The Role of Family in Wieland and The Last of the Mohicans Cory Gallant

The Roles of Family in Wieland and The Last of the Mohicans

"There is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels with someone, for someone, a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes."

Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

To be a master of the art of fiction is to be a master of the art of manipulation. I am referring not only to the manipulation of the mind of the reader, but also to the manipulation of characters, setting, plot, and perhaps most important, the manipulation of language. In order to successfully engage his or her audience, an author must establish an air of familiarity. When a reader is confronted with characters, situations, or places that they understand on a personal level, the purpose of the author's words becomes increasingly more evident. One of the most effective manifestations of this idea of "familiarity" between the novelist and the reader is the element of family.

First, it must be stated that the two novels addressed in this essay are remarkably dissimilar. Though both novels are set in the mid-to-late 18th-century Northeastern United States, they differ drastically in style and...