The Last of the Mohicans: Allusions 3 key examples

According to modern geology, the mounds Cooper is referring to are in fact naturally occurring formations called Mima mounds, or prairie mounds. They are common in the Pacific Northwest, as well as in the United States Southwest, Mexico, and the Great Plains. There are several modern theories as to how the mounds formed, but the prevailing (and debunked) theory in the 19th century was that they were burial mounds. The idea was that an ancient civilization that had occupied the land even before American Indian people had buried their dead there.

Cooper claims that the hill Magua chooses is just a hill, but that it bears a resemblance to a prairie mound. This comparison adds suspense to the scene by suggesting that all these characters are very close to death. The "resting-place" is just that, a place to rest from travel, but it might easily become an eternal resting place if violence erupts. The allusion to the supposed burial sites of an ancient civilization also plays into Cooper's romanticized notion of entire peoples passing out of existence. In a sense, all the characters in this novel belong to a time and culture that no longer exists in the 1820s, half a century after the American Revolution wrought massive changes on the political climate.

This quotation is from Act 1, Scene 2, of Shakespeare's play. In this scene, several working-class people (including Snug and Quince) meet to plan a play they will perform at Theseus and Hippolyta's royal wedding. This exchange is supposed to be comical: Snug asks Quince for the lion's lines so that he can practice them well in advance of the performance, and Quince says he can just improvise because all the lion does is roar.

At this point in The Last of the Mohicans, Duncan is pretending to be a doctor and has been brought to the sickbed of a woman with powerful connections among the Hurons. To his surprise, David Gamut is also there. An oddly-behaving bear has followed Duncan through the cavernous route he took to reach this woman. So far, he has assumed that the bear has been domesticated by the Hurons, but he is thrown off when the bear starts intoning along with David Gamut—who is, as per usual, singing a hymn. What Duncan does not know (and what the reader too will find out in this chapter) is that the bear is no bear at all. Rather, Hawkeye has dressed up in a bear costume to come rescue Duncan and David.

The Shakespearean epigraph hints that the bear is really a man dressed up in a wild animal costume, doing his best to improvise life-like roars. Even outside the scene directly referenced in the epigraph, A Midsummer Night's Dream is a play filled with mischief and deception. Cooper is hinting to readers that he is playing with comedy and allowing his characters to have a bit of fun with each other. Although it is possible to understand the book while ignoring the chapter epigraphs, looking closely at them often reveals something about what is on the horizon for the characters. For instance, the following chapter opens with another quotation from A Midsummer Night's Dream. This time, it is another character (Bottom) asking if he, too, can play the part of the lion. Lo and behold, Hawkeye ends up giving the bear costume to Uncas later in that chapter.

The air and the flames come to life, as though they have their own sense of agency. The air "breathing" upon the flames through the cracks in the hut conjures the idea of a bellows: it is as if the air is keeping the flames alive, and the flames are lighting the fuse of Magua's anger. The entire environment is driving the feeling of vengeance to a fever pitch.

To further emphasize the intensity of Magua's anger, Cooper compares him to the "Prince of Darkness," which is what John Milton calls Satan in his epic poem Paradise Lost. Satan is the main character of Paradise Lost, and the poem opens on Satan and his devils in the fires of hell. Milton attempts to understand Satan's motivation for bringing sin into the lives of humans in the biblical Book of Genesis; cast out of heaven by a tyrannical God, Satan invades the Garden of Eden not just for fun but to exact revenge and push back against God's power. The poem can easily be read as a political allegory about revolution and rebellion. By comparing Magua to Satan hatching his vengeful plan in the fires of hell, Cooper heightens the stakes of Magua's anger. He is not just one angry man, but rather an angry man with an entire army of "devils" to back him in a revolution of biblical proportions. At the same time, the comparison also suggests that Cooper is interested in understanding the motivation behind Magua's rage. Rather than depict him as a senselessly violent antagonist, Cooper depicts him as a man who is having an intense (even outsized) reaction to being wronged.