Last of Mohicans essay PDF

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Fetishization and Masculinity in The Last of the Mohicans...

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William Apess’s essay, “An Indian’s Looking-Glass for the White Man,” is meant to demystify some of the stereotypes held about Native Americans. Write an essay commenting on how this essay could critique James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans, making sure to make specific connections between Apess’s concerns and Cooper’s depictions.

Fetishization and Masculinity in The Last of the Mohicans Stories concerning Native American imagery have consistently fascinated the American public, regardless of the accuracy with which Native Americans are depicted. James Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales, concerning life on the American frontier and encounters with Native Americans, were quite popular in his time. However, as stated in Mark Twain’s criticism Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses, “If Cooper had any real knowledge of Nature’s ways of doing things, he had a most delicate art in concealing the fact.” Despite the fact that Cooper’s depictions of the American wilderness or Native Americans were not based off his own experiences, the imagery of Native Americans he created in The Last of the Mohicans can be found in literature and media today. In this essay, I will examine Chapter III of The Last of the Mohicans and argue that Cooper successfully romanticized the American frontier (and the Native Americans in it) by fetishizing and masculinizing his Native American characters. James Fenimore Cooper frankly never encountered Native Americans or Native American culture firsthand, so we must assume that his description of Native Americans is synthesized from other people’s depictions of Native Americans. However, the presentation of his Native American characters contrasts with the negative descriptions of authors like Mary Rowlandson. Here is part of Cooper’s physical description of Chingachgook: “His body, which was nearly naked, presented a terrific emblem of death, drawn in intermingled colours of white and black. His closely shaved head, on which no other hair than the well known and chivalrous scalping tuft was preserved, was without ornament of any kind, with the exception of a solitary Eagle’s plume” (81).

Here, “a terrific emblem of death” is a fierce description, yes, but gives the impression that Cooper or the narrator is awe-struck. The use of the word “chivalrous” to describe a scalping tuft is also significant: Cooper’s description gives insight to not only what he views must be proper masculine Native culture, but also that he sees the ready acceptance of an inevitable violent scalping to be a respectable quality in Native American men. Cooper imbeds Chingachgook’s capacity for violence in every aspect of his appearance, and that is to be admired by the reader. With that in mind, here is the rest of Cooper’s description of Chingachgook: “A tomahawk and scalping-knife, of English manufacture, were in his girdle; while a short military rifle, of that sort with which the policy of the whites armed their savage allies, lay carefully across his bare and sinewy knee. The expanded chest, full-formed limbs, and grave countenance of this warrior, would denote that he had reached the vigour of his days, though no symptoms of decay appeared to have yet weakened his manhood” (81). Cooper’s use of the word “savage” here is quite different than authors before him. Rowlandson would describe the Natives as “savages,” and she meant to depict Native Americans as subhuman, ungodly, and violent. Unlike Rowlandson, Cooper uses the word “savage” and intends it to be a positive descriptor. “Savage” now implies Indian warrior, which is intriguing and exotic to the white reader. In the masculine, rugged world of America’s frontiers, the capacity for violence as a warrior is not only necessary, but attractive. To offset any fear that would arise from the raw physicality and masculinity of the warrior Cooper creates, he asserts that the weapons Chingachgook uses have been made by or given to him by white people, with the implication that they would not be used against those same white allies. Cooper’s description

of Chingachgook’s “bare and sinewy knee,” and his “expanded chest, full-formed limbs” only add to the sense of fetishization in this passage. The nearly-naked, foreign and exaggerated physique of Chingachgook borders on erotic while still being distinctly masculine; Cooper takes care to assure readers that Chingachgook’s manhood is still intact. Throughout the chapter, Cooper keeps drawing connections to what he has established as Native qualities, and masculinity. For example, Chingachgook says, “The land we had taken like warriors, we kept like men” (84) shows the connection between violent conquering and maintaining masculinity and dominance. He is characterized by Cooper as solemn and stoic, which tend to be masculine characteristics, perhaps due to a lack of “feminine” emotions. Solemn masculinity and warrior qualities are prized by Cooper, as feminine qualities are seen as weak or undesirable. A clear example of Cooper’s mentality is shown here, as Uncas enters: “No exclamation of surprise escaped the father, nor was any question made or reply given for several minutes, each appearing to await the moment, when he might speak, without betraying a womanish curiosity or childish impatience. The white man seemed to take counsel from their customs” (85). Both Uncas and Chingachgook are sticking to an implied Native American code of masculinity, which was of course invented by Cooper. Natty Bumppo, the white man, admires this lack of femininity or childishness, and learns from it; this seems akin to the white reader learning exactly what to admire about these Indians as Cooper describes their ideal masculine behavior and how Natty Bumppo learns from it. Cooper continues to have his characters Natty Bumppo and Chingachgook keep masculinity and manhood in mind, in relation to their races. His characters relate to each other by comparing their supposed modes of masculinity: what does it mean to be a white man or a Native warrior? Natty Bumppo compares their physical skills with weapons: “I am no scholar,

and I care not who knows it…I should think a rifle in the hands of their grandfathers, was not so dangerous as a hickory bow, and a good flint-head might be, if drawn with Indian judgment, and sent by an Indian eye” (82). In this, Cooper implies that a Native American man’s skill with a bow is an innate quality, or essential to being Native American, just as a white man’s skill with a rifle is innate to whiteness. He prefaces his statement with the humble mutterings of the frontier equivalent of a jock, once again attesting physical masculinity. Continuing in this thread, Cooper associates Native Americans’ knowledge of their own land to be innate, as well: “These Indians know the nature of the woods, as it might be by instinct!” (85). These innate nature skills attributed to the Native Americans are deliberately physical; “The Indian, bending his body, till his ear nearly touched the earth” (86) is Cooper’s description of Chingachgook’s superior hearing skills within the forest. Cooper has created or at least embellished an American frontier setting full of fantasized adventure and danger; the way his white and Native characters behave differently in this environment further reflect the innate qualities he has assigned to them by race, as well as his intentions to create Native American characters as an enhancement of the setting. For example, when his character Uncas appears without announcement, this is Cooper’s description of Chingachgook and Natty Bumppo’s different reactions: “The white man…made an involuntary movement of the hand towards his rifle, at this sudden interruption, but the Indian sat composed, and without turning his head at the unexpected sounds” (84). Cooper ties Native Americans to the American nature he depicts in his stories; the woodcraft and clever solutions Cooper’s characters work out in the wilderness comes from his own inexperienced invention, and as such, the skills and behavior of the Native characters in his stories are created to navigate his romanticized setting. His Native American characters are created to populate that fantasy world of the frontier as physically exotic experts. In particular, combined with Cooper’s frequent

characterizations of Chingachgook and Uncas as masculine, Native Americans are painted in a very specific light: because of their race, they are highly masculine or have an inherent set of masculine skills (such as hunting and scouting). This masculinity is then portrayed in a very attractive light; Cooper’s white audience is supposed to find Chingachgook as imposingly, but attractively, masculine, the same way any Native American must be in a frontier that requires such masculine skills. In this way, Cooper romanticized both the frontier and his Native characters by portraying them as exotically masculine. While Natty Bumppo’s and Chingachgook’s friendship and comparison of skills with weapons seems to suggest that Cooper acknowledges or even showcases the skills he views innate to Native Americans, he kept emphasizing the “purity” of his character’s racial backgrounds. Of course, his protagonist might heavily associate with Native American people and culture, but Cooper makes sure the readers know that he is completely white and absolutely proud of it: “…though the worst enemy I have on earth, and he is an Iroqois, daren’t deny that I am genuine white,” the scout replied, surveying, with secret satisfaction, the faded colour of his bony and sinewy hand” (82). This satisfaction with his heritage may not be so secret, as, again, Natty Bumppo states: “tis strange that an Indian should understand white sounds better than a man, who, his very enemies will own, has no cross in his blood” (86). This last quote again references the supposed innate skill of Native Americans to understand the land around them and whoever is on it, even if they’re white, while still asserting the main character’s whiteness. However, while establishing the white protagonist as only white is expected, Cooper also has Chingachgook explicitly state that he is also not mixed: “My tribe is the grandfather of nations,” said the native,” but I am an unmixed man” (84). By repeatedly stating that Chingachgook and Natty Bumppo are both “pure” in their respective races, Cooper subtly reinforces that while

whites and Natives can be friends, they should not have interracial relationships that could lead to interracial children. Cooper’s hypermasculine and nature-skilled Native American characters are enticing, attractive, and exotic for his white audience, enough that Cooper needs to reassure his readers that while Native Americans’ bodies can be consumed in literature, they should not mix in real life. Cooper used the hypermasculinity and sexuality of his Native American characters’ bodies to appeal to readers, yet simultaneously assured the same readers there was no actual risk of racial mixing. In 1682, Mary Rowlandson’s narrative of her kidnaping by Native Americans was published, and the captivity narrative genre was created. In 1826, James Fenimore Cooper published The Last of the Mohicans, the most popular of his already successful Leatherstocking Tales. In 1904, J.M. Barrie’s play Peter Pan opened, with its “picaninny” tribe existing in Neverland. Now, in 2017, sports teams use Native American imagery as mascots. I find that this last misrepresentation of Native Americans seem to come from the same view of Native Americans that Cooper held: the savage Indian warrior, somehow simultaneously hypermasculine and stoic. The mentality is still, at its core, that Native Americans are fundamentally different from white Americans, even if it’s in a “good” way. Cooper created a romanticized American frontier and populated it with masculinized and fetishized Native Americans to add an exotic appeal for his readers, all the while creating a deliberate division between his white and Native characters and calling it friendship.

Sources Cooper, James Fenimore. The Last of the Mohicans. 1826. In The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Twain, Mark. Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses. 1895. http://twain.lib.virginia.edu/projects/rissetto/offense.html. Accessed 19 July 2017. Lemke, David. “Imagining Natives.” Survey of American Literature, University of Minnesota, 19 July 2017....