最后的莫西干人英文读后感

1My Appreciation of

the Last of the Mohicans

As one of “The Leather-stocking Tales”, The Last of the

Mohicans creates an American hero-myth by the name of Hawkeye.

In this novel he is portrayed as a perfect example of the western man, shaped by the forest in which he lives and broken away from the

falsity of civilization. He is the embodiment of basic human virtues like kindness, wisdom, bravery and rustic chivalry. His Indian companion, the Mohican chief Chingachgook, is Cooper’s ideal of

the natural man, whose native intelligence, loyalty and brotherly

love are not tainted by civilization. Besides vivid characterization, this novel is full of blood and fight, set in descriptive images of the beauty of nature reminiscent of Sir Walter Scott.

What is more, I think that repetition, oppositions and contrasts abound in the novel. Repetition exists most obviously in the plot device of the trap and escape of the characters while oppositions

show themselves mainly in the numerous frontier clashes: French

against English, Indians against Indians and against whites, Magua against Hawkeye’s party. The most important and controlling

opposition in the novel are between evil and good. As to contrasts,

the most appealing one is that between the condition of nature and

the condition of humans.

In addition, after reading this novel, I find two themes from it.

2The first one is “interracial love and friendship”. The

Last of

the Mohicans is about race and the difficulty of overcoming radical divides. Cooper suggests that interracial mingling is both desirable and dangerous. Cooper lauds the genuine and longtime friendship between Hawkeye, a white man, and Chingachgook, a Mohican

Indian. Hawkeye and Chingachgook’s shared communication with

nature transcends race, enabling them to team up against Huron

enemies and to save white military leaders like Heyward. On the

other hand, though, cooper shows his conviction that interracial romances are doomed and undesirable. The interracial love of Uncas

and Cora ends in tragedy, and the forced interracial relationship between Cora and Magua is portrayed as unnatural. Through Cora,

cooper suggests that interracial desire can be inherited.

The second one is “the changing idea of family”. Cooper uses

the frontier setting to explore the changing status of the family unit. Cooper posits that the wilderness demands new definitions of family. Uncas and Hawkeye, for example, form a makeshift family structure. When Uncas’s real father, Chingachgook, disappears without

explanation in the middle portion of the novel, Hawkeye becomes a