Реферат: Untitled Essay Research Paper James Fenimore Cooper

and asks Hurry, “Do you say, Hurry, that there is no man who calls himself

lawful owner of all these glories?’ (p. 22). To this Hurry responds, “None

but the King….but he has gone so far away that his claim will never trouble

old Tom Hutter, who has got possession, and is like to keep it as long as

his life lasts” (p. 22).

In having the characters of Natty and Hurry speak of Hutter like this, referring

to him in an almost mythological sense as though he is a legend, Cooper is

setting the stage for the development of Hutter’s character, also in contrast

to Natty’s. It is in Tom Hutter’s home, when Natty and Hurry first arrive

in the beginning of the book, that they begin to talk about hunting and the

killing of both animals and men. Natty comments that he has the reputation

as being the only man “who had shed so much blood of animals that had not

shed the blood of man” (p. 28). He says this with pride, obviously not looking

with high regard upon the savage slaughter of other men. But Hurry’s response

shows that he looks at this in a totally different perspective. He says that

he is afraid that people will think that Natty is “chicken-hearted.” Then

he goes on to comment that “For my part I account game, a redskin, and a

Frenchman as pretty much the same thing…one has no need to be over-scrupulous

when it’s the right time to show the flint” (p. 28).

Cooper presents this dialogue between Natty and Hurry in order to obviously

contrast their moral characters. First, he has Natty speak, with apparent

pride, about the fact that in all the land, he has the reputation for killing

more deer than anyone else, while never having taken one single human life.

But Hurry’s response to this is that Natty is a “chicken-hearted” individual.

In Natty’s point of view, animals, Indians, and Frenchman are all the same,

and killing one is the same as killing another.

In this, Cooper is clearly presenting a view about the worth of Indians within

the society of this time. Natty’s view that killing other men should be avoided

is the correct and “right” view. He sets Natty up as a moral character,