Essay Questions

To what does the novel’s subtitle—“The Inland Sea”—refer?

The inland sea is a reference to the novel’s setting in the western wilderness of unsettled New York. The land borders Lake Ontario and the lake is significant to the narrative. Early in the novel, Master Cap admits to “some difficulty in swallowing the tale about there being inland seas at all.” Later on will episodes pop up of argument and discourse over the possibility of inland seas—great lakes—being freshwater or saltwater entities. Debate will over stir over the issue of size: are inland seas merely “ponds” or might there be some that are as vast as oceans?

Part of Mark Twain’s notorious critique of the novel is based on the outlandish description of the Pathfinder being able to hit a nail with a bullet. Why is this critique misplaced?

Most of the criticism that Twain levels against Cooper is related to the literary quality of his actual style of writing. Nevertheless, a focal point of Twain’s essay “Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses” specifically targets the scene in the novel in which the title character’s talent for shooting is demonstrated almost as if a highlight in a circus act. As Twain takes pains to point out, the theatricality of this scene is dependent upon a possibility of human sensory perception he has declared in impossibility: “for this nail-head is a hundred yards from the marksmen, and could not be seen at that distance, no matter what its color might be.” What Twain says is perfectly true about manufactured nails which were the norm at the time he was writing. Historians have pointed out a flaw in Twain’s reasoning, however, by offering up evidence that hand-crafted nails used precisely in the New York area at the time in which the story takes place would actually have been as much as double the size. Thus, the Pathfinder’s skill in hitting the nail with a bullet—while as impressive as Cooper intends—would not actually have been quite the impossible feat Twain asserts.

The novel is structured as a romance yet in the end the hero doesn’t get the girl. Why?

The Pathfinder is designed thematically to fit into the overall scheme of the Leatherstocking Tales series of novels. This series of stories situates Natty Bumppo aka Hawkeye aka the Pathfinder as the spirit of America. The hero of the stories represents the creation of America from untamed wilderness to civilized nation, recognizing that in the process of civilization, it is inevitable that part of the untamed spirit of freedom is sacrificed. Sacrifice is what is at the thematic heart of the story. By this point Natty knows his path in this entry he is presented at middle age with a temptation to reject the wilderness and settle down to the easier, more comfortable life he deserves with the attentive love of a good woman. Such a settlement would be all too easy and was likely made all too often by all too many men endowed with the pioneer spirit. In doing so, America was tamed and civilized, but that merely left it to the those willing to reject the comforts of domestication to take on the path of forging ever westward ever deeper into the frontier still stretching out for thousands miles. The Pathfinder does not wind up with the girl for the simple reason that it is not part of his chosen path. He must sacrifice love to stay on that path and set a true course toward his final destination.