Mark Twain examines the specific structural and stylistic failures in the fiction of James Fenimore Cooper, focusing primarily on The Deerslayer and The Pathfinder. He argues that Cooper's novels routinely violate nearly all the established rules governing romantic fiction, including the requirements for logical plots, purposeful episodes, and lifelike characters.
Throughout the critique, Twain highlights Cooper's persistent reliance on repetitive stage properties, such as the broken twig and identical moccasin tracks, which characters use to navigate forests with implausible frequency. He demonstrates how these mechanical devices fail to create genuine suspense or believable woodcraft.
Another major problem lies in Cooper's inaccurate observation of physical reality. Twain provides concrete instances where rivers inexplicably shrink in width, rolling cannonballs defy natural physics to guide characters through fog, and marksmen perform impossible shooting feats that ignore the basic laws of distance and ballistics.
Furthermore, the dialogue in Cooper's works is criticized for sounding unnatural and wandering aimlessly without a discoverable purpose. Characters frequently shift between elaborate literary diction and crude dialects without internal consistency or justification from the narrative context.
Twain also addresses Cooper's imprecise command of the English language, compiling numerous instances where the author employs approximate words instead of exact ones. These lexical errors contribute to a style that lacks clarity and compactness.
Ultimately, Twain concludes that Cooper's novels fail to meet the basic standards of artistic craftsmanship. By methodically cataloging these literary offences, Twain questions the critical consensus that elevated flawed adventure stories into masterpieces of American literature.
