The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper

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Mohican Research Paper

I believe that “The Last of the Mohicans” by James Fenimore Cooper is the first “great” American novel because it created such a lasting effect in the United States. It shows many ideas and topics that we talk about now such as gender roles, racism, and heroes. It is the first novel in a freely American setting that actually “hits” these topics and involves them in the writing. This, although it was written such a long time ago, is significant in American cultural history because of those topics. It’s important to know that racism and the role of women aren’t new things to the United States. They have been around ever since people came to America, and likely even before then. From reading this book we get to understand how racism was used back then and differentiate that from how it is now. As far as the literature goes, this book does have some bad sides to it. The mechanics of the writing were weakly written by Cooper as the writing did not match up to the standards of critics. The plot, as seen by Cooper himself, has issues with it and doesn’t make sense in some cases. There are inconsistent scenes within the book that could be recognized when reading. Despite some of the literacy misshapes, “The Last of the Mohicans” still is very compelling in American literature because of the involvement of such important issues that we have currently in our society. The book’s “lessons” result in it being a very great novel and an important read for American culture and literature as it created such a lasting outcome.

Racism was one of the topics that was brought up in “The Last of the Mohicans” that is still a huge idea in todays society. Racism has been around since the start of America, and it still exists tod...

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...e Cora, were able to break the issue and get out of the stereotypes. It was the first “great” American novel because it included this topic that women are still fighting for.

Despite all of the issues brought up that relate to current American Culture, the literature of the novel was a downfall although it did have some positives to it. The book wasn’t properly written to live up to the expectation of critics. A reviewer of “The Last of the Mohicans” stated, “The main complaints were that stylistically the book was badly written, repetitive, and lacked pace and characterization” (Last). The mechanics of the writing were weakly written by Cooper. It was badly written because all of the sentences weren’t perfect and it was too wordy with unnecessary words. Despite the literacy mistakes, it did create a new writing style which was a reason why it was a great novel.

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