In The Pioneers by James Fenimore Cooper, what statement does this story make about the relationship between man and nature, and do all the characters share the same view?
The Pioneers mourns the loss of the wilderness of Natty's youth to the forces of farming, overhunting, and settling. Roads have arrived, and Natty comments on the destruction of animal life that has come with the influx of settlers:
“Ah! The game is becoming hard to find, indeed, Judge, with your clearings and betterments,” said the old hunter, with a kind of compelled resignation.
Characters feel differently about nature. On one side are people such as Natty, who regret the way the wilderness is changing and especially resent the greed and carelessness with which many of the new settlers are treating the treasures of nature. Natty advocates for living in harmony with nature rather than dominating it. The Mohican Chingachgook also believes in preserving the careful balance of nature and taking only what you need. Judge Temple mirrors Natty's point of view about conservation and supports the idea of laws to limit the destruction being wrought on the natural world:
“The Legislature have been passing laws,” continued Marmaduke, “that the country much required. Among others, there is an act prohibiting the drawing of seines, at any other than proper seasons, in certain of our streams and small lakes; and another, to prohibit the killing of deer in the teeming months. These are laws that were loudly called for by judicious men; nor do I despair of getting an act to make the unlawful felling of timber a criminal offence.”
Others believe that these laws cannot be enforced. These people, represented by the attitude of Dick Jones, believe nature exists to be dominated and exploited for human profit. Jones, for examples, uses a cannon to kill pigeons en masse, an example of the "overkill" and disrespect toward the natural world that Natty and the judge deplore. Natty, who has known what it means to be hungry and who lives off the land by carefully marshaling its resources, looks askance at newer settlers who have lived soft lives and are naive about the challenges of the frontier.
The novel comes down on the side of love and the careful stewardship of nature. Natty and the Judge are nostalgic, looking back with longing on their memories of a wilderness that is fast disappearing. The Judge, for instance, recalls a time when he was awed by a view from what he calls Mount Vision:
The leaves were fallen, and I mounted a tree and sat for an hour looking on the silent wilderness. Not an opening was to be seen in the boundless forest except where the lake lay, like a mirror of glass. The water was covered by myriads of the wild-fowl that migrate with the changes in the season; and while in my situation on the branch of the beech, I saw a bear, with her cubs, descend to the shore to drink. I had met many deer, gliding through the woods, in my journey; but not the vestige of a man could I trace during my progress, nor from my elevated observatory. No clearing, no hut, none of the winding roads that are now to be seen, were there; nothing but mountains rising behind mountains. . .
In regretting the loss of the wilderness, the novel preserves an idealized view of what it once was like. It comes down on the side of conservation and harmony with nature, equating the moral worth of characters like Natty and the Judge with their sensitivity to the wild land and animals.
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