James Fenimore Cooper's The Last Of The Mohicans

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Recommended: Birrell, T. A., Preface to James Fenimore Cooper's Last of the Mohicans, 1980

In James Fenimore Cooper’s book The Last of the Mohicans, geographical and racial changes were key components in his story. Two of his characters that grew in similar and in different ways were Alice and Cora, the two Monroe sisters. The whole first part of the story was fixed on Alice and Cora returning to Fort William Henry. They were sisters, therefore they obviously had many similarities, emotionally and physically. They had different mothers, but outside of that fact, they were portrayed as sisters who had a close relationship with each other. Throughout the course of their travel to the fort, they both fall in love, Alice with Heyward and Cora with Uncas. Although the frontier may have been portrayed as a fun, dreamy adventure for …show more content…

They both fell in love with characters in the story, but Alice fell in love with a Brit while Cora fell in love with an Indian. It was not just a coincidence that Alice fell in love with a British man; the book clearly shows that Alice questioned herself about the loyalty of the Mohicans. “’Should we distrust the man because his manners are not our manners, and that his skin is dark?’ coldly asked Cora.” (25) Cora trusted the Mohicans when Hawkeye became their new scout, but Alice was much more hesitant to trust them. There was a big racial barrier between Alice and the Indians. Uncus was the last of the true Mohican blood, and because Cora fell in love with him, she was involuntarily helping to carry out the Mohican name and tribe. In the end, neither Cora nor Uncus survived the journey to safety, but it was Cora, not Alice, who looked beyond the skin of a person. She got to know the character of a person before she let judgment rule over them. “’Now Major Heyward speaks as Major Heyward should,’ said Cora; ‘who that looks at this creature of nature, remembers the shade of his skin?’” This is a major difference between Cora and Alice. The sisters had different mothers; Cora was biracial herself, and this may have been one reason why she did not let the color of a person’s skin affect her. Although they were sisters and resembled in many ways, Cora and Alice viewed people much more differently based on the color of their

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