James Fenimore Cooper and Herman Melville explore cultivation of a western society in America by using symbolism in nature; for both writers this symbolism indicates dissatisfaction in the degeneration of America; therefore looking at the symbolism in Melville’s “The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids” and Cooper’s The Pioneersit is possible to conclude that both writers felt America was a virgin land that was being raped and improperly used by the people who had settled there.
