Imagery as Opening Lines
Imagery serves as nothing less important and significance in this novel than the very opening lines. For that matter, imagery serves as the opening paragraph. And we’re not talking one of those one or two sentence paragraphs, either, but a mammoth paragraph spanning the course of two pages. The imagery situates the setting of the story which ultimately turns out to be not merely the setting of a story, but an entire saga:
“Near the centre of the State of New York lies an extensive district of country whose surface is a succession of hills and dales, or, to speak with greater deference to geographical definitions, of mountains and valleys. It is among these hills that the Delaware takes its rise; and flowing from the limpid lakes and thousand springs of this region the numerous sources of the Susquehanna meander through the valleys until, uniting their streams, they form one of the proudest rivers of the United States.”
Historical Background
The historical background against which the story is set is provided through a quick delineation of imagery. The story on the shores of America is revealed to be taking place within the larger context of forces shaping that story across the ocean. America may be struggling toward becoming a country totally independent of European influence, but declaration is still a long way off:
“Europe, at the period of our tale, was in the commencement of that commotion which afterward shook her political institutions to the centre. Louis the Sixteenth had been beheaded, and a nation once esteemed the most refined among the civilized people of the world was changing its character, and substituting cruelty for mercy, and subtlety and ferocity for magnanimity and courage. Thousands of Frenchmen were compelled to seek protection in distant lands.”
The Titularity of the Tales
Before he became known as Hawkeye and before there any such things as the “Leatherstocking Tales” there was simply Natty Bumppo. The old man whose story would eventually become synonymous with the development of the American frontier east of the Mississippi. Here he is introduced for the first time through imagery which enlivens his aura of mysterious masculinity:
“A kind of coat, made of dressed deer-skin, with the hair on, was belted close to his lank body by a girdle of colored worsted. On his feet were deer- skin moccasins, ornamented with porcupines’ quills, after the manner of the Indians, and his limbs were guarded with long leggings of the same material as the moccasins, which, gartering over the knees of his tarnished buckskin breeches, had obtained for him among the settlers the nickname of Leather-Stocking.”
Chingachgook
The Tales will feature another recurring character almost as famous Hawkeye. But while the name Hawkeye will not be found in this entry, Chingachgook will. And like Natty, he will also be first described with imagery noting his advancement in years and experience:
“Notwithstanding the intense cold without, his head was uncovered; but a profusion of long, black, coarse hair concealed his forehead, his crown, and even hung about his cheeks, so as to convey the idea, to one who knew his present amid former conditions, that he encouraged its abundance, as a willing veil to hide the shame of a noble soul, mourning for glory once known. His forehead, when it could be seen, appeared lofty, broad, and noble. His nose was high, and of the kind called Roman, with nostrils that expanded, in his seventieth year, with the freedom that had distinguished them in youth.”
