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The Novel ' The Last Of The Mochicans ' And ' Uncle Tom 's Cabin '

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During the nineteenth century America’s population saw its largest increase, in which mass immigration occurred. This saw an increase in culture and racial differences as movement was commonly based on those wanting to move away from war, starvation or other forms of oppression. It is how writers of the nineteenth century presented the ‘objective history through literature and turned it instead to the business of myth-making’ (Wardrop, 1997, p. P2) which is an interest of mine. My aim is to focus on the emergence and portrayal of women in sentimental fiction during the nineteenth century, through Coopers novel The Last of the Mochicans (Cooper, 1826) and Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin (Stowe, 1999). The framework of my discussion will be …show more content…

Stowe’s novel however was intended on having a cultural impact on its readers, the novel has direct references to the Fugitive Slave Act, abolition movement and its influence on the shift in racial politics. Uncle Tom’s cabin reinforces racial thinking upon its readers and reflects Stowe’s colonialist viewpoints.

Not only were their intentions and approaches of the novels opposing but their racial representations through female characters’ clash to. Within Last of the Mohicans the perception of race gender identity is represented through the two sisters, Alice and Cora. Cooper has established the two females in ‘a duality that can never be integrated: light/dark, feminine/unfeminine, pure/tainted’ (Wardrop, 1997, p. 63). It is binaries such as these which have led to Alice being presented as a weak and dependent character, a counteracting character to her determined and fiery sister Cora. Alice, a white female character and the child of Colonel Munro is initially portrayed as an innocent, pure and sexually naïve female who was most ‘juvenile in her appearance’ and ‘permitted glimpses of her dazzling complexion, fair golden hair, and bright blue eyes…’ (Cooper, 488). Coopers first description of Alice clearly fits the ideology of “white blooded” characters, referring to her ‘golden hair’ and ‘bright blue eyes’. This initial imagery created reflects a positive outlook on Alice, linking the gold and blue to nature and her ‘dazzling complexion’ to

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