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In James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans, a superficial reading might depict the novel as the story of a battle between societies. Yet there is an underlying depiction of a far more vast conflict. From the beginning of the novel, the reader is guided by descriptions of the struggle between the two entities. Cooper writes, "there was no recess of the woods so dark, nor any secret place so lovely, that it might claim exemption from the inroads of those who had pledged their blood to satiate their vengeance, or to uphold the cold and selfish policy of the distant monarchs of Europe" (11). It seems clear from this passage that Cooper is establishing for the reader a battle scene of sorts, in which the opposing sides are at war with one another. That is, nature is under attack by a culture determined to "civilize" it; while the land uses the hostilities of darkness and concealment as weapons against society, society assaults nature with domination and settlement. Such......

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