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The Pioneers The Last of The Mochicans: James Fenimore Cooper

James Fenimore Cooper was an American writer born in 1789 in New Jersey. He is best known for his historical novels called the Leatherstocking Tales, featuring frontiersman Natty Bumppo. The Pioneers, published in 1823, was the first novel in the series and provided a vivid picture of frontier life in early America. Cooper's most popular work, The Last of the Mohicans, was published in 1826 and portrayed the French and Indian War in 1757. Cooper helped establish stereotypes of Native Americans that still exist today through his depictions in the Leatherstocking Tales.

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94 views

The Pioneers The Last of The Mochicans: James Fenimore Cooper

James Fenimore Cooper was an American writer born in 1789 in New Jersey. He is best known for his historical novels called the Leatherstocking Tales, featuring frontiersman Natty Bumppo. The Pioneers, published in 1823, was the first novel in the series and provided a vivid picture of frontier life in early America. Cooper's most popular work, The Last of the Mohicans, was published in 1826 and portrayed the French and Indian War in 1757. Cooper helped establish stereotypes of Native Americans that still exist today through his depictions in the Leatherstocking Tales.

Uploaded by

anna
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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The Pioneers

The Last of the Mochicans


James Fenimore Cooper
James Fenimore Cooper
James Fenimore Cooper
• was born on 15th of September in 1789 - in Burlington, New
Jersey
• began his writing career after a bet with his wife and
published his first book, Precaution, anonymously in 1820
• His father was a representative of the 4th and 6th Congress,
and acquired wealth by developing virgin land
• Spent his youth partly on the family estate on the shores of
Otsego Lake  developed a love of nature which marked his
books
• Cooper was expelled from Yale
because of a series of pranks,
which included training a donkey
to sit in professor’s chair
• encouraged by his father, Cooper
joined the Navy and served on
the Sterling for about a year
• on his return to the United
States, he received a warrant as a
midshipman. In 1808 he served
on the Vesuvius and on the Wasp
in the Atlantic in 1809
• At twenty, he inherited a fortune from his father and married
Susan Augusta De Lancey, the daughter of a wealthy family
• In 1820, Cooper's wife bet him that he could write a book
better than the one she was reading. What followed was
Precaution (1820) a novel of morals and manners that
showed the influence of Jane Austen.
• With a pleasant enough reception, he published The Spy: A
Tale of Neutral Ground (1821) the first historical romance
about the American Revolution. Then, on its success,
Fenimore moved to New York City to pursue writing as a
career.
The Bread and Cheese Club
its formal beginning in 1824 until at least 1827

• also called the Lunch and the Lunch Club,


• social and cultural conclave, which held meetings at Washington Hall,
on the southeast corner of Broadway and Reade streets in New York
City
• he founded and became the center of a circle that consisted of about
35 individuals including notable painters of the Hudson River School
as well as writers like William Cullen Bryant.
• The club’s name was derived from the unusual ballots used to elect
new members: bread for acceptance, cheese for rejection.
• the club dissolved soon after Cooper moved away from New York City
The Bread and Cheese Club
The Leatherstocking Tales
• published between 1823 and 1841
• a saga of 18th-century life among Indians and white pioneers on the
New York State frontier
• portrayal of the adventures of the main character Natty Bumppo
• The books cover his entire adult life, from young manhood toold
age, though they were not written or published in chronological order
• The individual novels are The Pioneers (1823), The Last of the
Mohicans (1826), The Prairie (1827), The Pathfinder (1840), and The
Deerslayer (1841).
The Pioneers
• "The Spy" finished and the glow of success upon its author, he again
resolved "to try one more book.”
• the first truly original American novel
• For this work his thoughts turned in love to the home of his
childhood,
• Of the new book Cooper frankly said: "'The Pioneers' is written
exclusively to please myself.„
• The author combines history, adventure and local customs into what
he calls "a descriptive tale"
The Pioneers
• one of the main characters in the novel, is a somewhat modified
portrait of the author’s father (Judge Marmaduke Temple)
• provides a convincing and vivid picture of frontier life in the early
years of the Republic.
• set in the exciting period of America’s movement westward.
• Natty Bumppo appears in all of the novels in the series and is one of
the best-known characters in American literature
The Pioneers
• Race conflict especially between whites and Indians is a constant
theme throughout the series.
• the author and his character, Natty, clearly disapprove of those who
are simply Indian haters.
• there is always a sadness in Cooper's depiction of the Indians (f.e. a
dying race, sacrificed to the advance of white culture)
• Cooper seems to be warning all of humanity that this could be the
fate of other races.
The Last of the Mohicans
in full The Last of the Mohicans: A Narrative of 1757
• This novel is generally considered to be the most successful and
popular of Cooper’s works
• It takes the reader back to the French and Indian War (the Seven
Years’ War).

• Also Cooper divides Native Americans into good and bad ones (noble,
attuned to nature, strong and quite silent vs. evil, drunk, violent and
bloodthirsty)
 Cooper helped create stereotypes of Native Americans that still exist
today
Missy Tracy displays her Ho-Chunk heritage, both in her traditional dress she wears to pow-wows
and in the daily work she does as municipal relations coordinator of Ho-Chunk Gaming Madison.
The Last of The Mohicans
• Natty Bumppo (Hawkeye) is now in middle life and at the height of his
powers
• The story tells of brutal battles with the Iroquois and their French
allies, cruel captures, narrow escapes, and revenge.
• The beauty of the unspoiled wilderness and sorrow at its
disappearance, symbolized in Hawkeye’s Mohican friends, the last of
their tribe, are important themes of the novel.
• Cooper laments the destruction of the wilderness, and of the Native
Americans who inhabit it, but all are shown to surrender inevitably to
progress
Cooper’s writing style
• is not good at literary style or engraving character in novels,
• using narration and description to express theme is his special
feature,
• spot is more important than style,
• His vivid scenes, and his fictional pattern of flight, pursuit, capture
and escape became dominating conventions in the literature of
adventure.
• gives us artistic picture about American western frontier, he combines
land, people and history in a skilled way, uses nature as the general
ground of people’s behaviors, paints the original image of Indian.

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