While making good dramatic use of Indian pride and customs in this chapter, Cooper also utilizes classic peripety—a reversal of fortune and circumstance. The occasion allows him once again—this time through the words of Tamenund—to touch upon the historic Indian trials and injustices at the hands of the white invaders; it is doubtless this history that has partly led the Delawares to believe Magua's lies about Hawkeye. The chapter further presents the scout's stoic fatalism when he rationalizes upon offering himself for Cora; and the mixture of blood in Cora is reemphasized when, in parting with Alice, she touches her sister and says, "She is fair—Oh, how surpassingly fair!" The chapter, then, is one of reversal, revelation, and reiteration.
