandson has placed them outside of Puritan ethics and has also placed herself at their mercy. Her only hope of intervention is from God himself and she can only rely on that intervent ion through her theologically defined role as “weak, passive, and enduring” (Toulouse 659). Mather writes in his preface to the narrative, “God will be seen _ruling the most unruly, weakening the most cruel and salvage [sic] . . . curbing the lusts of the most filthy’” (Potter 156).  Rowlandson writes in defense of her purity,

I have been in the midst of those roaring lions, and savage

bears, that feared neither God, nor man, nor the devil, by

night and day, alone and in company, sleeping all sorts

together, and yet not one of them ever offered me the least

abuse of unchastity to me, in word or action. (148)

Rowlandson lays her situation on the line, secure in her Christian status as wife and mother and her juxtaposition to Joslin that crystallized her position of superior endurance to suffering while she awaited God’s judgment. Mather’s support is a necessary component of Rowlandson’s re-admission in to Puritan society as a chaste woman after her ordeal of captivity. His explicit reference to “the lusts of the most filthy” sum up the Puritan perception of the Indians in general and Indian men in particular. Mather’s support enables him to take over her “experience for corporate purposes” (Fitzpatrick 5). Rowlandson’s story is no longer about an individual’s salvation from God but is redirected to “induce repentance, discourage dispersion, and inspire those who would venture forth to new settlements to establish churches in their midst posthaste” (Fitzpatrick 5). Mather’s subjugation of the text also undermines Rowlandson’s authorial authority as an independent woman who finds her own strength in God and relegates her instead to a voice for Puritan society’s perception of a woman’s salvation as being wholly and totally dependent upon her adherence to cultural norms.

            Rowlandson makes reference to the color of her captives, “black creatures” (138),    when she is initially captured, but color in the 17^th century is not a defining issue of difference. Potter writes that Hudson and Wheeler “have documented, it was not until the 1770s that _complexion emerged as the most powerful testament to the new value accorded to visible racial differences’” (155). Europeans before the 1770s mainly supported their right of superiority over others based on their perception of advanced “levels of civilization, culture, and political organization” (156). When Cooper wrote The Last of the Mohicans in 1826, color had joined the list of superiority factors. Cooper’s introduction of the color factor is subtly and carefully interwoven throughout the book to both promote white superiority and to connect it with cultural standards of “true te  femininity.

            The Last of the Mohicans is set during the French and Indian war, a territorial dispute between Britain and France that took place in North America from 1754-1763. The story is built around the attempts of two young ladies, Cora and Alice Munro, to join their father, Colonel Munro, at his post, Fort William Henry. Munro’s post is deep within the area of fighting and for the sisters to reach the end of their journey requires the assistance of an odd collection of men: Lieutenant Duncan Heyward, Natty Bumppo (Hawk-eye), a singing master, David Gamut, and two Mohicans, Chingachgook and Uncas. In this collection of seven characters, Cooper manages to capture and project the chaos of the formation of the American nation. Michael Butler proposes that Gamut is representative of the failed attempts of  “Puritanism’s arrogant suppressions and redefinitions of Nature” (120). Ignorant of the ways of the forest, Gamut is content to move through life singing the praises of God in a wilderness that, from the Puritan standpoint of order and control, God seems to have forsaken. His personality is a stark contrast to that of Heyward who, though also ignorant of the wilderness, is a representation of order and control primarily for the glorification of nation, not God. In an early scene when Gamut has jus t joined Heyward and the women on their journey into the forest, Heyward chastises him for his apparent disregard for the solemnity of their situation: “. . . common prudence would teach us to journey through this wilderness in as quiet a manner as possible. . . Postpone [your] chant until a safer opportunity” (Cooper 26). Both are in contrast to Hawk-eye, the white man who, to all appearances, has adapted to the wilderness on its own terms. The characterization of Gamut and Heyward is in conflict with Nature, but Hawk-eye’s conflict with his Indian companions is self-imposed. When Cora pleads with the men to escape a cave refuge that will inevitably be over-run by hostile Indians, Hawk-eye praises her words: “. . . they bear the spirit of Christianity; what might be right and proper in a red skin may be sinful in a man who has not even a cross in his blood to plead for his ignorance” (Cooper 92). [Italics inserted ]. Cooper makes certain that the character of Hawk-eye, though outside the normal confines of White society, is distinctly represented as a White, Christian - not as a man who is Indianized. It is Hawk-eye’s ability to interact with the wilderness and its inhabitants that separates him from the two European men. His color, race, and religion bind him to them in a bond that the chaos of the wilderness cannot break. As non-Christian, red “others“, his Indian companions can never be part of that bond.

            Cooper contrasts the characters and physical descriptions of the two sisters to bring out another aspect of chaos present in America - the intrusion of people of color into white society. Butler writes that “tragically, Cora embodies the chaos resulting from a violation of the integrity of race” (120). Her difference is hinted at initially and is not fully revealed until the middle of the book.  Alice is described as having a “dazzling complexion, fair, golden hair, and bright blue eyes. . . The flush . . . in the western sky was not more bright nor delicate than the bloom on her cheek; nor was the opening day more cheering than [her] animated smile.”  The description of Cora is gothic in its focus on darkness: “her dark eyes, . . . the tresses of this lady were shining and black, like the plumage of the raven . . . complexion was not brown, but . . . charged with the color of the rich blood, that seemed ready to burst it s bounds” (Cooper 17). Alice is described as obviously white, while Cora is distinctly not. It is in a conversation between Munro and Heyward that Cora’s history is clarified. Heyward approaches the older man concerning marriage to one of the latter’s daughters. As the eldest, Munro wrongly assumes it is Cora to whom Heyward refers: “Aye Cora! We are talking of your pretensions to Miss Munro, are we not, sir?” (191). When Heyward corrects him, that it is Alice who is in his mind, Munro provides him with Cora’s history and the reason behind his protective attachment to her.

There [in the West Indies] it was my lot to form a connection

with one who in time became my wife, and the mother of Cora.

She was the daughter of a gentleman of those isles, by a lady

whose misfortune it was. . . to be descended, remotely, from

that unfortunate class . . . enslaved to administer to the wants

of a luxurious people. (193)

Alice’s mother is a second, white wife of Munro. He is highly offended that Heyward would choose Alice over Cora and believes it is because of Cora’s dark origins. With Cora’s status in society firmly established as a mulatto, actions attributed to her earlier in the book become contextualized.

            When Cora, Alice, and Heyward embark on their journey into the dark, unknown forest, they are to be guided by a dark, unknown Indian guide, Magua. Alice expresses concern after “laughing at her own weakness_ for the shock she experiences at the sight of Magua: “Are such specters frequent in the woods, Heyward . . .? I like him not . . .” and she shuddered “partly in assumed, yet more in real terror” (18). Alice, as the white representation of feminine purity, plays her proper role. She expresses her unease to the male authority of the group. Cora, however, makes her own judgment: “Should we distrust the man because his manners are not our manners, and that his skin is dark!’ coldly asked Cora” (20). In this interaction, Alice is assuming the traditional feminine, maternal role of concern for the group through deference to male authority. Cora’s reaction is more a male role of brash acc eptance of what appears to be a rational solution. Unlike Alice, she does not appeal to Heyward for reassurance but responds to Alice’s concerns based on her own assessment. Rowlandson  juxtaposes her femininity of passive acceptance of her captivity as her meek acceptance of God’s judgment to Joslin_s aggressive, non-acceptance that leads to her early death. Cooper adapts this same technique to prove the acceptable feminine role by paralleling Alice’s passivity to Cora’s independence.

              These types of juxtapositions aid in defining women through  a system that anthropologist Sherry B. Ortner has described as the “universal fact of female devaluation.” Pearson quotes her argument “that all cultures identify women with nature and men with culture itself: ‘Since it is always culture’s project to subsume and transcend nature, if women were considered part of nature, then culture would find it ‘natural’ to subordinate, not to say oppress, them” (684). Nature in its true presentation as wild and independent is difficult to subordinate and oppress, but nature perceived as controllable and dependent aligns better with the male structure of culture. Rowlandson’s independence as both author and person is undermined by a patriarchal society, which demands that her captivity experience be ordained by a male authority. Cora’s independence is undermined by comparison to her white, passive sister. Alice is the societal norm of womanhood that men have attempted to establ ish since Adam’s fall from grace at the beginning of mankind, while Cora projects chaos through both her racial mixing and her free-will. 

            Heyward and Cora are both proven wrong in their acceptance of Magua as guide into the unknown. He soon turns on the group and rejoins his native tribe that is allied with the French, not the British. Heyward appeals to Hawk-eye for guidance in the forest and it is decided to refuge in a place known to the scout to wait out the night. Before the group retires, they stop for food and water. Uncas, the younger of the two Mohicans, acts “as attendant to the females.” While courteous to both women, “his dark eyes lingered on her [Cora’s] rich speaking countenance” (63). During their stay in a hidden cave, the party is under siege from Magua and his tribe. At Cora’s insistence, again male characteristics of bravery and independence, Hawk-eye and the Mohicans are convinced to leave the others to seek help. Hawk-eye and Chingachgook have gone, but Uncas lingers behind. “Uncas will stay,” he informs Cora.

 ldblquote Go, generous young man,” Cora lowers her eyes under the gaze of the Mohican, “with an intuitive consciousness of her power” (93). When Cora becomes a prisoner of Magua, he is far more open in his advances: “. . . shall I send the yellow hair to her father, and will you follow Magua to the great lakes, to carry his water and feed him his corn?” (129). Cora brushes him away in repulsion, but queries Heyward and Alice for their reactions: “Speak, then, Alice; child of my affections, sister of my love! And you, too, Major Heyward, aid my weak reason with your counsel” (130). The conflict of the attraction of the two Indians to Cora is in their approach. “Uncas loves chastely” (Butler 125) and virtuously. But, as Hawk-eye made clear with his references to “Christian” and “red man”, Uncas is outside of the bond that defines white society. As a native of America, he is part of the Nature that white males inten d to dominate. In realizing her power over him, Cora assumes the male cultural value to “subordinate” nature. Magua, the antithesis of Uncas, checks Cora and forces her to turn to the cultural norms_ a white male and a passive white female_for counsel and support. Cora has been directing action_ convinces Alice to follow Magua into the forest, convinces the men to escape the cave_but now she is impotent. Although a captive, Alice is not in danger of miscegenation because she has followed her society’s rules of passivity and meekness. Duncan’s response to Cora’s plea for help is one of outraged indignation while Alice responds by physically appearing to “shrink into [herself] . . . her head dropped upon her bosom . . . looking like some beautiful emblem of the wounded delicacy of her sex . . .” Then she gathers her strength to say, “No, no, no; better that we die as we have lived, together! lquote  (130). Magua is enraged. He is shocked “at this sudden exhibition of firmness in the one he believed the weakest of the party” (131). This scenario turns Cora’s strength into weakness while Alice’s weakness is turned into the greatest strength_the ability to defy Nature. Rowlandson focused on her weaknesses_motherhood and her dependence on Mather to certify her story_to prove her true femininity, her real strength in her society. Cooper is using the weakness of Alice to prove that the ingrained cultural training of the submissive female is her only defense in nature. Cora’s move away from the nature of her sex brought her to the attention of the Indian and almost put her into a situation that Heyward and Alice, both untainted representatives of white society, make clear is a fate worse than death.

            Hawk-eye and the Mohicans rescue Cora and her companions from the clutches of Magua. The sisters are reunited with their father, but the reunion is short-lived. Fort William Henry falls to the French and the British are promised safe passage to a location away from French territory. The promise is empty as the Huron Indians, allies of the French, massacre British men, women, and children as they leave the fort:

Magua placed his hands to his mouth, and raised the fatal and

appalling whoop. . . More than two thousand raving savages

broke from the forest. . . Death was everywhere. . . The flow

of blood might be likened to the outbreaking of a torrent . . . (213)

The ways of old world civilization, the chivalrous practices of the Europeans, are proven ineffective in the wilderness frontier of America. Montcalm, the French leader, embodies the decline of the “ambitions of France” through his inability to control his Indian “allies” while “Munro acts out the less dramatic decline of British power” (Butler 131). The fall of one nation and the failure of another to protect them are strong symbolic representations of the incapacity of Europeans to function within the demands of the Nature of the New World and, thus, the failure of their culture. With the Indians, Europeans have joined the rank of the “others” and the myth of the “American Adam, standing alone, self-reliant and self-propelling’” (Person 668) becomes dominant. The story of the failure of the British against the French in this instance is paralleled in the beginning of The Mohicans by Cooper’s reference to another battle in which the British troops are “only saved from annihilation by the coolness and spirit of a Virginian boy” [George Washington] (Cooper 9). Heyward, also a Virginian, follows a similar path to that of Washington and as Munro declines, he rises. Heyward “transforms himself from a dependent Anglo-American to a self-reliant American” (Butler 132). Side-by-side with Hawk-eye and the Mohicans, Heyward adapts himself to work with Nature to control and dominate it rather than to continue in the static European tradition that is grounded in centuries of civilization that is incompatible with the American wilderness. He moves away from the mind set of a cultu re that is in decline to become part of establishing a new imperialist culture.

            During the massacre, Cora and Alice again become captives of Magua. In plotting the plan of rescue, Heyward brushes Hawk-eye to the side to assume a commanding role. “I too can play the madman, the fool, the hero; in short, any or everything to rescue her [Alice] I love” (277). Gamut has been allowed freedom of movement in and out of the Indian camps due to their judgment of him as mentally touched. Heyward plans to assume a similar role_a French juggler. It is Heyward’s decision to go after Alice, while Hawk-eye is put in charge of the rescue of the __dark-hair’” (278). Gary Dyer writes that “what draws Heyward to this particular woman are the opportunities she provides for his knightly devotion: he has chosen the sister who seems to need male protection more” (359). Heyward has been in the position of white, male leader of the two women throughout the book, a status that Alice has deferred to while  Cora has rebelled.

            The rescue is unsuccessful and in this second captivity, all seven of the companions become prisoners of the Indians. Cora pleads with the Indian leader for her sister’s life: ‘For myself I ask nothing. Like thee and thine, venerable chief, the curse of my ancestors has fallen heavily on their child” (374). Cora separates herself from the white society that she has been raised in to establish a link of compassion with another race of color. Cora’s black ancestors and the red native Americans share a bond as victims of the imperialist intentions of the whites. Both societies have had havoc thrust upon them by the white agenda of conquest, domination, and the focus of “them_ and “us_; Cora gives up the fight to be part of a society that will never accept her color difference in an effort to find justice with the “other.”  Tamenund, the Indian leader, responds to Cora, “I know that the palefaces are a proud and hungry race. . . . The dogs and crows of their tribes would bark and caw before  they would take a woman to their wigwams whose blood was not of the color of snow” (374). This response seems out of place unless viewed in its relation to the sum of other captivity narratives that view women as the weak link in the preservation of white purity. Women are perceived as participants in miscegenation, a participation they are only able to avoid by strict adherence to cultural norms dictated by white males. Rowlandson establishes her adherence to the norm in her deference to Mather as perpetrator of her narrative. Cooper establishes the necessity of adherence to the norm by making Cora, the woman of color with an independent spirit who relies on her own ingenuity, the object of   miscegenation. Alice is of no interest to the red man, but is continually under the protection of Heyward_the symbol of the rising white male authority in America.

            With the exception of Cora, all of the prisoners are released. Before Cora allows Magua to force her away from her sister, she addresses Heyward:

“I need not tell you to cherish the treasure you possess. . . .

She is fair! Oh! how surpassingly fair!” laying her own

beautiful but less brilliant hand in melancholy affection

on the alabaster forehead of Alice, and parting the golden

hair which clustered about her brow. (387)

Though Cora is facing a situation worse than death (Cooper 129-131), Alice’s white purity separates her from such a fate and that clear division is re-emphasized.  As Cora is disappearing into the forest with Magua, it is Uncas who remains “keeping his eyes on the form of Cora until the colors of her dress were blended with the foliage of the forest” (389). It was the decision of Tamenund that allowed Magua to keep Cora as prisoner. Uncas would have gone after her immediately, but was forced instead to allow Magua a head start rather than risk

. . . opposition to all the received practices and opinions of

his countrymen. . . . He was, therefore, fain to adopt a caution

that in the present temper of his mind he execrated, . . . under

the vivid recollection of Cora’s danger and Magua’s insolence. (395)

Magua’s actions have been established as acceptable and within the norms of his own civilization. Rowlandson uses the word “insolent” to describe the actions of her Indian mistress, a word whose definition is relevant in its application in the “hierarchical social discourse” ( Toulouse 657) of white society; Cooper employs the use of this word to establish Uncas’ closer resemblance to white society based on his purity of blood from that of the mongrel Magua who switches allegiance at will (French, British, French, Indian). That Uncas’ blood is untainted by mixture with another race was established early in the novel: “. . . when Uncas follows in my [Chingachgook’s] footsteps, there will no longer be any of the blood of the Sagamores, for my boy is the last of the Mohicans” (Cooper 35). Although Uncas is closer to white society than Magua, Hawk-eye's has made Uncas' separation clear throughout the book with references to religion, color, and the absence of "a cross" in Hawk-eye's own blood.

            Uncas is the first to reach Magua where Cora has forced him to stop on a ledge. “Kill me if thou wilt, detestable Huron; I will go no further. . . . Uncas appeared, leaping frantically from a fearful height . . . one of his [Magua’s] assistants, . . . sheathed his own knife in the bosom of Cora” (413). “No matter how admirable to modern readers_or to other characters_Cora is, in contrast, merely another of the book’s grotesques. Hopelessly flawed by mixed blood, she is simply too strong, too self-sufficient, too sexual to live” (Butler 138). Magua kills his assistants and then Uncas. In separating Uncas from Magua as the superior Indian, it seemed that Uncas was to represent the chivalrous counter-part of  the white Heyward. Gary Dyer writes, however, that “. . . the novel’s homage to the prospect of Indian nobility is entirely retrospective: Uncas dies” (361). Hawk-eye then shoots Magua. At the funeral of Uncas and Cora, Hawk-eye addresses Chingachgook:

I have no kin and I may also say, like you, no people. . . .

but if ever I forget the lad who has so often fought at my

side in war, and slept at my side in peace, may He who

made us all, whatever may be our color or our gifts, forget

me! The boy has left us for a time; but, Sagamore, you

are not alone. (429)

Through the deaths of Cora and Uncas, the novel has circled back to the beginning. Butler outlines the outcomes of the major players in the novel: Hawk-eye and Chingachgook, outsiders of white society, will remain “isolated in the wilderness”; Montcalm and Munro are old and dying with their cultures. “Only Duncan_and Alice_have futures” (132).

            Rowlandson, in spite of her place as the first woman writer on American soil, effectively diminished women’s roles in the American mythology through her focus on her strengths (motherhood and devotion to God) as weaknesses. She then enabled those weaknesses to be recast as strengths by a male authority. Cooper followed up on this theme by assigning male characteristics to a woman of color and continuously undercutting her autonomy. Her autonomy was de-valued by exposing her to the cultural phobia of  miscegenation while her blond half-sister, who maintained cultural norms, avoided such a tragedy.  In his references to Christianity and skin color, Cooper was also able to define the division between races and, through racial interactions, to place Anglo-Americans in the position of superiority. The reading of American Romance and pre-Romance is valuable to understand how America came to be a boiling pot rather than a melting pot, to understand how words come to be u sed to separate rather than unite genders and races. Actress Anna Deavere Smith, in her book of people's impressions of the Los Angeles riots, quotes from a former gang member, Twilight Bey:

And I know

that in order for me to be a full human being

I cannot forever dwell in darkness

I cannot forever dwell in idea

or identifying with those like me

and understanding only me and mine. (Smith xxxvi)

To understand the culture and the conflicts we live in today, we need to re-evaluate our American mythology and put it in the perspective of our American reality.

Works Cited

Butler, Michael D. “Narrative Structure and Historical Process in The Last of the Mohicans.” American Literature 48.2 (May, 1976): 117-   139.

Cooper, James Fenimore.  The Last of the Mohicans. New York: Signet Classics, 2005.

Dyer, Gary. “Irresolute Ravishers and the Sexual Economy of Chivalry in the Romantic Novel.” Nineteenth-Century Literature 55.3 (Dec.         2000): 340-368.

Fitzpatrick, Tara. “The Figure of Captivity: The Cultural Work of the Puritan Captivity Narrative.” American Literary History 3.1 (Spring,            1991): 1-26.

Person, Leland S. “The American Eve: Miscegenation and a Feminist Frontier          Fiction.” American Quarterly 37.5 (Winter, 1985): 668-           685.

Potter, Tiffany. “Writing Indigenous Femininity: Mary Rowlandson’s Narrative Of Captivity.” Eighteenth-Century Studies 36.2 (2003):         153-167

Slotkin, Richard. Regeneration Through Violence: The Mythology of the       American       Frontier, 1600-1860. New York, NY :            HarperPerennial, 1996.

Smith, Anna Deavere. Twilight Los Angeles, 1992. New York: Anchor Books, 1994.

Smith-Rosenberg, Carroll. “Subject Female: Authorizing American Identity.” American Literary History  5.3 (Autumn, 1993): 481-511.

Toulouse, Teresa A. “‘My Own Credit’: Strategies of (E)Valuation in Mary       Rowlandson’s Captivity Narrative.” American Literature 64.4         (Dec., 1992): 655-676.