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Yue Chen Hou

Professor Joseph Adamson

ENG 705

12 October 2014

Placing the Frontier in Early American Literature

“Possibly the symbol for America is The Frontier, a flexible idea that contains many elements

dear to the American heart: it suggests a place that is new, where the old order can be

discarded; a line that is always expanding, taking in ever-fresh virgin territory…” (Atwood 26)

What it means to be American, at least as presented in early

American literature, seems to be inexorably tied to being on the

frontier. An examination of two early American fictions, James

Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s

The Scarlet Letter, reveals that there seems to be an obsession with

civilizing the wild, firmly placing America as the space which

immediately follows the frontier. That space is fundamentally

different from the spaces of Europe, which had conquered the

wilderness long ago. America’s position is thus within such a

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liminal space, between the established and the undiscovered. It

is one which highlights the dichotomy between civilization and

nature in spite of, or maybe due to, their close proximity.

Crucially, this space is by definition unstable, necessitating a

continual drive to advance or perish, correlating with the

historical realities of westward expansion. This relentless need

for progress, combined with a finite world, ultimately begets the

final question: what happens when the frontier is lost? This

anxiety is fully articulated in Frederick Jackson Turner’s The

Frontier in America History wherein he lamented the “disappearing free

lands […] the extinction of the frontier” (321)1, though the same

sentiment has been a part of the cultural mindset for years.

Though a close reading of not only the representations of the

wilderness which permeate the fictions of Cooper and Hawthorne,

but also the treatment of the wild, I hope to showcase the

methods through which these authors grapple with this

fundamentally unsustainable national paradigm. I examine the

precise ways in which the American ideal is presented in these

1 For Turner, however, this comes not out of any aesthetic or moral appreciation for the wilderness, but because he believed that the frontier wasinstrumental in providing democracy.

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two texts and argue that it ultimately becomes a self-destructive

process. Cooper in particular seemed distraught with the

environmental philosophy of the time, and Roderick Nash notes

that “he did not portray wild country as a loathsome obstacle to

be conquered and destroyed” (76). Interactions between nature and

characters primarily diverge into two distinct, but

interconnected, paradigms: nature as conflict and nature as

sexual liberation. These interactions, I argue, form intersecting

parts of the American ‘performance of the frontier’. The

narrative founding of America ultimately operates on an

unsustainable ideology which is challenged by these two texts.

These texts suggest an alternative to the traditional man/nature

dichotomy and the survival and success of the main characters

seems to be a gesture towards the possibility of change. What can

be observed in both of these texts is the promotion of a non-

standard ideology which may point towards a more sustainable

paradigm in ecological discourse.

Consideration of the effects of the wilderness on the

development of America must begin at the frontier. As Turner

noted, “the American frontier is sharply distinguished from the

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European frontier… [it] is the line of most rapid and effective

Americanization” (3). For Turner, the existence of the frontier

is what shaped the Europeans who had sailed to the new world into

Americans. This transformational influence is such that the

frontier wilderness becomes an actor upon the immigrants, and

Turner explicitly states that “the wilderness masters the

colonist” (4). This depiction of the frontier inherently assumes

a power disparity; one side necessarily ‘masters’ the other.

Although, as Nash notes, he does provide some measure of a

helpful environmental dialectic in “linking it in the minds of

his countrymen with sacred American virtues” (146).

The peculiarity of the landscape is a noted feature of both

texts, though as an agent of force, Cooper’s characterization of

the forests elevates it to not only a character, but an army. The

opening text of the novel sets up the wilderness as something

which stymies both the English and French armies, noting “that

the toils and dangers of the wilderness were to be encountered

before the adverse hosts could meet” (Cooper 7). The nature of

the landscape creates a combat situation wherein the enemies are

twofold – there is the established enemy in the opposing imperial

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forces and there is also the added danger of the untamed forests.

Cooper’s description of the wild is curiously both war-like and

pacifist. In having “a wide and apparently an impervious boundary

of forests [which] severed the possessions of the hostile

provinces of France and England” (7), it blocks conflict between

the two sides. Yet this impediment to the war somehow becomes the

new shared enemy, with “the hardy colonist, and the trained

European who fought at his side, frequently expend[ing] months in

struggling against the rapids of the streams, or in effecting the

rugged passes of the mountains, in quest of an opportunity to

exhibit their courage in a more martial conflict” (7). This

presentation of the wilderness is made complex by the dual

identities of being both a mediating force between two enemies

and a new enemy to both. This metaphor runs throughout the

entirety of the novel and becomes intertwined with conceptions of

the native tribes living inside the wild. As Turner conflates

“Indian clearings and… Indian trails” with the notion of the

frontier, Cooper’s characters also envision the two as

inseparable. Hesitating in his chase for Magua, Heyward, “His

awakened imagination, deluded by the deceptive light, converted

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each waving bush, or the fragment of some fallen tree, into human

forms” (49). Though this imaginative speculation is ultimately

rendered false in this specific instance, the narration shows

that such a melding between man and nature is possible and that

the effect of which becomes unnoticeable. Ironically, Heyward’s

earlier dismissal of “some shining berry of the woods for the

glistening eyeballs of a prowling savage” (27) is the reality. In

this conceptualization of the woods as being alive, it can only

be populated by the cultural other, one which is also lesser,

possessing non-human traits such as berry-like eyes. This clear

distinction from nature is the logical extension of Turner’s idea

of power disparity; there must always be two conflicting groups.

This conflation of nature and the natives who reside in it

is constantly reinforced during any scene of combat. Hawkeye’s

opponents are always located as almost being a part of the trees

themselves, with the language of the text further confusing the

agent of violence. When Hawkeye fires at the Hurons hiding in the

forest, “the leaves and bark of the oak flew into the air” (86)

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as he strikes the trees instead of the people2. Indeed, the

language even contorts here, allowing for the possibility of

unconventional interpretation. Cooper describes as “savage yells

burst out of the woods” (86), which can logically be attributed

to the Hurons hiding within the forest. A literal interpretation,

however, places the source of the war cries as the trees

themselves. This textual ambiguity is further extended to

Cooper’s description of “the warrior in the oak” (87). Here, the

very formulation of this description invites a visualization of

the Huron as somehow existing inside the tree. While this literal

amalgamation is obviously absurd, it is significant that Cooper

consciously places the warrior in the oak, instead of on it or

behind it. This allows for the possible interpretation that the

warrior is an aspect of the oak itself, a literal personification

arising to do battle with its colonial conquerors. It is only

through intense concentration that Hawkeye is able to separate

the two entities, catching “the dark line of his lower limbs

incautiously exposed through the thin foliage, a few inches from

2 Considering the immense shooting skill of Hawkeye, it may even be speculatedthat his shot did not miss, and that the symbolic conflation of native and nature became, for a second, reality.

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the trunk of the tree” (87). It takes effort to distinguish

between the wilderness and the natives, and this brief interlude

of textual clarity is almost immediately offset by going back to

the figure of the oak as the warrior. Hawkeye does not shoot at

the exposed body of the Huron, and instead “discharged his fatal

weapon into the top of the oak” (87). This aggression is

specifically directed at the landscape, and its effectiveness at

disposing of the native suggests that it is an accurate

ideological framework. Furthering this personification of nature,

Hawkeye also participates in casting the frontier as a live

entity, saying that he has “heard the forest moan like mortal men

in their affliction… listened to the wind playing its music in

the branches of the girdled trees” (72). This ascription of human

traits onto the frontier can be reasonably seen as the by-product

of conflating natives, or native communities, as being

indistinguishable from the wilderness. Viewed with this framework

in mind, the ‘forests [which] moan like mortal men in their

affliction’ is rather the cries of ill natives in their camp

grounds. It would not be the ‘wind playing its music’, but simply

carrying the sounds of native tribes.

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As Turner does not distinguish between the frontier and

native settlements in relation to civilization, so too does

Cooper separate the world into a dichotomy: civilization lies

within the walls of the established colonial settlements, while

all else is the frontier. This defining line is made clear with

the observation that no violence is ever perpetrated within the

walls of the settlements3. Outside its walls, violence is

commonplace, and it affects all those who wander out into the

frontier. Cornered in a cave, and forgetting “everything but the

impulses of his hot blood, Duncan leveled his pistol and fired”

(103) at Magua, showing that his former control has slipped away.

Making their way to Fort William Henry, Hawkeye points to the

“bloody pond” (162) where the casualties of war are deposited.

Critically, this place of combat and death is outside the walls

of the fort, and thus outside the boundaries of civilization. It

is here too, still in the frontier, that the group kills the

French sentry beside the pool. When Chingachgook scalps the

sentry, Hawkeye suggests that “‘Twould have been a cruel and an

3 Even when there is violence described, as in the case of Magua’s public humiliation and whipping, it is located outside the timeline of the story and against a cultural other, doubly diminishing its perceived transgression.

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unhuman act for a white-skin; but 'tis the gift and natur' of an

Indian” (166), locating the violent performance as wholly within

reason for the cultural other. The placement of this action also

locates it firmly within the frontier. Montcalm’s siege on the

fort also draws no blood, at least, none that the text describes.

It is only after leaving the safety of the fort, upon

surrendering to the French, that violence descends upon the

English soldiers. Cooper places special emphasis on the exodus of

the fort, describing as “the confused and timid throng left the

protecting mounds of the fort, and issued on the open plain”

(211). The ‘open plain’ is symbolically void of substance,

representing the lawlessness of the frontier in relation to the

regulated fort. By placing the fort as being ‘protecting mounds’,

Cooper physically elevates civilization to communicate

symbolically heightened morals; the fort is literally above the

frontier. Once into the wildness of the frontier however,

violence becomes a real possibility. In the most bloody sequence

of the novel, Cooper describes how “a wild and untutored Huron”

(212), as both the cultural other and as representative of the

violence of the frontier, “dashed the head of the infant against

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a rock, and cast its quivering remains to [the mother’s] very

feet” (212). The immediacy of the act, and the moral degradation4

which renders it possible, is shown to occur only after the

English have left the fort. This reverse baptism in blood and

violence is the first experience the English have upon entering

the frontier, and illustrates the clear distinctions between the

two spaces. Crucially, the infant is killed by being ‘dashed

against a rock’, symbolically linking death and violence with not

only the natives, but also the very landscape outside the fort.

In Cooper’s story world, conflict is located as being possible,

and indeed pervasive, only outside the frontiers of civilization.

The Scarlet Letter lacks the formal enemy which drives the

narrative of Cooper’s novel, but is nonetheless filled with

conflict. Interestingly, the whole of Hawthorne’s novel contains

only one instance of the word ‘frontier’, which, being located

inside the custom-house frame narrative, places it outside of the

main narrative regardless. This does not signify an absence of

the wilderness however, and indeed, the untamed forests outside

4 This same moral degradation operates also on the English themselves change upon entering the frontier, with Cooper describing “the greedy grasp” (212) ofthe people around the infant’s mother as she spills her wealth on the ground.

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the settlements form a significant part within the narrative, and

it becomes imperative to differentiate between the frontier and

mere wilderness. Turner’s Frontier Thesis readily conceives of this

difference, noting that the frontier “tends to advance” (65),

usually westward, while the wilderness is static. In this

formulation, the frontier takes on connotations of being both an

adjective and a verb; referring to a space as being a frontier

gains implications of both a description and an action.

Critically, the frontier must be seen as a temporary

categorization, holding the promise of a coming civilization.

Turner describes the action of the frontier as being how “little

by little, [the colonist] transforms the wilderness” (4). The

notable absence of the word ‘frontier’ in The Scarlet Letter, despite

the profundity of the wilderness, therefore implies a sense of

inaction – there is no effort being made to ‘perform the

frontier’. This sharp departure from the colonial conflicts of

The Last of the Mohicans may seem at first to be incongruous – if

conflict arises from ‘performing the frontier’, how does the

conflict of Hawthorne’s novel fit into this model? To adequately

address this concern, the definition of frontier must be expanded

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to contain notions of not only the physical landscape. As

Margaret Atwood suggests, it is “a flexible idea… where the old

order can be discarded” (26), and Turner’s descriptions also

align with this notion, stating that frontier society is

“dissatisfied with the existing order, and less respectful of

authority” (63). The sense of rebellion against authority is

located within the frontier, and it is one such rebellion against

moral authority which takes Hester Prynne into the frontier, both

figuratively and physically.

Operating on the frontiers of Puritan moral sensibility,

Hester is forced by the community into exile. Her moral distance

from others in the town requires a physical distance as well, and

thus this necessary exodus is symbolic of the need to place this

conflict outside of civilization. As Nash notes, “for Hawthorne

and the Puritans, a frightening gulf, both literal and

figurative, existed between civilization and wilderness” (40).

Her status then becomes that of the cultural other and this

facilitates cognitive distance which allows the town to treat her

as an enemy. Indeed, in a curious parallel to Montcalm’s advance

upon Fort William Henry, as a Hester and her daughter Pearl

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advance towards the town, they are nearly attack by sentry-like

urchins on the outskirts of the settlement. The urchins seem

particularly militant, and when they say “come, therefore, and

let us fling mud at them!” (Hawthorne 180) it becomes evident

that this is a transposition of Munro saying “Stand firm, and be

ready, my gallant Sixtieths…drive off these dogs of France with

your steel” (Cooper 175). This conflict, through a reduction to

its core ideological factions, can be simplified to be purely a

response to the perceived invasion of the ‘civilized’ town by the

frontier wilderness. Yet, what is that wilderness here, to which

Hester has been banished and from which she comes? It is

described as a piece of “forest-land, still so uncongenial to

every other pilgrim and wanderer… abandoned, because the soil

about it was too sterile for cultivation” (Hawthorne 139). It is

an ironically fitting symbolic environment, as the cause for

Hester’s exile is her fertility. Echoing the personification of

the frontier in The Last of the Mohicans, the forest here is

“uncongenial” to the settlers. This brings the conflict back

again to the land itself, wherein the landscape takes on moral

opposition to the township. And once again, this skewed

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perception of nature conflates the frontier with its natives. One

of the options open to Hester after her imprisonment is to go out

into the “dark, inscrutable forest… where the wildness of her

nature might assimilate itself with a people whose customs and

life were alien from the law that had condemned her” (138). Just

as in Cooper’s novel, the natives take on the ascribed traits of

the wilderness, becoming living embodiments of ‘performing the

frontier’. To go out into the forest somehow necessary means to

take on the values of the native tribes. Whereas Cooper’s story

called for violence as the necessary performance, Hawthorne’s

narrative needs a source of amorality, especially the sexual

restrictions associated with Puritanism. This ideological

perception of the frontier in turn reinforces the visual

perception of the forests as ‘dark’ and ‘inscrutable’5. This type

of symbolic terraforming is applied in the story not only to the

natives, but also more broadly towards anything that is

considered evil by the Puritan town. Hawthorne himself seems

5 It is important to point out that Hawthorne himself may not have agreed withhis Puritan characters, though he was able to conceive of the world as they did. Lucy Hazard suggests that although Hawthorne “instinctively transcribed Puritan materials and Puritan attitudes, he made the very transcription a commentary on the inadequacy of the Puritan world” (30), which explains the central position of Hester.

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sympathetic to the plight of Hester, with Lucy Hazard suggesting

that “most audacious of all Hawthorne’s departures from

Puritanism is his suggestion of the possibility of purification

by sin” (33). The localization of characters thus has huge

implications on their identity. After Hester’s verbal

confrontation with Chillingworth, only possible outside the walls

of the settlement, she considers the baseness of his character.

When Hester condemns Chillingworth’s nature, her speculation

quickly turns to meditations on actual nature, wondering “would

he not suddenly sink into the earth, leaving a barren and blasted

spot, where, in due course of time, would be seen deadly

nightshade, dogwood, henbane, and whatever else of vegetable

wickedness the climate could produce, all flourishing with

hideous luxuriance” (Hawthorne 313). Her expectation of the

landscape to reflect the attitudes of the people on it should

inform the reader’s own expectations about the semiotic component

of the frontier. If it is logical for her to assume that the

frontier is capable of replicating not only the evil of

Chillingworth, but also the intensity of emotion into

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‘luxuriance’, then the reader too must accept this as fact within

the context of the story world.

Conflict between Reverend Dimmesdale and Roger Chillingworth

as well, though it can only be observed outside of the town.

Asking Hester about the real identity of Chillingworth,

Dimmesdale admits he has “a nameless horror of the man” (278)6.

This conflict is predicated on the exact same premise of

otherness which alienates Hester from the town. More complex than

Hester’s version, the relationship between Chillingworth and

Dimmesdale can be interpreted in multiple ways. Dimmesdale shares

Hester’s moral otherness in adultery while Chillingworth in this

respect aligns more closely with the township. But Chillingworth

is also associated with the cultural other through his time with

the native tribes, while Dimmesdale is located firmly within the

‘civilized’ town. There is no evidence of this conflict while

inside the confines of the established society, with

Chillingworth calling Dimmesdale “worthy sir” (279) even in the

6 The categorization of his fear as a ‘nameless horror’ also brings to mind implications of the psychoanalytical other – Freud’s conception of “the double” (10). In this sense, Dimmesdale’s revulsion towards Chillingworth could be interpreted as an instinctive recognition of their commonality in being Hester’s past lover.

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absence of any of the townsfolk – it is as if the very location

is compels certain behaviors. This veiled opposition between the

two characters is only fully articulated once outside the town,

with Chillingworth admitting to Hester that he, “a mortal man,

with once a human heart, has become a fiend for [Dimmesdale’s]

especial torment” (306). This revelation even comes as a surprise

to Chillingworth, as he subsequently “lifted his hands with a

look of horror, as if he had beheld some frightful shape, which

he could not recognise, usurping the place of his own image in a

glass” (306-307). This transformation from man to ‘other’ is only

able to take place within the wilderness, away from the rules of

‘civilization’.

This transformative quality of the frontier is essential to

Turner’s theory, and represents for him, the crux of what turned

the European settlers into American colonists. In The Land Before

Her, Kolodny describes the “American husbandman… as both son and

lover in a primal paradise where the maternal and the erotic were

to be harmoniously intermingled” (4). This transformation takes

the shape of offering sexual liberation in these two novels. The

Last of the Mohicans contains two main pairings to demonstrate this

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effect in action: the first is the union of Heyward and Alice,

and the second is the complex relationship between Magua, Cora,

and Uncas. Critically, all of these liaisons can only take place

outside the walls of the settlements, where the moral

restrictions on behavior imposed by ‘civilization’ disappear. In

accordance, Nash here notes that “Cooper took great pains to show

that wilderness had value as a moral influence” (76). The most

easily visible transformation occurs within Heyward. The initial

depiction of Heyward, escorting the daughters of his commanding

officer to Fort William Henry, is coldly aloof towards Alice.

When questioned about the reliability of Magua, Heyward returns

the question back, stating “say, rather, Alice, that I would not

trust you” (Cooper 18). It is only through wandering further from

the established trails and known lands of the colonials that

their romance blossoms. This physical distance from the location

of social regulations is necessary for Heyward to make his

advances. With this stipulation in mind, the crucial, defining

moment of their relationship occurs in the frontier because that

is the only place it can take place. Even more significantly, it

is inside the cave of natives, a place where the moral

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sensibilities of ‘civilization’ does not penetrate. Cooper’s

description of the setting, in which “Duncan had no other guide

than a distant glimmering light, which served, however, the

office of a polar star to the lover” (316), serves to emphasize

the agent guiding Heyward as being quintessentially natural in

origin. It becomes evident that romance is firmly within the

authority of the frontier space, and it is only “by its aid he

was enabled to enter the haven of his hopes, which was merely

another apartment of the cavern” (316). The stress here is not on

‘haven’, but rather on the fact that it is ‘merely another

apartment of the cavern’. There is a clear juxtaposition between

the rare excitement of Heyward and the mundaneness of this place:

the effect of this comparison is that it reveals something of the

nature of the frontier, namely that such occurrences are not

uncommon at all. But it is uncommon within ‘civilization’, and

thus Heyward’s portrayal here seems to go against his earlier

depictions – he is shown “leaping carelessly” to reach Alice, and

having at some point acquired a “soothing tenderness” (316). It

is inside this frontier cave that he can admit his affections,

telling her that he “aspire[s] to a still nearer and dearer tie”

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(317). In response, Alice is overcome, and “there was an instant

during which she bent her face aside, yielding to the emotions

common to her sex” (317). Hazard notes that “far from emphasizing

the weakness and timidity of his women, Cooper loves to dwell

upon their strength and courage – qualities which he expressly

attributes to the frontier environment” (103). What must be

realized is that this scene initially seems out of place, since

they are in the middle of the enemy camp and Heyward is in

disguise. However, through the ideological framework of the

frontier as a violent and dangerous place, but also as a sexually

liberating place, it becomes evident that there is no more

suitable place for such a sequence to run its course.

Chingachgook, on the other hand, can be seen suffering the

opposite effect when transitioning from the frontier to

civilization. At the funeral of his son, he describes himself as

“a blazed pine, in a clearing of the pale faces” (429). The

implication is of sexual impotence, or even, as Kolodny suggests,

“the Indian conceives himself castrated” (Lay of the Land, 101)

located amongst the coming civilization of the ‘pale faces’. For

Uncas, leaving his own tribal settlements allows him to meet

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Cora. Heyward himself notes that Uncas serving food “was an utter

innovation on the Indian customs, which forbid their warriors to

descend to any menial employment, especially in favor of their

women” (63). Only through leaving the customs of his own people

behind physically is Uncas able to mentally deviate from their

values. It is only after this act of transgression that “his dark

eye lingered on her rich, speaking countenance” (63). Formerly

reserved, Uncas transforms, being “compelled to speak, to command

her attention of those he served” (63). The agent of compulsion,

though unstated, is that frontier force which also allowed

Heyward and Alice to disregard the social mores of

‘civilization’. The Uncas/Cora relationship is complicated

however, with the introduction of Magua. As another

representative of the frontier, Magua’s advances on Cora are also

correlated with ideas about native traditions. His talk with Cora

emphasizes the privacy of the wilderness, when he tells Heyward

that “when the Huron talks to the women, his tribe shut their

ears” (120). This same sentiment is echoed by Turner, as he notes

that “the frontier is productive of individualism” (30). Here in

the frontier, unbounded by the rules of society, Magua is able to

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disregard the boundaries of social convention, “laying his hand

firmly upon her arm, as if willing to draw her utmost attention

to his words” (121). This act of physical contact would have been

unthinkable while on the established trails or the forts of

‘civilization’. In addition, Cooper highlights the intensity of

the contact – it is not a brush or a graze, Magua is firm in

establishing the amorality of the frontier.

And this ‘amorality’ is something is can only exist within

the frontier, as echoed by the need to banish Hester from the

town in The Scarlet Letter. This liminal space is the only safe place

for Hester and Dimmesdale to meet, and it is the site of one of

the only instances of physical contact between the two lovers.

After telling Dimmesdale about Chillingworth, Hester, “with

sudden and desperate tenderness… threw her arms around him, and

pressed his head against her bosom” (Hawthorne 347). This moment

of contact seems almost phantasmagoric considering his earlier

refusal even to hold the hand of Pearl in town, though it is this

difference in locations which enables this embrace here. The

strict Puritan morals of the town prohibits and necessarily

destroys all such suspicious individuals, to the point of the

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narration coming out of its continuity to assure the reader that

Hibbins, the sister of the governor, “a few years later, was

executed as a witch” (206). It is clear that the town is simply

incompatible with wild aspects of the frontier. The existence of

this combined incompatibility within Dimmesdale, who outwardly

reinforces the Puritan morals while secretly committing adultery,

is the cause for his physical deterioration as the novel

progresses. He is well aware of the internal contradictions he

houses, fearing the day that his parishioners “look inward, and

discern the black reality of what they idolize… the contrast

between what I seem and what I am” (342). The difference can be

divided into familiar categories – what Dimmesdale seems to be is

of the Puritan township, while his true nature is of the wild

frontier. Caught between the two, it should be of no surprise

that his physical reprieve comes only within that same liminal

space Hester resides, and only at the prospect of moving, as

Hester suggests, “deeper into the wilderness, less plainly to be

seen at every step; until some few miles hence the yellow leaves

will show no vestige of the white man's tread. There thou art

free!” (352). The narrator describes that “it was the

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exhilarating effect – upon a prisoner just escaped from the

dungeon of his own heart – of breathing the wild, free atmosphere

of an unredeemed, unchristianised, lawless region” (360). The

frontier imagery here is blatant, almost to the point of

redundancy, but nonetheless serves to show the moral freedom

afforded by the wild. Pearl is particularly adept at deciphering

these unspoken conditions, though her intelligence often comes

out in Socratic questions. She poignantly asks if Dimmesdale can

“go back with us, hand in hand, we three together, into the town”

(379). The impossibility of such an action, of admitting to

amorality while inside the town, already shown to be deadly for

Hibbins, serves to foreshadow the consequences of Dimmesdale’s

confession. Indeed, Dimmesdale’s death can be seen as a direct

consequence of his confession of sin while inside the town. It is

physically difficult for him to speak of his transgressions in

front of society, with the narrator noting that “it seemed, at

this point, as if the minister must leave the remainder of his

secret undisclosed” (454). The narration here is almost

prescriptive in tone, as if advising Dimmesdale not to publicize

his own incompatibility with the town. Compounding the narration

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of his own sins, Dimmesdale’s fate is further sealed when he

requests a kiss from Pearl, after which “a spell was broken”

(456). The text of the novel describes the spell as a compulsion

on Pearl to be wild and untamed, though in this context, it can

also be seen as the spell of deceit which kept Dimmesdale alive.

Through this incongruous display of affection7, Dimmesdale

commits the final sin which necessitates his death in the town.

These delineations between the frontier and civilization

seem to be absolute, capable of rendering those who go against

their values dead, but such a qualification borders on

oversimplification. Can there truly be no reconciliation between

man and nature? To form a comprehensive answer, it becomes

imperative to examine the main characters through a more modern

theoretical framework. Joseph Meeker’s The Comedy of Survival can

serve to provide a simple ecocritical lens to review the figures

of Hester Prynne and Hawkeye. For Meeker, all action can be

divided in two broad categories: the tragic way and the comic

way. Tragedy is associated with elevating personal concerns above

7 “Pearl kissed his lips” (456), not his cheek, and this almost incestuous display would have clashed sharply with the Puritan townsfolk.

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natural concerns, while “comedy illustrates that survival depends

upon our ability to change ourselves rather than our environment”

(Meeker 21). We can see parallels between Meeker’s tragic mode

and Turner’s idea of the wilderness, which I have termed,

‘performing the frontier’. And while most of the characters in

both novels ‘perform the frontier’ in one way or another, the

main protagonists largely stand apart, with Annette Kolodny

noting that “Natty Bumppo can maintain the pastoral embrace that

the other whites in these novels are so determine to escape or

open to the daylight” (Lay of the Land, 89). Upon reflection, Hawkeye

and Hester are actually quite alike, as both are white but exist

within the wild frontier. Though their reasons for being outside

of society are different, they both develop an acceptance of

their conditions and change themselves. In short, they can be

seen as articulations of Meeker’s ‘comic mode’ of behavior. Thus,

despite Tamenund’s grim pronunciation that “the palefaces are

masters of the earth” (Cooper 429), it is important to consider

that Montcalm or Munro or Chillingworth are not the only ones he

can refer to – Hawkeye and Hester are also ‘palefaces’, and they

have each demonstrated a much healthier paradigm in relation to

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the frontier. Ultimately however, these novels draw attention to

the ways in which the American identity relies on interactions

with the frontier, and the treatment of these protagonists in

relation to the wilderness may have also contributed to the rise

of transcendentalism, with Hazard stating that “in

transcendentalism we see the product of German idealism and the

frontier environment” (149). Frederick Jackson Turner may have

been the first to articulate the fear of the disappearing

frontier in 1893, but considering how much weight early American

novels also place on this notion, it seems not unreasonable to

revive such discussions both as means to deepen understanding of

the established canon and as a comparison to contemporary

American literature8.

8 Frank Norris, for example, postulated in 1902 that “the ‘overplus’ of American energy might drive the country to attempt the conquest of the world” (Nash 147).

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Works Cited

Atwood, Margaret. Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature. Toronto:

House of Anansi, 2013. Print.

Cooper, James F. The Last of the Mohicans. Mineola: Dover

Publications, 2003. Print.

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Freud, Sigmund. “The uncanny”. Massachusetts Institute of

Technology, 21 Oct. 2004. Web. 23 Oct. 2013.

‹http://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/freud1.pdf›.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. Boston: J.S Cushing & Co,

1892. eBook.

Hazard, Lucy L. The Frontier in American Literature. Oakland, California:

Mills College, 1927. Print.

Kolodny, Annette. The Lay of the Land: Metaphor as Experience and History in

American Life and Letters. Chapel Hill: The University of North

Carolina Press, 1975. Print.

Kolodny, Annette. The Land Before Her: Fantasy and Experience of the American

Frontiers, 1630-1860. Chapel Hill, The University of North

Carolina Press, 1984. Print.

Meeker, Joseph.The Comedy of Survival. Arizona: University of Arizona

Press, 1997. Print.

Nash, Roderick. Wilderness and the American Mind. New Haven: Yale

University Press, 1973. Print.

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Turner, Frederick J. The Frontier in American History. New York: Henry

Holt and Company, 1921. N. pag. Web. 14 Dec. 2014.