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Simile
Explanation and Analysis—Dying Trees:
In Chapter 32, Uncas, Duncan, and Hawkeye are trying to sneak up on the Hurons when Hawkeye notices the dead trees along the riverbank. Cooper uses a simile to foreshadow the tragic end of the novel:
Everywhere along its banks were the moldering relics of dead trees, in all the stages of decay, from those that groaned on their tottering trunks to such as had recently been robbed of those rugged coats that so mysteriously contain their principle of life. A few long, low, and moss-covered piles were scattered among them, like the memorials of a former and long-departed generation.
The moss-covered piles of dead wood remind Hawkeye of "the memorials of a former and long-departed generation." The trees all seem to be bound for the same fate: every one of them will eventually shed its leaves for the last time, losing their "principle of life." They will "groan and totter" until their dead trunks can no longer support their own weight. Then, they will fall to the ground and decay into the earth, just like the dead bodies of a generation of people that has passed out of existence.
By likening the piles of dead wood to a human graveyard, Cooper foreshadows the funeral and burial that will take place in the final chapter. Cora and Uncas both die in battle and are buried near each other in Lenape fashion, as if they are married. Cooper describes Uncas's burial as especially significant because he is the "last of the Mohicans." Although Chingachgook still lives, his only son has died without producing an heir. The Mohicans thus become "a former and [...] departed generation." The fact that Cora is buried alongside Uncas instead of in an English settlement adds additional significance to this "departure." Uncas and Cora are never married when they are alive, and they never have children. Had they done so, not only would they have carried on the Mohican line, but they also would have given birth to a new, multi-ethnic generation with American Indian, English, and Creole ancestry. Unlike Hawkeye, who is a white "man without a cross" (referring to religion but also race), Cora and Uncas's descendants would have been people with a cross. With these would-be ancestors, the dream of a multi-ethnic American people dies. Their joint graves, near each other and yet not shared, become the memorial of a future than never came to be. Cooper depicts their burial as the moment when racial stratification becomes a permanent part of American life.
It is important to note that this melancholy ending is highly romanticized. By imagining that not only the Mohicans but also a multi-ethnic American people are dead and buried, Cooper invites readers to mourn a more just world. But he also closes the door to that more just world, leaving readers with the sense that white people are destined to rule the continent with a guilty conscience.
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