Unit IV – The American West I: Bret Harte, The Luck of Roaring Camp .

This is the time of the new empire, which is going to change the world, since the United States would
become the most influential economy along with Europe. After the war, the United States underwent
several changes. Inventions such as the telegraph and the railroad, as well as the transatlantic cable
which connected the United States with the United Kingdom, were of great importance for the economy
of the new country. The railroad allowed to connect the interior states of United States with the rest of
the world. The spectacular economic development of the country happened thanks to foreign money,
and in 1873 the biggest exportation for the country happened. Nevertheless, the Unites States, until the
decade of 1940s and 1950s, depended on foreign capitals. In 1890, there was an exhibition in Chicago
which was highly successful for the country, coinciding with the great economic crisis that happened in
the United Kingdom. For social Darwinism, the strongest nation has the right to conquer those which are
the weakest nations. The frontier was a source of identity for the United States.

The reason they still wanted to go to the West to conquer those territories was fully economical, not
religious anymore. Working hard was their duty. Redemption by fulfilling the idea of the city upon a hill.
Progress is understood as inevitable, related with social Darwinism. The most important idea of West
literature is the dime novel. Young people read these types of novels which had a white man hero who
persecuted the Native Americans or the Mexicans, who personified the bad in the novels. If you are not
white, you are part of the sinful. Three ideas: America first, Americans are winners, America is safe.

Bret Harte.
Bret Harte (1836 – 1902) was an American writer who helped create the local -colour 1 school in
American fiction.

Harte’s family settled in New York City and Brooklyn in 1845. His education was spotty and irregular, but
he inherited a love of books and managed to get some verses published at age 11. In 1854 he left for
California and went into mining country on a brief trip that legend has expanded into a lengthy
participation in, and intimate knowledge of, camp life. In 1857 he was employed by the Northern
Californian, a weekly paper.

In 1868, after publishing a series of Spanish legends akin to Washington Irving’s Alhambra, he was
named editor of the Overland Monthly. For it he wrote “The Luck of Roaring Camp” and “The Outcasts of
Poker Flat.” Following The Luck of Roaring Camp, and Other Sketches (1870), he found himself world
famous.

The Luck of Roaring Camp.

The Luck of Roaring Camp is a short story written by Bret Harte which was published in 1868 in the
Overland Monthly, a magazine where Harte worked as an editor.

“The Luck” is a baby boy born to Cherokee Sal, a fallen woman who dies in childbirth at Roaring Camp, a
California gold rush settlement. The men of the camp decide to raise the child themselves, and his
presence inspires them to stop fighting and gambling and to clean up themselves and the camp. When
they discover gold, they believe that the child has brought them the fortune. Tragedy strikes, however,
when a flood sweeps the camp, killing both the Luck and his protector. The story is a sentimental tall tale
told by an ironic first-person narrator and is notable for its characterizations and wealth of local colour.
The commotion is not about the fight. There is not a description of the two first characters, but thanks to
their names we know that French Pete is European whereas Kanaka Joe is a Native American; they both
have killed each other. Dime novels did not offer that much of a description of the characters since the
only important thing was that the white man is the good and the other, normally the Native Americans,
are the bad. They fought because of the parenthood of the baby, which was considered to be related
with their masculinity.

It is important to consider that Cherokee Sal is the only woman in the whole camp, surrounded by men,
and she is pregnant. The description of Sal being sinful beyond repair is more evidence that she’s a
prostitute. It is significant, too, that she is the only woman at the camp, and that the men are described
as her “associates”—a word that usually refers to partners or colleagues in business. This suggests that
Sal works as the settlement’s resident prostitute, and the men are her clientele. Her status as the sole
woman at the settlement also implies that Roaring Camp is generally unfriendly to women—it is a
community of hardened, rough-and-tumble men.

They are fighting in a hiding spot at the outskirts of the camp, resembling how Jesus Christ was born.
Baby Luck’s birth mirrors Christ’s in several ways, suggesting that the Luck will bring about this
redemption or positive change in Roaring Camp—just as Jesus is believed to redeem believers of their
sins.

Deaths were common in the camp, whereas births were a unique event. The only way of leaving the
camp was through death, as it was effective and it left no possibility for them to come back. In order to
rule over a prison, it must be done through violence. Roaring Camp is not a city for “nice people” who
respected the laws, but to outcasts and rebels, along with prostitutes. The setting of the story, a town
between two hills and a river, is a nice place to live in. Men in the camp are betting on the birth, whether
Sal and the child would survive or not, making death something trivial and part of a gamble.

The Wild West is a rough, unforgiving place, both in terms of the people who settle there and the natural
landscape itself. The characters’ shady pasts, coupled with the tragic natural disaster at the end of the
story, dismantle the myth of the Old West as being an idyllic place full of opportunity and adventure.

“Above the swaying and moaning of the pines, the swift rush of the river, and the crackling of the re rose
a sharp, querulous cry, — a cry unlike anything heard before in the camp.” This means that the child has
already born. However, Sal is in extreme pain and alone, needing another woman who can help her give
birth to her child, but in reality, she depends on other men who are preoccupied of the violent events
that happen in the camp. Hence, the violent men wonder if the baby is going to survive without his
mother or not, since the other female in the camp was a donkey. The presents they give to the baby are
not useful for him since they are not what a baby needs; therefore, it is possible to say that the men do
not know how to take care of the baby. The camp is not a place of a women, but it is for sinful woman.
Thus, they cannot bring a nurse to take care of the baby because they will not survive.

“But” said Stumpy, quickly following up his advantage, “we’re here for a christening, and we’ll have it. I
proclaim you Thomas Luck, according to the laws of the United States and the State of California, so help
me God.” The story is setting in the 1850s, and the Civil War has not happened yet. Therefore, the State
of California is not added to the country. This is the first time they mention the name of God for good,
since they always use it to curse. The name of the camp (Roaring Camp) is related with the shouting,
yelling, and all the noises that are along the camp. However, they must be silent for the baby’s sake.
Due to the grey eyes of the baby, Harte is telling the readers that he is blind; furthermore, if the name of
the baby is taken into account, it creates the expression ‘blind luck.’ The camp has changed into a place
with vines and flowers, washing themselves so they can take care of the baby. Suddenly, there is a flood
which would kill the baby and destroying the camp. This resembles Noe’s story in the Genesis, in which
God, because men have turned to be more violent, sent the flood to save the innocent (the animals). In
this story, there is a reverse Genesis: the baby has tried to change the camp into something better, but
the masculinity of the western cannot be changed, their attempt of being more feminine to take care of
the baby is not natural, being this the reason “God” punishes them by sending the flood.

Luck’s death at the end of the story is tragic and seemingly meaningless—he wasn’t a religious martyr
who died for his people but was instead the victim of a random act of nature, a massive winter flood. But
the story implies that the men have been so thoroughly changed and redeemed by Luck’s presence that
Luck’s death was, in its own way, redemptive like Christ’s. In Christian thought, Christ’s death isn’t the
end of his influence on Earth or his connection with his followers; likewise, Luck may have died, but the
story suggests that he has so radically changed and renewed the community of sinners that his influence
will perhaps live on in the town.