Characters
- Magua (ma-gwah) – the villain of the piece; a Huron chief driven from his tribe for drunkenness and later whipped by the British Army (also for drunkenness), for which he blames Colonel Munro. Also known as "Le Renard Subtil" or "Sly Fox."
- Chingachgook (chin-GATCH-gook) – last chief of the Mohican tribe; escort to the traveling Munro sisters, father to Uncas. Unami Delaware word meaning "Big Snake."
- Uncas – the son of Chingachgook and the titular "Last of the Mohicans" (meaning the last pure-blooded Mohican born).
- Natty Bumppo/ Hawkeye – Oeil de Faucon; a frontiersman who, by chance meeting in the forest, becomes an escort to the Munro sisters. Also known to the Indians and the French as "La Longue Carabine" on account of his long rifle and shooting skills.
- Cora Munro – dark-haired daughter of Colonel Munro. Cora is serious and intelligent, as well as calm in the face of danger. Her mother, whom Munro met and married in the West Indies was a mulatto, half-white half-African-Caribbean. In the novel, Cora is termed a quadroon at one point.
- Alice Munro – Cora's blonde half-sister is cheerful, playful, and charming, full of feminine allure. The daughter of Alice Graham, who was the love of Munro's life when he was young, but whom he was able to marry only much later in life.
- Colonel Munro – the sisters' father, a British army colonel in command of Fort William Henry.
- Duncan Heyward – a British army major from Virginia who falls in love with Alice Munro.
- David Gamut – a psalmodist (teacher of psalm singing) also known as "the singing master" due to the fact that he sang for every event.
- General Daniel Webb – Colonel Munro's commanding officer, originally stationed at Albany, who later takes command at Fort Edward (from where he cannot or will not come to Colonel Munro's aid when Fort William Henry is besieged by the French).
- General Marquis de Montcalm – the French commander-in-chief, referred to by the Hurons and other Indian allies of the French as "The great white father of the Canadas".
- Tamenund – An ancient, wise, and revered Delaware Indian sage who has outlived three generations of warriors. He is the "Sachem" of the Delaware.
Read more about this topic: The Last Of The Mohicans
Famous quotes containing the word characters:
“The business of a novelist is, in my opinion, to create characters first and foremost, and then to set them in the snarl of the human currents of his time, so that there results an accurate permanent record of a phase of human history.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“His leanings were strictly lyrical, descriptions of nature and emotions came to him with surprising facility, but on the other hand he had a lot of trouble with routine items, such as, for instance, the opening and closing of doors, or shaking hands when there were numerous characters in a room, and one person or two persons saluted many people.”
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“To marry a man out of pity is folly; and, if you think you are going to influence the kind of fellow who has “never had a chance, poor devil,” you are profoundly mistaken. One can only influence the strong characters in life, not the weak; and it is the height of vanity to suppose that you can make an honest man of anyone.”
—Margot Asquith (1864–1945)