Blog 1 -Josephine Boyle

When thinking about which characters in the Pioneers were characters vs caricatures, I was almost surprised by my answer.  After all, though the novel is concerned with the usual figures in a frontier town, in the familiar guises of doctors, judges, reverends, and store owners, Cooper also includes the almost fantastical characters of Indian John and Leatherstocking.  But the old, canny woodsman with the strange, eponymous outfit and the proud Indian warrior, last of his line yet converted seemingly to Christianity are the serious ones.  Richard Jones, for example, is consistently funny, although he would be shocked and offended to hear it.  Grandiloquent and verbose, he boasts of his own successes in hunting, architecture, religion, and general leadership.  He insists that he is an excellent sleigh driver and blames Oliver for the accident.   Ironically, the audience knows full well that Oliver likely saved the lives of the sleigh’s passengers after Richard almost drove them off the edge in a overconfident turn.  The way that Cooper characterizes Richard, and to some extent Marmaduke and Elnathan, as incompetent yet egotistical contrasts sharply with his portrayal of the natives and woodsmen, who are skilled, sure of themselves, and inclined to action rather than flowery speeches.  This seems to illuminate and reflect Cooper’s larger themes about the natives and those who respected the land and the newer, ‘civilized’ settlers who were causing irreversible changes to the wilderness environment. 

                Richard Jones’ feudal, proclamatory disposition and speech seem at times a comic throwback even in 1793, highlighting the absurdity and inefficiency of the gentleman landowners compared to the skill and knowledge of characters like Natty Bumpo or John Mohegan.   Although Cooper’s writing has warmth and almost nostalgic regard for the generosity and agency of Marmaduke, expressed through the judge’s actions in the novel and the regard the other settlers hold him in, at this point the novel seems to mourn the passing of people who respected the land and knew how to properly use it.  To the readers amusement, Marnaduke and Jones’ blunders are constantly called out by Bumpo (such as when he repeatedly explains that a rifle makes a much better hunting piece than something that scatters shot into the woods inaccurately).  Bumpo also mourns the loss of game in the woods, and the negative effects the settlement(s) have had, as well as the decline and death of the Mohegan race of the Delaware natives.  Marmaduke yells at Richard for burning sugar maple wood, but he has undeniably depleted the forests with he expansion of the town and the construction of his manor. I think it’s significant that Elnathan Todd seems the most serious and efficient of the group...and that he is the one that actually listens to and respects the advice and strategies of the native Americans (specifically, Indian John’s aid during the surgery).