The conclusion of the tragic story is befittingly somber and ritualistic, somehow bringing things together. For instance, Gamut, who has survived his initiation into the frontier, comes so under the spell of the ritual Indian singing that he submits to it and later adds his voice to the ceremony. The man who started out as the traditional, stock comic Yankee character has become in many ways the most thoroughly developing character in the book. He has experienced, learned, and gone into action both beyond himself and in spite of himself.
The motif of disguise (part of the bigger motif of unreality) has been dropped once the pursuit reaches the point of direct confrontation and action. Through death and its aftermath, everything now stands out in naked reality. Chingachgook, for example, has discarded not only his beaver head but also all other decorations on his body except the one tattooed emblem as he faces his dead son. He and Hawkeye quite unashamedly shed tears over the grave of the youth.
The theme of miscegenation is also rounded out. What was for Cooper apparently a taint of mixed blood for Cora is ended with her death, and through his grief Munro pays for his rationalized deviation. The further deaths of Magua and Uncas end the possibility of intermarriage between the novel's racial groups. If the reader assumes that Hawkeye is Cooper's spokesman, then the novel becomes in part a vehicle against miscegenation even after death. The scout's reaction is of course really an extension of his love for individualism and his critical relativity. He believes in a people's "gifts" and in keeping them pure. He respects the differences that confront each other on the frontier, and his view has become in fact a principle of differentness.
