The way women are portrayed in fiction reflects the attitude toward women in the society of the time--either the work depicts women in terms of that attitude, or it questions that attitude and shows that women are not as they are perceived to be. Underlying the latter approach in particular is a tension that can be found throughout the history of the novel as women are shown in fiction as doing more, thinking more, and being more than they might be expected to given their secondary social role in the real world for most of that history.
The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper was part of a series of novels known collectively as "The Leatherstocking Tales," of which there are five, all produced between 1823 and 1841. The Last of the Mohicans was the second in the series in the order written, though the chronological order of the novels would be different, with the first story chronologically being the last of the five novels produced. Cooper was the first major American novelist, and his books are infused with an understanding of the colonial period, though Cooper himself was born not only after that era but after the founding of the country in 1776. In this and other novels in the series, Cooper presents images of the American Indian and relates them to the wilderness in which they live and to the civilization being forced upon them by the white settlers. Women had a strong role in the taming of the frontier, though they are often treated in fiction as flowers to be protected. Both the latter attitude and evidence that women were stronger than assumed can be found in Cooper, as in this passage after the nature of the Indians has been explained to Alice:
Alice hesitated no longer; but giving her Narragansett a smart cut of the whip, she was the first to dash aside the slight branches of the bushes, and to follow the runner along the dark and tangled pathway. The young man regarded the last speaker in open admir...