The sublimity connected with vastness is familiar to every eye. The most abstruse, the most far-reaching, perhaps the most chastened of the poet's thoughts, crowd on the imagination as he gazes into the depths of the illimitable void. The expanse of the ocean is seldom seen by the novice with indifference; and the mind, even in the obscurity of night, finds a parallel to that grandeur, which seems inseparable from images that the senses cannot compass.
In light of Mark Twain’s infamously blistering critique of James Fenimore Cooper as a writer capable of violating nearly every rule for good writing, it may be surprising to some readers that the book kicks off with a passage as eminently beautiful as this. Perhaps the language is a bit much for what is, after all, an adventure story where so much is dependent upon plot, but it is not mislaid. One of the central themes of the novel that is touched upon again and again is the majestic beauty of the American wilderness. The title alone indicates a substantial link here.
“We are broadsword men, and love to stand foot to foot with the foe. This American mode of fighting, that is getting into so much favor, will destroy the reputation of his Majesty's army, if it no' destroy its spirit.”
Another important theme in the book is a strong and developing sense of anti-colonialism. The story plays out against the backdrop of the French and Indian War and although it is never less than certain that the author is on the side of the British against the French in this engagement, he considers them both to be enemies to the Indian and, by extension, the way of life in the wilderness. McNab’s haughtily subtle assertion of the superiority of the European fighting force to the colonials is indicative of how the novel plays out its theme of anti-colonialism. It is not singularly anti-French or anti-English; the author has put this sense of superiority into the mouth of a Scotsman so there is also more than a trace of irony going on here.
“I am a man well known in all these parts, and perhaps one of my names may have reached your ears. By the Frenchers and the red-skins on the other side of the Big Lakes, I am called La Longue Carabine; by the Mohicans, a just-minded and upright tribe, what is left of them, Hawk Eye; while the troops and rangers along this side of the water call me Pathfinder, inasmuch as I have never been known to miss one end of the trail, when there was a Mingo, or a friend who stood in need of me, at the other.”
For a man of action, Natty Bumppo certainly proves loquacious upon his first appearance in the story. And all this is just his way of introducing himself to strangers. The book was the fourth published in the Leatherstocking Tales, but takes place third chronologically which is to say that by the time he meets this young woman to whom he is introducing himself, he’s already been well-known to readers and was already halfway to legendary status within the reality of the story. It is a strange manner of introducing the hero even by the formal standards of the time. This may be one of the elements which Twain was taking to task.
The Scud was now so near, that Cap made no reply. The scene, just at that instant, was so peculiar, that it merits a particular description, which may also aid the reader in forming a more accurate nature of the picture we wish to draw.
The novel is written using the third-person perspective, but as was common in much 19th century literature at times the point of view gets slightly skewed so as to see as though it is a kind of first-person. The narrator directly addresses the reader which allows him to step slightly outside the normal environs of his established POV in order to become a kind of commentator as well as mere deliverer of information.
