Progression and Cycles: Historical and Societal Change in James Fenimore Cooper’s The Pioneer

Undergraduate Review Volume 4 Article 19 2008 Progression and Cycles: Historical and Societal Change in James Fenimore Cooper’s The Pioneer Jessica Martinho Follow this and additional works at: http://vc.bridgew.edu/undergrad_rev Part of the American Literature Commons Recommended Citation Martinho, Jessica (2008). Progression and Cycles: Historical and Societal Change in James Fenimore Cooper’s The Pioneer. Undergraduate Review, 4, 101-104. Available at: http://vc.bridgew.edu/undergrad_rev/vol4/iss1/19 This item is available as part of Virtual Commons, the open-access institutional repository of Bridgewater State University, Bridgewater, Massachusetts. Copyright © 2008 Jessica Martinho 101 Progression and Cycles: Historical and Societal Change in James Fenimore Cooper’s, The Pioneer Jessica Martinho Jessica is a senior majoring in English. She wrote this piece under the mentorship of Dr Ann Brunjes and presented it at the National Conference on Undergraduate Research at Dominican University in California(NCUR ’07). A s the European Enlightenment swept across the Atlantic Ocean, a great change took place in the nation, a change that turned American eyes from the heavens to the earth and forced men to look not to God, but to themselves for answers. As Robert A. Ferguson summarizes in his article on the American Enlightenment, “The Enlightenment in America is sometimes conveyed in a single phrase, the political right of self-determination realized” (368). As this statement suggests, the Enlightenment symbolized a newfound reliance on the self and man’s ability to reason as a means for the progression of both the individual and the nation as a whole. This self-determination and reliance upon method and reason, however, was often found to be problematic, for a reliance upon man requires that man be infallible, and as many people found, this requirement could not be met. One of the texts that explores this conundrum is James Fenimore Cooper’s The Pioneers. In the novel, Cooper presents his readers with a very bleak outlook on America’s future and warns that if it continues to follow its current path dominated by a reliance upon reason, American culture will use up all of its resources and dwindle to nothing. Throughout the novel, Cooper demonstrates a great anxiety over land consumption and attempts to warn readers that resources are quickly dwindling. Coupled with the fear of land exploitation is Cooper’s lack of faith in man’s ability to govern and litigate such an issue. Cooper’s trepidation surrounding law and man’s ability to successfully create, uphold, and enforce laws is another anti-Enlightenment theme that permeates the text. Despite these apparent anti-Enlightenment sentiments, a closer reading of both The Pioneers and Robert Ferguson’s article on the American Enlightenment is required in order to fully appreciate Cooper’s complex relationship with the Enlightenment. Ferguson’s article suggests that American progress, in all its forms, was a constant tug-of-war between two extremes, never a steady rise. This idea that American progress is not linear hearkens back to The Pioneers, for in the novel, Cooper illustrates a constant flux between progress and decline through the many cycles he employs throughout the novel. The Pioneers, although it seems to present the reader with a bleak outlook on the achievement of American progress, essentially gives hope to the reader, by showing that dark times will eventually give way to lighter ones, and that one day, through a series of these cycles, America will become a better nation. B R I D G E WAT E R S TAT E C O L L E G E 102 First, in order to explore Cooper’s complex relationship with Enlightenment thinking, it’s important to explore his trepidation surrounding man’s ability to reason. One of the most striking themes explored by Cooper in The Pioneers that expresses this fear is the theme of land exploitation and conservation. A prime example of this tension between consumption and waste is seen in the character of Judge Temple. Throughout the novel, Judge Temple constantly tells the settlers that they need to decrease their excessive uses of the land. Temple tries to set the precedent for his followers by not allowing the use of maple wood in his home. This is not very effective, however, because the Judge has little to no control over his people or his household. At the same time, Cooper highlights the hypocrisy in Temple, for although he talks about land conservation, Temple never actually enforces it and actually practices the opposite. This hypocrisy is exemplified in the dinner scene, for right before Temple begins to preach about the excessive felling of trees, the narrator gives a page-long description of the various dishes served at the table, showing that although Temple talks about conservation, he is placed in the very seat of opulence and excess. Judge Temple’s character is doubly important because he is not only the vocal warning against land exploitation but demonstrates a susceptibility to this kind of excess through his inability to establish laws prohibiting it and also in his inability to govern his own opulence. Cooper further bolsters Judge Temple’s bleak view of progress by providing an abrasive foil to his character. Richard Jones, though Temple’s friend and relative, is always at odds with Temple’s views on progress and nature. When Temple admonishes Richard for using maple wood in his house, Richard replies, “Poh! Poh! cousin ‘duke, there are trees enough for us all, and some to spare. Why I can hardly tell which way the wind blows, when I’m out in the clearings, they are so thick and so tall” (109). Richard’s beliefs, unlike Temple’s, are based on immediate observations and tangible results. Richard bases his beliefs on what he can see, taste, and touch, not in what might be in the future. These kinds of observations are representative of Enlightenment thinking in that they focus on man’s fallible reason and perception. While Judge Temple is a passive advocate for land conservation and Richard Jones is an active advocate for land exploitation, Natty Bumppo demonstrates temperance between the two. Throughout the novel, Natty pleads for people to only take what they need from the land. For example, in the scene in which the men are hunting pigeons, Natty says of their excessive killing, “It’s much better to kill only such as you want, without wasting our powder and lead, than to be firing into God’s creaters in this wicked manner […] for I don’t relish to see these wasty ways that you are all practysing” (248). Here Natty voices an opinion of land T H E U N D E R G R A D U AT E R E V I E W consumption that Richard Jones cannot understand and Judge Temple cannot enforce. Natty represents an idealized relationship between man and the land, where there is a balance between need and consumption, speaking against the “wasty ways” of the arrogant scientists and those who are too weak (...truncated)