The Trickster Cycle And The Pioneers

Stories that teach the importance of responsible interaction with Nature are seen throughout much of American literature, in particular much of Native American stories, such as "The Trickster Cycle", due to their cultural and practical relevance. The same lessons appear in colonial American literature, but more often as a response to irresponsible practices due to the sudden nature of the arrival of colonists and their swift westward expansion as seen in James Fenimore Cooper’s The Pioneers. In both cases, there is an implicit moral obligation of stewardship of the natural world. Stewardship meaning proper use and care for the world around them without waste, and with an understanding of the consequences of every interaction between man and nature. The fictional narratives found in "The Trickster Cycle" and The Pioneers use humor, moral weight, and …show more content…
The story “Trickster’s Adventures in the Ocean” depicts Trickster desperately seeking a way to shore from the depths of the lake he is swimming in. He goes from fish to fish, asking for directions to the shore. He repeats this process many times, and the story emphasizes this repetition, with the phrase “Thus it was. Again he went on. As he was going, there, unexpectedly, he saw a [insert fish here].” (Trickster’s Adventures in the Ocean). The story repeats this structure over and over again, each time changing the fish that the Trickster encounters. In doing this, the story focuses its audience on the type of fish encountered by Trickster (Mirarchi). This teaches the audience what fish are found in the lake, and their relative distance from the shore in the context of the inept Trickster meandering around a lake quite