The Ideology of Manhood in James Fenimore Cooper’s
The Last of the Mohicans

von: Kai Mühlenhoff

Outline

I. Introduction 1

II. The Connotations of manhood, manliness and masculinity 3

II.1 Manhood and Manliness 3
II.2 Masculinity 4

III. Race, Gender and Civilization 6

III.1 Powerful Manhood and White Supremacy 7
III.2 Civilization in Terms of Gender Differences 7
III.3 Natty “Hawk-eye” Bumppo – a New Kind of Man in the Making 8
III.4 Heyward as the Anxious, “passive hero” 10

IV. Defining the American Frontier Hero 13

IV.1 Heteroglossia in The Last of the Mohicans 13
IV.2 The Love between Chingachgook and Hawkeye 16
IV.3 Civilization and the Birth of a New Man 17

V. Conclusion 20

Bibliography 22

I. Introduction

My research paper is designed to clarify the aspects central to the issue of manhood negotiated in James Fenimore Cooper’s novel The Last of the Mohicans (1826). In the Victorian era, manhood had been positively attributed to the white race exclusively. In novels and illustrations, the ideal man fit the “Victorian ideals of manhood” (Rotundo 37-40) with fixed traits and attributes, such as courage, sexual self-restraint, a powerful will, and a strong character. As we will see, no male in the novel fits such a formula completely. I will then postulate what drives Cooper to bestow such an image on his male heroes. The “Victorian ideals” did not apply to all male people. “Savage” men, as Uncas and his father in the novel, were not considered to possess the distinct traits attributed chiefly to non-savage men, i.e. the white-male. Manliness was clearly linked to white-male supremacy and civilization; a long-held belief in American culture for centuries. The encounter between the “uncivilized brutish” and the whites is a dominant theme in the novel. We will see that the combining issue of race, gender, culture and civilization is inextricable and fundamental for the study of the subject and therefore will be elaborated on in detail. Many historians have falsely assumed that manhood has a strict, self-evident set of traits, unchanging over time. Other historians have emphasized the fact that the set of traits attributed to manhood varies from period to period, from class to class. This lead to a continual need for redefining male character traits at any historical moment, which often problematically presented itself in coexisting but contradictory views on manhood at a special period. Cooper, of course, was deeply familiar with the period’s masculine ideal of manhood, and understood that Victorian readers expected to find these qualities of manliness assigned to his male characters. Indeed, these attributes are present in the white male figures in the novel, but more importantly, Cooper does not hesitate to display an image of white men that portrays male deficiency in various aspects and situations. In chapter III. and IV., this issue is discussed in detail. Cooper’s text reveals a thorough look on the characters. The travelling companions spend most of their time in the woods facing all the dangers inherent to life on the frontier of the early nineteenth century. In this beautiful but dangerous scenery, we learn a lot about the characters. The author paints a broad portrait of his figures through the many conflicts they encounter, and interaction with each other. In this setting, the psyches of Cooper’s characters – white men, women and Indians – unfold. In the line of argumentation, it seems sensible to me to begin with a brief overview of the notion of manhood as defined by historians and nineteenth-century Americans. By examining the terms masculinity, manliness and manhood, and their common usage over the period, we are provided with a clearer understanding of the topic.

Of course, I will not dispense with the scholarly assertions put forth by others. Fine efforts have been made over the years in the field of history, gender studies, and literary theory. One such effort worthy of examination is Gail Bederman’s excellent work, Manliness and civilization (1995), which focuses on the “historical, ideological”. The book primarily covers the period between 1880 and 1917, but often refers to the beginning of the century TLM was composed. Additionally, it includes many bibliographical references and so became very useful for me as a starting point and was a valuable resource for further research on the topic. Bederman widely discusses race, civilization, and gender, and due to the fact that the focus is on a period after Cooper, her work shows the impact Cooper had on re-defining the American white male (ch. IV.3). The papers of the New Historicists Zhang and Clarke presented at the 11th and 12th Cooper Seminar at the State University of New York College at Oneonta both deal with issues directly related to my topic. Their essays have very much inspired me, and led my thinking into new directions. The notion of heteroglossia is touched upon – and applied to Cooper’s novel - in the book The Dialogic Imagination by the literary theorist Bakhtin. Clarke later refers to this in an exemplary way that provides access to the frontier, and the important issue of advancing white civilization. Furthermore, I have to acknowledge Lawrence for his pioneering work on the subject. Even though some of his ideas have become somewhat out of date, he still provides much groundwork for recent studies, and is still often cited by others. In my paper, I draw on the field of male gender-studies, and find it appropriate to use it in combination with New Historicism. I have taken this approach, because my topic is related to discourse, power-relationships among races, gender, and the emergence of a new man.

II. The Connotations of manhood, manliness and masculinity

It is important to carefully differentiate between the terms manhood, manliness and masculinity. The terms manhood and manliness (and the adjective “manly”) have been in frequent use since the early nineteenth century, however, the noun masculinity was labeled “rare” in the Merriam and Webster’s dictionary in 1890, and was even omitted from earlier versions. Apart from their frequency of use, they have been defined differently, depending upon the time, place, and context. This has inevitably led to misunderstandings and confusion; thus, there is the need to straighten out the varying connotations each word carried throughout the nineteenth century.

II.1 Manhood and Manliness

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