James Fenimore Cooper

This excerpt from The Last of the Mohicans was a very interesting one. I have never had the opportunity before to read this story or see the movie, and I think I might now just because I thought this chapter was very good. Cooper did a very wonderful job describing both Natty Bumppo and Chingachgook both in physical appearance and the way they interacted with each other. The physical description Cooper gave was very adequate to be able to paint a good picture in my head of the scene, and be able to see what the two men looked like. Bumppo was described as your stereotypical Englishman, while Chingachgook was described as your stereotypical "noble savage", if you will. It is very interesting to see, however, that they don't really fit these stereotypes. They have a camaraderie, a friendship, that is usually quite unheard of during this time between Indians and white men. This chapter was mainly dialogue between the two men, not really any action until the last part when the deer was killed, but it was a very intriguing dialogue. The two men were having a conversation about the history of their peoples, and it had fairly reached the point of an argument, but both men argued very eloquently. It was this fact that was really interesting to me, and kept me reading, because not very often do you see an argument between two completely different people on a heated subject still be able to hold the friendship in balance. That says a lot about the characters of these two men, and really makes me want to know the rest of the story.