Реферат: Untitled Essay Research Paper James Fenimore Cooper

Untitled Essay, Research Paper

James Fenimore Cooper was born on September 15, 1789 in Burlington, New Jersey.

He was the son of William and Elizabeth (Fenimore) Cooper, the twelfth of

thirteen children (Long, p. 9). Cooper is known as one of the first great

American novelists, in many ways because he was the first American writer

to gain international followers of his writing. In addition, he was perhaps

the first novelist to “demonstrate…that native materials could inspire

significant imaginative writing” (p. 13). In addition his writing, specifically

The Deerslayer, present a unique view of the Native American’s experiences

and situation. Many critics, for example, argue that The Deerslayer presents

a moral opinion about what occurred in the lives of the American Indians.

Marius Bewley has said that the book shows moral values

throughout the context of it. He says that from the very beginning, this

is symbolically made clear. The plot is a platform for the development of

moral themes. The first contact the reader has with people in the book is

in the passage in which the two hunters find each other. “The calls were

in different tones, evidently proceeding from two men who had lost their

way, and were searching in different directions for their path” (Cooper,

p. 5). Bewley states that this meeting is symbolic of losing one’s way morally,

and then attempting to find it again through different paths. Says Bewley,

“when the two men emerge from the forest into the little clearing we are

face to face with… two opposing moral visions of life which are embodied

in these two woodsmen” (cited in Long, p. 121).

Critic Donald Davie, however, disagrees. His contention

is that the plot is poorly developed. “It does not hang together; has no

internal logic; one incident does not rise out of another” (cited in Long,

p. 121). But according to Robert Long, Bewley has a better grasp of the meaning

and presentation of ideas throughout the book. According to Long, although

the plot development may not be “strictly linear,” it is still certainly

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