The Luck of Roaring Camp

“The Luck of Roaring Camp” is one of many popular Harte stories that portray events in a specific place and time: the 1850s California Gold Rush. Harte’s writing was known for his authenticity, his romantic sentimentality, his optimistic view of the possibility of human change, and his contempt for racism and injustice. In this story, he uses the influence of a Christlike infant to challenge commonly accepted gender-based family and childrearing duties. At the same time, he examines the relationship between humankind and nature, eventually portraying it as an unequal and unforgiving struggle.

The men of Roaring Camp are a rough bunch, as were many of those caught up in the gold rush. Living a hardscrabble life, they are unaccustomed to parental roles and don’t anticipate the changes that Tommy Luck’s birth will bring. But Tommy is no ordinary child. While he does not explicitly compare the boy to Christ, Harte uses suggestive words to set him apart. Donkey’s milk is “transmuted” (5) into appropriate nourishment. The mountain air is “ethereal” (7). A prospector describes the newly quiet and peaceful camp as “‘evingly” (heavingly) (7). Tommy himself appears to Kentuck one day as a “cherry-bum” (cherubim) (8).

Certainly, Tommy’s influence on the camp and its men is, like Christ’s, redemptive; the narrator describes their actions after Tommy’s birth as “the work of regeneration” (6).