James Fenimore Cooper's The Spy: A Tale Of N.

James Fenimore Cooper, born on September 15, 1789 in Burlington, New Jersey was the twelfth of thirteen children. When he was one, Cooper and his parents moved to Cooperstown on Otsego Lake in New York, which his father, William Cooper, helped establish. His childhood in the small town later gave him inspiration for his book, Pioneers written in 1923. From childhood, Fenimore received tutoring and attended a boarding school in Albany, after which he then attended two years at Yale until his expulsion in 1805 for blowing up another students’ door. In 1806, Cooper first became a sailor for a few years, then a midshipman in the Navy with whom he traveled to England with many times. He also “served at a garrison at Lake Octavio and served as a Navy recruiter in New York City,” ("Cooper, James Fenimore (1789-1851), An Introduction to”). On New Year’s Day in 1811, James Fenimore Cooper and Susan Augusta De Lancey wed and lived happily in the country, until all of Coopers’ brothers died, leaving behind grieving widows and children when he decided to find work and provide for his family. In 1820, Cooper published his first book, Precaution about morality and manners; because he decided he would write a better book than the one he was reading at the time. Shortly after, Cooper also wrote The Spy: A Tale of Neutral Ground, which became the first
One example of symbolism is Hawkeye himself. Cooper uses Hawkeye as a way to symbolize the European and Indian cultures combining. Hawkeye also symbolizes a woodsman turned hero by using his perfect marksmanship to win a shooting contest held by the Delawares. Another symbol is Uncas and the fact that he is referred many times throughout the book as “the last of the Mohicans” (Stanley and Milne). After Uncas’ death, Chingachgook is then referred to as the last of his kind and the Mohicans die with him. This symbolizes the death of Indians and of the Indian culture