James Fenimore Cooper's The Last Of The Mohicans

James Fenimore Cooper’s narrative in “The Last of the Mohicans” relates a lot to the Romanticism period. It has a lot of the characteristics of American Romanticism. We can see that he is very disgusted with the monarchs of Europe as he says in the first chapter, on page 11, “But, emulating the patience and self-denial of the practiced native warriors, they learned to overcome every difficulty; and it would seem that, in time, there was no recess of the woods so dark, nor any secret place so lovely, that it might claim exemption from the inroads of those who had pledged their blood to satiate their vengeance, or to uphold cold and selfish policy of the distant monarchs of Europe.” Perhaps he is saying this because the time period of the book …show more content…
But when Uncas insults Magua by claiming that he is a liar, Tamenund jumps in and instructs the warriors to torture Uncas by setting him on fire. A fight broke out when, “Heyward began to struggle madly with his captors; the anxious eyes of Hawk-eye began to look around him, with an expression of peculiar earnestness; and Cora again threw herself at the feet of the patriarch, once more a suppliant for mercy.” While this was going on Uncas remained calm when the tormenters came to take hold of him, he had a firm and upright attitude. One of his tormentors ripped of the hunting shirt Uncas had on and saw a small blue tortoise tattooed on Uncas’s chest. Tamenund seemed to think that the tattoo shows a reincarnation of his grandfather, who was a legendary Indian also named Uncas. Uncas was then released immediately, and then Uncas frees Hawk-eye. With Uncas’s new power of defeating Magua he is able to convince the Delawares that Magua has purposely deceived them. Magua comes back and says that he should be able to take back his prisoners. Tamenund then asks Uncas for his opinion on this issue and Uncas says that Magua should release most of his prisoners but Cora is his rightful prisoner. Magua then flees with Cora, refusing Hawk-eye’s offer to die in her place. This is the climax because now they have to go rescue Cora from Magua. Before …show more content…
The description the author gives in chapter one on page 13 is very gory .“It became, emphatically, the bloody arena in which most of the battles for the mastery of the colonies were contested. Forts were erected at the different points that commanded the facilities of the route, as victory alighted on the hostile banners. While the husbandman shrank back from the dangerous passes, within the safer boundaries of the more ancient settlements, armies larger than those that had often disposed of the scepters of the mother countries were seen to bury themselves in these forests, whence they rarely returned but in skeleton bands that were haggard with care or dejected by defeat. Though the arts of peace were unknown to this fatal region, its forests were alive with men; its shades and glens rang with the sounds of martial music, and the echoes of its mountains threw back the laugh, or repeated the wanton cry, of many gallant and reckless youth, as he hurried by them, in the noontide of his spirits, to slumber in a long night of forgetfulness.” This reveals the time period we have been studying because authors from the time period we have been studying used setting to create suspense or terror and the details of a bloody war scene can convey terror in the