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Hyperbole
Explanation and Analysis—Rare Charms:
In Chapter 33, the Lenape sing a sort of funeral dirge for Uncas and Chingachgook. Their song also refers to Alice; the way Cooper describes the song, they use a string of hyperbolic similes to describe Alice's beauty:
Still they denied her no meed her rare charms might properly claim. Her ringlets were compared to the exuberant tendrils of the vine, her eye to the blue vault of the heavens, and the most spotless cloud, with its glowing flush of the sun, was admitted to be less attractive than her bloom.
Cooper admits that the song is less favorable toward Alice than her dead sister, but it seems that the Lenape nonetheless feel obliged to show extreme reverence for Alice's "rare charms." They compare her hair to "the exuberant tendrils of the vine," her eyes to "the blue vault of the heavens," and her blushing cheeks to a spotless cloud glowing with the reflection of the sun. In fact, they "admit" her to be more beautiful than this glowing cloud. These similes are hyperbolic. For a people who consider nature divine, it would be next to impossible for a single human to exceed nature's beauty. If Alice is this perfect in their eyes, there is hardly room for them to show even more reverence to Cora.
The hyperbolic similes allow Cooper to call attention to Alice's pure whiteness. Her blue eyes, rosy cheeks, and soft ringlets are all markers of her whiteness. Throughout the novel, she is figured as an angelic and innocent white woman, as opposed to the more worldly Cora. Cooper heavily hints that Cora's Creole ancestry makes her an imperfect daughter who is outspoken, unpredictable, and more corrupt than Alice. Alice is Munro's ideal daughter, whom he waited many years to have; he loves Cora, but she was the consolation prize he got in the meantime, when Alice's grandfather would not allow his daughter to marry Munro. The Lenape recognize Alice as a living symbol of whiteness and purity who has outlasted both Uncas (the "last of the Mohicans") and Cora (a symbol of hybrid identity).
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