Mclntosh-Byrd is a doctoral candidate and English literature instructor at the University of Pennsylvania. In the following essay, she critiques the role of mediation in the construction of romance, race, and national identity in The Last of the Mohicans.

The Last of the Mohicans is centered on Hawkeye, the figure of the pioneer and pathfinder who provides the link through which wilderness and civilization can be mediated. Throughout Cooper's novel, both Hawkeye and the reader are presented with a series of oppositions based on culture, race, and geography that create seemingly irreconcilable tensions and paradoxes. Indeed, the text itself is driven by an overarching narrative and generic paradox—the uneasy reconciliation of fact with fiction, history with romance.

Cooper's blend of fact and fiction has been extensively analyzed. Set in the third year of the French and Indian War, The Last of the Mohicans elides the boundaries...