Last of The Mohicans vs. Twain
According to Mark Twain, Fenimore Cooper broke eighteen of the nineteen rules governing literary art in the domain of romantic fiction when he wrote Deerslayer. This accusation does not seem to apply to The Last of the Mohicans. The scene describing Duncan, David, Alice, and Cora’s evening spent with Hawk-eye and the Mohicans in the deserted block-house is a prime example which proves Twain wrong. Mark Twain claims that the episodes of Cooper’s tale do not help develop the story. On the contrary, this scene is rather important to the story. The night at the blockhouse marks the end of the first day the Europeans spend with their native saviors. Within this sequence we also learn the meaning of the title. Hawk-eye speaks of his companion, Chingachgook, “ ‘…and you see before you, all that are left of his race.’ (Cooper 144)”, hence The Last of the Mohicans. Rule number seven that Cooper broke, according to Twain, says “… when a personage talks like and illustrated, gilt edged, tree-calf, hand tooled, seven dollar Friendship’s Offering in the beginning of a paragraph, he shall not talk like a negro minstrel in the end of it. (Twain 633).” However the dialogue in The Last of the Mohicans seems
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 911
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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