Cora Munro's Sexual and Maternal Instincts in James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans
Cora Munro's relationship with her younger, fairer sister Alice demonstrates a distinct mother-daughter pattern that manifests itself in every interaction between the two women. Throughout James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans, the character of Cora continuously hides her sister's face in her bosom as an indication of undying protection from the ravages of the American frontier. Alice depends on Cora as her champion and defender but, most unmistakably as a mother figure. Cora maintains a immutable position of motherly nurture with her sister, however, when interacting with other frontier characters, Cora shifts her style of human interaction towards a conscious understanding of her gender capacity. Though not overtly sexual, Cora does demonstrate a cognizance of female sexuality and feminine influence on various male characters. Cora does not often demonstrate motherly instinct while practicing the powers of her sex; rather, her authority particular to each sphere manifests itself during situations of great conflict and tension concerning Alice or, separately, the other surrounding male characters.
The narrator refers to Cora's motherly intuition in many instances, but most especially when Alice demonstrates a case of need or dependence. When Alice shows doubt and fear, Cora immediately rushes to protect and soothe her. Cooper writes, "For many moments the elder sister looked upon the younger, with a countenance that wavered with powerful and contending emotions. At length she spoke, though her tones had lost heir rich and calm fulness, in an expression of tenderness, that seemed maternal" (109). Cooper writes clearly of the strong bond that exists between the sisters while illustrating a power relationship that has Cora playing the role of shepherd and Alice as that of a small, helpless lamb. Moreover, Cooper repeatedly shows the character of Alice grasping onto the arm of Duncan Heyward‹an obvious physical need for refuge and shield‹while Cora remains free of an explicit male bond and receives the admiration of the remaining men from afar. Alice, the weaker of the two, appeals to her sister for attention while Cora remains aloof and confident. Cooper, at many instances, describes Cora with almost beatific characteristics which heighten her esteem and power as a female character. Her motherly feelings towards Alice verge on the saintly; Cora often rises above common human sensibility and takes on the role of a martyr in the manner that a mother would for her child.
As Mother’s Day approaches, writer Penny Rudge salutes “Matriarchs [who] come in different guises but are instantly recognizable: forceful women, some well-intentioned, others less so, but all exerting an unstoppable authority over their clan” (Penny Rudge), thereby revealing the immense presence of women in the American family unit. A powerful example of a mother’s influence is illustrated in Native American society whereby women are called upon to confront daily problems associated with reservation life. The instinct for survival occurs almost at birth resulting in the development of women who transcend a culture predicated on gender bias. In Love Medicine, a twentieth century novel about two families who reside on the Indian reservation, Louise Erdrich tells the story of Marie Lazarre and Lulu Lamartine, two female characters quite different in nature, who are connected by their love and lust for Nector Kashpaw, head of the Chippewa tribe. Marie is a member of a family shunned by the residents of the reservation, and copes with the problems that arise as a result of a “childhood, / the antithesis of a Norman Rockwell-style Anglo-American idyll”(Susan Castillo), prompting her to search for stability and adopt a life of piety. Marie marries Nector Kashpaw, a one-time love interest of Lulu Lamartine, who relies on her sexual prowess to persevere, resulting in many liaisons with tribal council members that lead to the birth of her sons. Although each female character possibly hates and resents the other, Erdrich avoids the inevitable storyline by focusing on the different attributes of these characters, who unite and form a force that evidences the significance of survival, and the power of the feminine bond in Native Americ...
Upon examination, we first must look at the sisters’ temperament and attitude towards life. Their attitude on life comes out in their writing and we can sense how they would perceive their new homeland, Canada in the 1832. Catharine, the elder by 23 months was considered to be the “sweet-tempered and placid, was her father’s favourite child,” and Susanna, the youngest, “was the impulsive and defiant [one], with a wicked sense of humour” (Gray, 17, 18). Both sisters’ traits are clearly exposed in their approach t...
John Proctor’s tragic flaw is that he is impulsive. Proctor regrets what he had done with Abigail Williams and cannot forgive himself of his sins. This tragic flaw follows John Proctor throughout the entire play. Abigail Williams is vastly jealousy to Goody Proctor because of her husband John. This is shown in act two when Abigail stabs herself with a needle to prove that Goody Proctor sent her spirit upon her and to place an accusation on Goody Proctor of witchery. John has lost his relationship with his wife because of his sin, he tries to gain forgiveness of his wife but she tells him, “John, it come to naught that I should forgive you, if you’ll not forgive yourself” (Act four). Elizabeth Proctor says this because she feels that John Proctor will not feel forgiven by his wife until he can forgive himself for lechery. This tragic flaw eventually leads John Proctor to confess and find his path to
Cora and Alice have a great deal of respect for their father and believe him to be an honorable man as a father and a colonel. They see themselves as being in a higher social class because of their father. Right before the massacre occurred, Cora says that the fort is no longer fit for the children of officers. The other women of the fort try to
John Proctor, whether consciously or not, constantly determines the path to his fate through his actions, choices, and judgment. Though overall he is an honorable and principled man, he is flawed by one crucially harmful past deed to his reputation—his committing of adultery with seventeen-year-old Abigail Putnam. In a final attempt to save his wife from the accusation of witchcraft, he admits to his crime of lechery, by which he plans to unveil Abigail’s true motive for accusing his wife Elizabeth: “A man will not cast away his good name. You surely know that…She thinks to dance with me on my wife’s grave! And well she might, for I thought of her softly. God help me, I lusted, and there is promise in such sweat. But it is a whore’s vengeance, and you must see it, I set myself entirely in your hands” (Miller 113). This merely warrants him harshly disapproving views from his puritanical peers, and not even this act of utter honesty and sacrifice can reverse the witch trial hysteria that his affair with Abigail sparked. Both he and his wife Elizabeth are jailed, he is hanged, and Abigail maintains po...
Alice Munro's creation of an unnamed and therefore undignified, female protagonist proposes that the narrator is without identity or the prospect of power. Unlike the narrator, the young brother Laird is named – a name that means "lord" – and implies that he, by virtue of his gender alone, is invested with identity and is to become a master. This stereotyping in names alone seems to suggest that gender does play an important role in the initiation of young children into adults. Growing up, the narrator loves to help her father outside with the foxes, rather than to aid her mother with "dreary and peculiarly depressing" work done in the kitchen (425). In this escape from her predestined duties, the narrator looks upon her mother's assigned tasks to be "endless," while she views the work of her father as "ritualistically important" (425). This view illustrates her happy childhood, filled with dreams and fantasy. Her contrast between the work of her father and the chores of her mother, illustrate an arising struggle between what the narrator is expected to do and what she wants to do. Work done by her father is viewed as being real, while that done by her mother was considered boring. Conflicting views of what was fun and what was expected lead the narrator to her initiation into adulthood.
Mary Rowlandson was a pretentious, bold and pious character. Her narrative did not make me feel sorry for her at all, which is strange since she really did go through a lot. During the war, the Narragansett Indians attacked Lancaster Massachusetts, and burned and pillaged the whole village. During the siege Mary and her six year old child were shot, she watched her sister and most of her village either burn or get shot. She was kept as a captive, along with her three children and taken with the Narragansett’s on their long retreat. The exposition of the story is set immediately. The reader is perfectly aware of Missus Rowlandson’s status and religious beliefs. She constantly refers to the Narragansetts in an incredibly condescending way, to the point that you know that she does not even consider them human. She paints them as purely evil pe...
John Proctor is a good man, a hard worker; who cares for his family and a well-respected man in the Village of Salem. Based on the statement by Proctor, he shows that he tries to be a better man after what he has done with Abigail, and that he regrets breaking his marriage vows, when he says “ No, no, Abby. That’s done with” (Act I, line 408). John Proctor is known as a good man in the community, He is always working on his farm, and he is an honorable man. John Proctor even though that he has broken his marriage vows, he cares about his wife and shows respect for her. Due to the fact that Proctor has regretted, his outlook on life was positive, when he says to Abigail “You’ll speak nothin’ of Elizabeth!” (Act I, lines 458-459). John Proctor shows respect and he regrets of committing adultery against Elizab...
...ide as well. Proctor is the “good guy”, and is sentenced to death, hung for his crime of defending his wife. In addition to this, Proctor is sent to his death willingly after choosing to die rather than ruin the names of the others that were accused. But the real crime that he is being punished for is giving into his lust and having an affair with Abigail. Everybody makes mistakes and has a moment of weakness now and again. It’s hard to not feel at least a small amount of pity for him even if you dislike him.
John Proctor's decision to betray his wife causes internal struggles and ultimately leads to his catastrophe at the end of the drama. Hamartia is the primary error of the tragic hero which provokes part of his misfortune. Proctor's serious mistake of adultery delivers problems with Abigail Williams and indirectly causes his jailing. Abigail is a grown young woman, and yet she is an orphan who mistakes John Proctor?s sex for true love. When Proctor tells Abigail that the relationship can no longer continue, the girl becomes angry and sorrowful (1098). In order to prove Abigail?s sinfulness and to discredit her in front of the court, Proctor proclaims that he had an affair with this evil child. The outraged court officials summon Elizabeth Proctor to find the truth. When asked about her husband, Elizabeth?s soul is twisted, for reporting the truth could destroy her husband?s reputation, but lying means breaking her solemn oath to God. Because she is selfless, Elizabeth chooses to lie and save her husband, but perhaps condemn herself to hell for such a sin. This scene indicates dramatic irony, for Proctor knows that which Elizabeth is not ...
In Alice Munro’s “Boys and Girls” she tells a story about a young girl’s resistance to womanhood in a society infested with gender roles and stereotypes. The story takes place in the 1940s on a fox farm outside of Jubilee, Ontario, Canada. During this time, women were viewed as second class citizens, but the narrator was not going to accept this position without a fight.
This hanging must be 'tragic'--i. e. must [be] result of an opportunity not grasped when it should have been, due to 'flaw.'" (xiii). When concerning the character of John Proctor, his missed opportunity was confessing before Elizabeth was arrested, therefore saving himself and his wife. John did not deserve his death for he was good person. He recognized his errors and flaws and made very strong attempts to correct them and overcome them. Because he didn't deserve his punishment, pathos is formed within the audience. This in turn generates the qualities in John Proctor that would make him a tragic hero, a good person with human flaws that triggered undeserved
A tragic hero is the protagonist is neither virtuous nor evil, and is of high estate. John Proctor was framer around the town Salem in the play in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. John Proctor’s tragic flaw or hubris was his pride which cost characters their lives to protect their image in the town. Procter's pride keep him and his family from going to church because he did not agree with Reverend Parris's preaching methods. The town was ran by the church's rules make attending the church mandatory. Proctors pride hurt his and his family's reputation because he could not except Parris’s peaching methods.Proctor is a tragic hero because of his hubris he is not too evil nor to good and he’s punished and his punishment was greater than what he deserved
In Alice Munro’s “Boys and Girls,” there is a time line in a young girl’s life when she leaves childhood and its freedoms behind to become a woman. The story depicts hardships in which the protagonist and her younger brother, Laird, experience in order to find their own rite of passage. The main character, who is nameless, faces difficulties and implications on her way to womanhood because of gender stereotyping. Initially, she tries to prevent her initiation into womanhood by resisting her parent’s efforts to make her more “lady-like”. The story ends with the girl socially positioned and accepted as a girl, which she accepts with some unease.
Alice in Wonderland belongs to the nonsense genre, and even if most of what happens to Alice is quite illogical, the main character is not. “The Alice books are, above all, about growing up” (Kincaid, page 93); indeed, Alice starts her journey as a scared little girl, however, at the end of what we discover to be just a dream, she has entered the adolescence phase with a new way to approach the mentally exhausting and queer Wonderland. It is important to consider the whole story when analyzing the growth of the character, because the meaning of an event or a sentence is more likely to mean what it truly looks like rather than an explanation regarding subconscious and Freudian interpretations. Morton states “that the books should possess any unity of purpose seems on the surface unlikely” (Morton, page 509), but it’s better to consider the disconnected narrative and the main character separately, since the girl doesn’t belong to Wonderland, which is, as Morton says, with no intrinsic unity. Whereas, there are a few key turning points where it is possible to see how Alice is changing, something that is visible throughout her journey. Carroll wants to tell the story of a girl who has to become braver in order to contend with challenges like the pool made by her own tears, or assertive characters, like the Queen.