Fatalism in Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans

Hawkeye's vision of relativity and his idea of place are tainted with a touch of fatalism. Anything/any race/any culture and tribe has a right to exist, right to survive and right to assert its dignity. If any entity has a place in the scene of frontier how can that entity achieve subsequent progress?

Hawkeye wants to maintain an atmosphere of reconciliation and harmony on the scene of frontier by virtue of his vision and virtue of relativity. Anything achieves its progress only if it passes through the trouble of conflict and chaos. But Hawkeye says anything has its own place in existence. It should not try to assert control over another. This view is upheld by Hawkeye. This view sounds fatalistic. Without trying to control over other how can any entity achieve more success? To possess success one has to play the game of power, politics and violence. Hawkeye vision of relativity disallows violence and transgression, without which continuity of progress simply stops.

Hawkeye has the fatalistic vision of relativity and the other fatalistic elements in Hawkeye's vision is the concept of miscegenation. Hawkeye proposed miscegenation as a way of solving interracial conflict on the frontier life. When two different persons from two different races and culture enter into wedding tie, one learns to love, respect and admire gift of another. In this way people accept the existence of the gifts of another. As a result, the frontier conflict gets reduced. But in the novel The Last of the Mohicans a young Mohican belonging to Indian tribe developed a romantic affinity in partly European woman Cora whose mother was a Negro. This interest of Uncas in Cora led to the tragic death of Uncas and Cora. Both of them died a violent death. Thus, there sounds the acute sense of the failure of miscegenation.

Uncas and Cora didn't happen to get sufficient time to consummate their love and marry. Instead the start of miscegenated relation between Uncas and Cora led to the fatalistic death of both of them. Only Alice and Heyward's romance ended in success. Why did their romance ended in success? And why did the slowly building romantic affinity between Uncas and Cora end in tragic doom? The only pertinent answer to this question is that the vision of miscegenation cherished by Hawkeye is fatalistically doomed to failure. There was another fatalistic element in expectation of Munro. Munro expected Heyward to forward marriage proposal to Cora. But contrary to Munro's expectation Heyward was romantically drawn closer to Alice. Why was Heyward drawn towards Alice instead of Cora? The answer is that this was fatally bound to be so.

 Civilization has been spreading on the frontier. Hawkeye was, asking the Indian tribe to accept the existence of civilized ethos and spirit. Similarly Hawkeye was asking the civilized European to say yes to the existence of tribalism. But nobody was ready to act the way Hawkeye expected them, to work. Why? The answer is Hawkeye's' vision was weak enough to tackle the fatalistic situation of the frontier.

In the last analysis, certain touch of fatalism can be noticed in David Gamut. David Gamut represents the fatalistic cast of the Christian mind. The Christian mind is habituated to render good for evil. The Christian mind is lazy to tackle the evil. In the novel The Last of the Mohicans David Gamut placidly and unreservedly sings psalm even at the moment of the bloodiest massacre and warfare. David Gamut is fatalistic. He believes that whatever happens and whatever is going to happen because it is scheduled to happen. That is why David Gamut sings song during the bloodiest massacre also. His 'toting pipe' is a symbol of the fatalistic cast of the Christian mind.