《最后一个莫西干人》库珀的种族观
Acknowledgementsi
Abstractii
摘要iii
1 Introduction 1
1.1 The Writing Background.1
1.2 Main Content of The Novel..2
2 Explicit View: Criticism on Racial Discrimination 5
2.1 Historical Context Introduction: Whites & Indians5
2.2 Anti-discrimination Attitude Towards Indians.7
3 Implicit View: Cooper’s Neutral Ground and His Hidden White Supremacy..9
3.1 Prejudice to Indians’ Barbarity and Crudeness..9
3.2 Arrangement of Relations among Main Characters–White Supremacy..11
3.3 The Set and the Arrangement of The End11
4 Cooper’s Ambivalence of White vis-a-vis Indians.12
4.1 Reasoning Analysis-Cooper’s Growing Background and Experience.12
4.2 Representative of The Ambivalence–Hawkeye13
4.3 Different Attitudes to Different Indians14
5 Conclusion.16
Bibliography17
Acknowledgments
As my thesis is coming to an end, I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to all the people who did me a favor for they are all so dedicated and selfless. First of all, I would like to convey my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Doc. Cheng Qinghua. Thanks to his excellent guidance and encouragement during the process of my writing, I can finish my thesis smoothly. He always offered me a great deal of constructive advice, inspiring suggestions, and incisive criticism. I do appreciate that he has devoted so much of his time and energy to reading my draft and making suggestions for further revisions. Without his guidance and help, the completion of the present thesis seems to be impossible for me.
Next I would like to thank all my teachers who taught me in my four years’ university life. It is they that open the gate of knowledge of English for me and it is they that guide me to the world of literature and culture. All the above has inspire me to make efforts to learn English.
Abstract
The Last of The Mohicans is the masterpiece of James Fenimore Cooper who is regarded as the forerunner and founder of the American nationalist literature. Cooper wrote The Last of The Mohicans to describe the miserable destiny of the Indians and to reveal the racialism at that time.
Cooper chose the late of 1850s when Britain and French were trapping themselves in the war of contending of the North American colonies. Meanwhile, the American government was pushing the policy of Westward Movement. However, both the war and the movement had actually brought Indians endless sufferings and miseries. The Westward Movement was a process of massacre for American Indians. This paper mainly focuses on Cooper’s racial view aiming to Indians. And then we will find that the author himself is still in the struggling between the sympathy for Indians and the hidden feeling of the White supremacy. In The Last of The Mohicans, Cooper shows his sorry for Indians, but his ambiguities on many issues like the cultural and barbarous definition and distinguishing the white from the red exposes his belief in the white supremacy. Focusing on the history background, Cooper’s growing experience and the novel itself, this thesis reveals Cooper’s conflicting attitudes towards the Indians.
Key words: The Last of The Mohicans, racial views, Indians, white supremacy, contradictory feelings
摘要
詹姆斯•费尼莫尔•库珀是美国边疆文学和西部文学的开拓者和奠基人。《最后一个莫西干人》是库珀的代表作。该作品主要讲述了印第安人在白人殖民主义者的压迫下艰难生存的悲惨命运。库珀在小说中传达了他对印第安人的深刻同情。小说以英法殖民战争为背景并结合当时轰轰烈烈的西进运动，深切描述了印第安人的悲惨命运，鞭笞了美国当时社会存在的种族等级观念。然而，作为一名土生土长并且从未真正接触过印第安人的白人贵族，这种同情值得商榷，纵使库珀对印第安人的悲惨遭遇充满怜悯甚至对不公的种族制度表达了不满，但其本身白人至上的种族优越感始终存在。本论文主要聚焦于库珀对于印第安人所存在的种族观，通过介绍历史和库珀的成长背景以及小说本身等来揭示库珀的矛盾的种族观。5486