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James Fenimore Cooper-Deer Slayer Essay, Research Paper

The Deerslayer and Morality byRandy Hartenstine English 1123-63Mrs. MossJuly 14, 1998 Hartenstine iThe Deerslayer and MoralityThesis Statement: The morality of the main character is one that represents a spiritual communion with nature, a firm opposition to discrimination, and an exaggerated state of divine morality. I. Natty’s morality is guided by nature. A. His morality is all-inclusive when it comes to respect, dignity, and humanity. B. Nature is religion because it represents the divine. II. Natty’s morality derives from the pure morality of nature. A. His morality is free of discrimination. B. His pro-nature morality is accepting the good and rejecting the bad.III. Natty’s morality is exaggerated. A. His divine morality conflicts with the events of the novel. B. His morality is one that can resist temptation. Hartenstine 1The Deerslayer and Morality As much as any American writer, James Fenimore Cooper’s work, is representative of the American frontier and the struggles of Native Americans and pioneers who took the advice of Horace Greeley and “went West.” While many criticize the writing style and syntax of Cooper, almost no one denied the value of his work as being representative of “the self-actualized individual. . . . This image, woven into the intricate form of his tales, provided a calling for many new Americans who chose the west [sic] as a new frontier, a place to prove their individuality and self-worth” (Eberle 2). The Deerslayer is the fifth and final novel in the Leatherstocking Tales, a series of works devoted to the story of Natty Bumppo, who, in this novel, is labeled the Deerslayer or Hawkeye. “The Deerslayer deals with racism, hatred, Manifest Destiny, technology/progress, and was the first environmentalist (”true” 4). Raised by the Delaware and knowledgeable in their ways and peace, the hero of the story is representative of American independence and self-reliance. “The Deerslayer . . . is the story of eight days in the life of Nathaniel Bumppo, a youth of twenty, in . . . 1740. The setting is Cooper’s home lake, the Otsego, called the Glimmerglass in this story” (Shulenbeger 83). Natty and his friend Hurry live among the Delaware Indians, and with the assistance of theHartenstine 2British they fight against the French and the French-backed Huron Indians. The story revolves around battles between tribes and countries and the vain efforts of Judith Hutter to have Natty become romantically involved with her. Chingachook is a Delaware chief who enters Natty s life in this novel, and eventually becomes his best friend and companion. The morality of the main character is one that represents a spiritual communion with nature, a firm opposition to discrimination, and an exaggerated state of divine morality.The morality exhibited by the main character is one that is unaffected in its religiosity, like that of his Native American friends. It is a morality and religion that uses nature as its guide, so it is one that is all-inclusive when it comes to respect, dignity, and humanity for all individuals, regardless of the color of their skin or the tongue in which they speak. Natty comes to understand from the ways and peace of the Delaware that Nature is religion because it represents the Divine. A source of morality and religion with which the individual can commune and find their own peace and happiness, as Cooper states:He loved the woods for their freshness, their sublime solitudes, their vastness, and the impress that they everywhere bore of the divine hand of their Creator. . . . and never did a day pass without his communing Hartenstine 3in spirit, and this, too, without the aid of forms or language, with the infinite Source of all he saw, felt, and beheld. Thus constituted in a moral sense, and of a steadiness that no danger could appall or any crisis disturb. . . . (283) The morality of Natty is similar to this unaffected morality of nature. Nature makes no distinction between white, red or black skin. Nature makes no distinction between British, French or American politics. Nature makes no distinction between Anglo-Saxon, Christian or Protestant. Man does. The author John McWilliams puts it into perspective when he says: Although he would desire Christian action, he was only too aware of its powerlessness to confront the conditions of the frontier. The failure of men to live within the moral laws makes just civil laws all the more necessary, yet those laws impinge on the natural rights of the hunter in a State of Nature. When civil laws are enacted, Cooper lauds their possibilities for protection, but suspects the probability of their abuse. Natty Bumppo stands as Cooper’s symbol of the just man in a State of Nature, yet his compromise is an individual creed that demands extraordinary self-discipline–an example that few could follow. (291)Hartenstine 4In this manner man perverts the all-inclusive morality andspirituality of nature, a nature that is not rejected by the Native American. The Native American appreciates nature as the ultimate spiritual guide and the ultimate method and manner through which men can commune with the Divine. The Native Americans have taught Natty a respect for nature as the ultimate source of the Divine. Cooper s version of the moral white man and the moral “red” man both involve a communion with nature first and man second. The romanticized image of the strong, fearless, and ever resourceful frontiersman . . . as well as the stoic, wise, and noble ‘red man’ . . . was borne more from Cooper s characterizations than any other source” (Federici 1).

The morality of Natty is not pro-Indian, pro-American, or pro-anything other than pro-nature of the all-inclusive acceptance of the good and a rejection of the bad. Whenever a white man is a good man, he is an ally on whom the Native American can depend; likewise, when the Native

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