The most important character, of course, is Hawkeye. He is the mythic hero, the true democrat who accepts everyone according to his "gifts" and differences but who, because he is (as D. H. Lawrence has described him) a saint with a gun, will right wrongs and avoid evils when possible, destroy them when necessary. He is a solitary in spite of his companionship with Chingachgook and Uncas, and he is such because he is the flesh-and-blood incarnation of the natural moral law. That is, he stands single above both savagery and civilization in that he contains within himself the best of both; he can, for instance, see that justice is a constant and bigger principle than any man-made laws, whatever good or bad society they may spring from. He has been thus elevated by going to the source of principles, that interconnected source which is simultaneously within nature, within himself, and within the relationship between himself and nature. This elevation is why he is an ideal human messiah image, for he stands revealed as a way of earthly salvation, an upright man among frontier strifes, a man with a coonskin cap instead of a halo. While he is an ideal, he is also a human being. He is garrulous and sometimes fussy about things like firearms and tracking. He is almost irritating about the certainty of his marksmanship. But he can also be humble and retire into the background with real modesty. He is, in short, a messianic mythic hero who is also a recognizable man.
All of Cooper's personages, while they generally act in keeping with their characters, are primarily static. Reasons for this may be found in the influence of the sentimental novel and in Cooper's concept of "place." But this characterization may also be part of a bigger plan, though Cooper may have felt rather than known the plan. These static characters function within a total situation that is one of dynamic change. They are caught in something far larger than themselves as a group or as individuals. The frontier conflicts are born of a more encompassing continental movement which projects its dynamism with additional strength simply because it rests in subtle contrast to the outwardly active but inwardly static characters. They are static as individuals, active as parts of a dynamic whole.
