Reality in Fenimore Coopers The Pioneers :: Cooper Pioneers Essays

Reality in Fenimore Coopers The Pioneers Looking back on the mountain-view that was described as the main characters of Fenimore Coopers The Pioneers caught business deal of Templeton, their hometown, in the distance, Elizabeth, the primary female character, felt as if all the beauteousness of the mountain-view had vanished like the fancies of a dream (59). While it may be honest that during the moments that Elizabeth looked down on the scene, the scene was her candor, this reality was not an accurate enactment of the town itselfthe point of Elizabeths comment. For both Elizabeth and the reader (through Cooper) in the mountain-view the reality of objects was bury because no detail was available from the distance at which the party stood. in one case the reality was forgotten each of the objects took on qualities not implicit in the object itself. That is, the objects and the scene were idealized. Both Cooper and Elizabeth, then, seemed to take part in the action of inventing im aginary states of things, the Oxford English Dictionarys definition for fiction. The most significant forerunner to this fictive account is the change in scale of that occurs. Before the exposition of the mountain-view commenced Cooper tells of the horses pulling the parties sleigh The horses soon reached a point, where they seemed to know by instinct that the journey was nearly ended, and, bearing in the bits, as they nodded their heads, they chop-chop drew the sleigh over the level land. The details of the horses movements explain the senses of the riders and the reality of the situation. Sleighs viewed during the description of the mountain-view, however, are no more than a few sombre and moving spots. This change in scale obscures all details in the objects being observed. A moment later the habitations of man are excessively called spots of white . . . amidst the forest. Even when closer scrutiny is given to little distant habitations, only the color is mentioned. In thi s scene few details of the objects that comprise the scene are given, instead the objects themselves are the details. There is nought in this lack of details that is fictional, or inventive in itself. only once the details are gone Cooper is not fasten down by actual elements of the objects when giving them further meaning. Coopers primary regularity of ascribing further meaning to the objects is through anthropomorphism. A tree