Marriage as Symbolic Conflict Resolution
The American Revolution divided loyalties among friends and families just as the Civil War would do nearly a century later. And just as wars had done for centuries before. Cooper took a page right out of the Sir Walter Scott book of novel writing by using marriage between once opposing sides to represent a symbolic resolution to conflict which comes with sharing common goals. The symbolism in this case also works on the level of representing the necessary amalgamation of opposing viewpoints as a mandate for making America work as a grand experiment in democratic rule.
Life on the Frontier
For many readers, their first exposure to a realistic portrait of what life was like on the primitive edges of the American frontier came when they picked up a copy of The Pioneers. In a sense, Cooper’s book can legitimately be seen as a rough prototype for the Western genre in fiction. Though lacking the necessary narrative and plot conventions, the inclusion of indigenous tribesman, primitive living conditions and the ascension of setting to a place of notably greater importance than novels taking place in a traditional city or rural setting all foreshadow elements that would define the Western as the quintessential American literary genre.
Natural Law Giving Way to Civil Law
The overarching thematic drive of the narrative is the conflict between the natural law of the wilderness and the civil law which will inevitably prevail for the purpose of spreading civilization westward across the continent. Natty Bumppo and the indigenous tribes represent the desire to hold onto the natural laws that make the America frontier more than a mere wilderness; it is God’s domain. God’s law is the rule of this jungle and the resources available are respected precisely because they are not owned by man according to his law. Judge Temple and the settlers represent the end of that particular kind of freedom because the imposition of civil law in order to establish and maintain civilization is by definition restrictive. Civil law seeks to impose upon the domain of natural law restrictions upon behavior, restrictions upon boundaries, restrictions upon property and restrictions upon the use of resources in order that they not be wasted; a problem never necessitated enforcement under God’s law.
