James Fenimore Coopers Last of the Mohicans: Book and Movie Essay

James Fenimore Coopers Last of the Mohi digests Book and Movie The book Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper was actually different from the movie Last of the Mohicans in terms of the storyline. However, I feel that the producer and director of this movie did a good job of preserving Coopers original vision of the classic American adult male surviving in the wilderness, while possibly presenting it weaken than the book primarily did and in a more believable fashion to a tardily ordinal century reader. The makers of the movie Last of the Mohicans preserved Coopers central ideas and themes precise well, the most important of which is the question, what makes a man? Very few books that I comport read contain such a clear intellect of what a man should be as Last of the Mohicans. Cooper portrays the hero, Hawkeye, as brave, independent, and skillful in the ways of the woods. He is a tracker, he can hit a target with a bullet from any distance, he can fight the evil I roquois Indians without batting so much as an eyelash. The makers of the movie take great pains to preserve these facets of Hawkeye, but so go beyond what Cooper originally laid down as the basis for his heros character. In the book, Hawkeye displays very little feeling and the reader has very little empathy with him, scour though he is the hero. In the movie, however, there is a great vision between Hawkeye and Cora that does not exist in the book. This romance adds a more human side to Hawkeyes character it show s his caring side beyond all the hero-woodsman qualities--in other words, the non-Rambo, late ordinal century version of a hero. Every hero should ha... ...d, when Magua, the evil antagonist, kills Uncas and Alice is presented with the prime(prenominal) of being Maguas wife or killing herself, she chooses death. Coopers original intent was to have Cora killed for being impudent, while Alice remained docile and alive. Instead the makers of the movie transform even the wimpy Alice into a character of strength and independence (the late twentieth century ideal), as shown in her final act of suicide. Cora, also upstanding and blessed with the ability to think for herself throughout the film, survives. I f these changes added a lot to the characters of both Cora and Alice, who in the book were stick figures, females who did virtually cipher but be saved. and because of this again reinforces my opinion that the movie retains Coopers vision and presents it better than Cooper did himself.