MovieChat Forums > The Last of the Mohicans (1992) Discussion > Why Alice jumped

Why Alice jumped

posted 17 years ago by rblisard
133 replies | jump to latest

Hi everyone,

Please help me settle a debate. My mother thinks Alice jumped off the cliff because she wanted to join the man she loved, Uncas, in death.

I think she's reading too much between the lines. I believe Alice jumped to escape being tortured and raped by Magua and his men. Magua even turns to her with a lascivious stare; then there's a shot of his knife shining in his hand, poised and ready to slice her open. Native Americans often raped white women and scalped them (white men did this to them after all).

What do you all think?

[–] AnotherSchmoe 14 years ago

Alice was always trying to jump off ledges because she was an emo, it's just that the hair style and black nail polish hadn't caught on in those days.

http://www.youtube.com/anotherschmoe

[–] vivlinglee 14 years ago

Native Americans often raped white women and scalped them (white men did this to them after all).
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Sadly a very tired stereo-type! In almost all reported cases of Indians capturing/kidnapping women they NEVER reported being raped. This was just NOT something Indians did. Now they might kill, scalp, kidnap (more often for ransom), enslave them, or use them as a family member replacement (very common), but rape, NO! This is white people propaganda.

vivling

[–] jedimaster_fisher 14 years ago

Whats really powerful about the end of LOTM is that both Hawkeye and Cora lose their sibling and now share this pain with eachother.

[–] noir-male 14 years ago

Sadly a very tired stereo-type! In almost all reported cases of Indians capturing/kidnapping women they NEVER reported being raped. This was just NOT something Indians did. Now they might kill, scalp, kidnap (more often for ransom), enslave them, or use them as a family member replacement (very common), but rape, NO! This is white people propaganda.

I am currently reading Empire of the Summer Moon,which is a history of the rise and fall of the Comanches. They have numerous reports of the Comanches raping and killing white women.

However, the book did point out that these incidents happened predominately with the plains Indians, and not the eastern tribes.

"You people don't understand. I'm not locked in here with you, you're locked in here with me!"

[–] vanguard59 14 years ago

To everyone:

In the beginning of the film Alice describes herself as "an invalid schoolgirl". She is always under the protection of her sister Cora. Yet, she asks Major Heyward if he has seen the red man. Portent of events to come. Why had not Uncas found a Delaware speaking woman by now, and started a family, as asked by Mrs. Cameron?

Simply their young innocent love was meant to be! Their tragic unfulfilled love, is another casualty in the
French and Indian War. The film, illustrates the destruction of lives and family on many levels, by war.

Magua's family is destroyed. Col. Munro's is destroyed . Major Heyward's dream of being a most marvelous couple back in Britain, with Cora is destroyed. He genuinely loved Cora to sacrifice himself. The Cameron's, entire family all were killed in this war.

Alice, who looked sickly early in the film, bloomed into a lovely teenaged girl through Uncas' love.
Note the Mohican braid in her hair, after the waterfall scene. When she saw her love butchered by Magua,
The only peace for her was to join her beloved. She felt so utterly alone, and looked radiant just before she jumped! Very much like Romeo and Juliet.

[–] jd-276 10 years ago

Congratulations vanguard59!

You are the only person in 11 pages who got it.

This is a coming of age scene. The background isn't really that important that we need to debate whether life with Magua would have been intolerable (it would) or whether she jumped because she was weak or any of those silly stereotypes which have been bandied about here.

As a result of her experiences, she has gone from being a schoolgirl to being an independent woman, capable of making the toughest of decisions.

Whatever the fine details - whether she did the business with Uncas, whether she hated Magua, scalping, raping, all that other stuff - they don't really matter. People have got so bogged down in the love and gore angles, they've totally missed the point. The other 11 pages is just literal interpretations of something which requires a little bit of insight to understand.

Well done that man!

And for what it's worth, Jodhi May didn't have to do much but it had to be exactly right or it wouldn't have worked.

[–] electriccheetah 14 years ago

First, the "facts" of what did and did not occur in reality are irrelevant. Alice’s motivations (as a character) are based solely upon what Alice *believed*.

Second, I think this is a false dichotomy. While Alice may not have wanted to “join Uncas in death,” certainly she would have been overcome by both the abrupt end of their relationship, and even more so by its manner (Uncas’ death). Overwhelmed. *At the same time*, the choice she faced was a life ahead with Magua—a life likely to be brutal and loveless. Magua’s knife is both literally covered with blood, as well as figurative of his violent ways.

There are all sorts of considerations she could have factored in (e.g. the prospect of escaping later), but she was then and only then free of her bonds and in a position to take immediate action. Faced with overwhelming grief vice Uncas, and a brutal life vice Magua, she decided she would rather die.

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[–] Serbius 14 years ago

I think she jumped to freedom actually.

"You're a funny man, Sully, I like you. That's why I'm going to kill you last."

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[–] Hardyboy09 14 years ago

Whatever the reasoning behind her death (I like to think she was romantic and thinking she'd join her lover in death), it's the most beautiful suicide I've seen on film. (not that I seek these scenes out!)

[–] prbronx5 14 years ago

Going by what we were presented in the movie itself, Alice killed herself for several reasons.

1. As one poster said Alice didn't understand French, but Duncan was interpretting for Hawkeye and the sachem said he wanted Cora burned at the stake. I assume Duncan didn't say this loud enough as Cora and Alice seemed clueless while the sachem was making his decisions. Hawkeye also looked shocked when the sachem basically gave Alice to Magua. Duncan was making decisions of his own in his mind at this point. Duncan was possibly interpretting loud enough for Hawkeye's ears only to not panic Cora & Alice. She probably thought Cora was dead by the time Uncas arrived on the cliff.

2. She probably thought that Hawkeye, Duncan (he was) and Chingachook were dead as well, as only Uncas came to save her. Once Uncas was killed by Magua, she decided to end it right then and there on her terms.

The movie never showed Alice and Uncas in a relationship. You only saw one moment where Uncas looks at Alice from afar. And the part where he pulls her back from falling into the waterfall. So he was attracted to her, but I don't think she was aware of it because of editing. However I'm sure the amount of time they were together and how Uncas and company saved her several times, I'm sure she was becoming very fond of Uncas in return.

As another poster pointed out, it was touching that at some point in the waterfall scene (I assume) Uncas braided a part of Alice's hair. I guess it's one of the MANY deleted scenes that actually presented a relationship between the two.

[–] blktoptrvl 12 years ago

In the movie, there was NO LOVE shared between Alice and Uncas, so the jump was not to be with her love , but to end her misery.

And personally, I saw no "lascivious stare." Magua looked at her with hate, contempt, and finally with an ounce of compassion.

[–] prbronx5 12 years ago

Magua looked at her with hate, contempt, and finally with an ounce of compassion.....

I didn't think he looked at her negatively, he seemed to be intrigued. Remember, Uncas was young, and everyone around him wanted to marry him off to start a family of his own.

[–] joline61 12 years ago

Regardless of whether reports of native americans raping white women were true, the fact is that the settlers and Easterners (who had little interaction with native peoples) had a preconceived notion that they were savages and believed that they were at risk of being raped and tortured.

I'll bet that this image in her mind, along with the loss of a man of whom she'd grown very fond (there's a scene of them laying on the ground in an embrace) and a loss of hope that anyone else was left for her, she chose to take control of a situation in the only way available to her.

[–] nastylev 11 years ago

The look they gave each other right before Uncas fell speaks louder then anything else. For in that one second they read in each others' eyes what would take a lifetime to say with words. Their love was as silent as their lips, but their hearts were full of it.

It wasn't his sense of duty that compelled him to face a dozen foes to save her, just as it wasn't her mind that made the decision to jump. They were both guided by emotion, the most powerful emotion of them all: love.