The Last of the Mohicans Themes

Last of the Mohicans is a study of two societies forced into contact in the forests of upstate New York. The first is “European” society, itself divided into the French and the English settlers and their armies. The other society is that of Native Americans, referred to in the text as natives, “savages,” or as Indians. Native society is then divided into many tribal alliances. Thus the novel takes up what was considered the standard…

The structure of the novel’s action is that of escape, pursuit, and rescue, in which Hawkeye, Uncas, and Chingachgook, and sometimes Heyward, engage in a back and forth with Magua, alternately rescuing and losing Cora and Alice. These complex sequences of escape, pursuit, and rescue serve several purposes in the novel. First, they are necessary components of the “frontier adventure novel,” of which Last of the Mohicans is perhaps…

The Last of the Mohicans is set against a backdrop of immense beauty, wildness, and strangeness, especially for Europeans who are not accustomed to vast expanses of “unsettled” land. The natural features of upstate New York, described by Fenimore Cooper, serve several purposes in the novel. First, the caves, ledges, mountains, streams, and paths of the New York woods are essential elements of the battle-plans of the natives and Europeans. War cannot be fought, there…

Finally, The Last of the Mohicans is a meditation on the nature of loyalty—what it means to be loyal or disloyal, and the consequences of loyalty and treachery as played out in battle. On the one hand stand Hawkeye, Uncas, and Chingachgook—men and warriors who are loyal to their own, whoever that group is said to be. Although the latter three do not start out the novel in defense of Heyward, Cora…