Paper Proposal

I would love to say that I've given a lot of thought to this final paper, but I honestly haven't.  I really only have a general idea of what I would like to talk about.  I was thinking I might talk about something along the lines of the relationship between conscience/guilt and madness in Edgar Huntly and William Wilson.  As well as arguing that guilt and madness are directly related to each other, I also want to talk about how Poe and Brown portray madness in their protagonists differently and to what end (i.e. what message does that particular kind of madness send to the audience and why?)  I haven't found any academic sources yet, but I want to cite Hamlet to talk about the relationship between conscience and madness, and perhaps some secondary sources which also speak to that idea, along with perhaps talking about Freud?  Especially in relation to Edgar Huntly.  I haven't explored that idea extensively yet, but I really want to.  Mostly I would talk about the Freudian idea of the Id, Ego, and Super Ego and how Huntly's form of madness, sleepwalking, is a manifestation of the war of these 3 parts of the mind...I'm sure I could relate it to William Wilson as well, but I'd have to do some more research.

-Riannon S.

The Place of Women

I think it is interesting that, though both Hope Leslie and The Last of the Mohicans were published not too far apart from each other (1827 and 1826 respectively), it is obvious that the position women hold in the two novels is vastly different.  Magawisca and Hope Leslie, the heroines of Sedgwick's novel, are almost complete opposites to the insignificant characters of Cora and Alice in Cooper's version.


I say that Cora and Alice are "insignificant" not because the novel could do without them necessarily, but because their growth and involvement as characters in the development of the plot is fairly minimal.  The two girls in Cooper's novel serve only as objects to be used or rescued, and as tools to enhance the characters of Hawkeye, Heyward, and Uncas.  Alice and Cora are almost static and do nothing to change their situation or the course of the novel.


Sedgwick's novel, on the other hand, uses the role of women in a very different manner.  As previously stated, Magawisca and Hope Leslie are heroines of the novel, not just small characters.  Though we have talked extensively in class about the fact that Hawkeye may or may not be the protagonist, there is no doubt that a woman is not the focus of Te Last of the Mohicans.  Hope Leslie's protagonist is more than obvious, and the role of women is far more complex and significant.  It is not a stretch to say that one of Sedgwick's main goals with this novel was to show that women can affect change and are more than simply "props" to be objectified.


In my opinion, both girls are heroes in Hope Leslie, and they fill that role without being stereotypical.  Magiwasca achieves her hero status by sacrificing a limb, and Hope endures her own tribulations throughout the story.  Hope helps Magawisca escape, as much as possible, from persecution and racism, which, in itself, is different from the norm.  Both women take their situations into their own hands and work to change them, regardless of their gender.  I have to note here that, though Magawisca does escape safely, she (the native "hero") loses a limb in the process, while Hope endures no permanent damage in the closing of her "happily-ever-after".  I find this interesting because it almost reflects how Cooper continually made it obvious to the readers that Hawkeye was white and, therefore, better than Uncas or Chingachook.  It seems to me that, though Sedgwick wanted to complete a role reversal for women, her treatment of the Native characters is not a far cry from how Cooper treats his.

-Riannon S.

Yes & No

I'd just like to start off by saying that I do agree with everyone when they say that this book was a general bore and a hard one to get through.  That said, I think it's going a little far to insinuate that this book is absolutely useless and a total piece of crap; it does have at least a little to offer, despite its flaws and downfalls.  When Twain rips into Cooper's Deerslayer, he says, "There are nineteen rules governing literary art in the domain of romantic fiction--some say twenty-two. In Deerslayer Cooper violated eighteen of them," this may be the case, but there are a few rules which are definitely violated when it comes to The Last of the Mohicans. 



11. They require that the characters in a tale shall be so clearly defined that the reader can tell beforehand what each will do in a given emergency.

This rule, for example, may have been violated in Deerslayer, but it also applies for The Last of the Mohicans.  The best representation of this is Hawkeye.  Although we talked extensively in class about how he doesn't seem to fit the role of "hero" or "protagonist" in this novel, he really isn't defined clearly enough to the point where the reader can anticipate his every response and action.  The way he reacts when he sees his enemy falling from a tree is not something the audience could have accurately predicted, and even what he thinks about after wasting his bullet is not necessarily predictable.  Hawkeye is interesting because he is unpredictable; he may be one of the only points of interest in the novel.

10. They require that the author shall make the reader feel a deep interest in the personages of his tale and in their fate; and that he shall make the reader love the good people in the tale and hate the bad ones. But the reader of the Deerslayer tale dislikes the good people in it, is indifferent to the others, and wishes they would all get drowned together.


Personally, there were a number of characters in this book which did not interest me in any way, shape, or form, and even more characters which, in my opinion, were not cohesive.  For me, the only character I was wholly and truly interested in was Uncas, but his fate at the end of this novel is obvious and evident in the title, which makes me almost less interested in his fate.  Other characters, like David Gamut, seem to have no purpose whatsoever in this novel (other than the obscure event he was introduced for) and make me wonder what Cooper's motives were for characters like this, if indeed he had any at all.


-Riannon S.