The Sublimity of Nature
The opening words in the first chapter of The Pathfinder set the tone for how the novel is going to examine themes related to the natural world: “The sublimity connected with vastness is familiar to every eye.” The sublime character of the wilderness in which the Natty Bumppo goes about being the Pathfinder is examined both directly and more obliquely. In the reading any of the novels in the Leatherstocking Tales, the power and majesty of the unspoiled land becomes a thing of awe that is almost untouchable for modern readers. That awesome quality is more poetically described as the sublime.
Native Americans as Human Beings
Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales take an uncommon approach when it comes to popular novels about the indigenous peoples of North America. Or, as they were commonly called: Indians. The Indians portrayed in so many novels were savages without any nobility. Cooper’s books—and to a point this is especially true in The Pathfinder—lends the natives their nobility. The interesting thing is that he does no go overboard and paint all Native Americans in broad strokes as being inherently endowed with a nobility that is lacking in the European settlers, however. Just as The Pathfinder avoids making Indians the bloodthirsty inhumane enemy of all that is decent, so does it avoid making them bloodless and inhuman.
The French, They are a Sneaky Race
If there is any lack of nobility to be found in any particular group of people in The Pathfinder and it is not situated in the Indians, then it must be in the French. Actually, the French are in league with some of the definitely less than noble tribes, but they are basically just another group being led astray by scurrilous French. Make no mistake that the French are identified as the bad guys in the novel, but they move well past being bad guys. Nearly everyone of any French background are painted in fairly broad strokes as being tricky beyond all reason. Wily, crafty and underhanded, the French are the center of all that is bad; they are the opposite of nature.
