The Luck of Roaring Camp

Prospecting for gold is an inherently unequal struggle between man and nature. Nothing is guaranteed to result from the back-breaking labor of panning for the precious metal carried by water, which runs in natural streams or man-made ditches. Nature and her ways are notoriously fickle, as Stumpy fruitlessly warns before the flood: “Water put the gold into them gulches […] It’s been here once and will be here again!” (9) Harte’s story demonstrates both the life-giving and murderous sides of nature and how survival is often down to chance.

Nature’s golden gifts to the camp wax and wane over time, but Tommy’s arrival marks the beginning of Nature’s beneficence. Harte at first emphasizes nature’s magnanimous and life-giving force—“Nature took the foundling to her broader breast” (5)—and against all odds, Tommy survives and thrives. Even that apparent victory, however, provides evidence of the struggle between man and nature. While nature provides the camp’s “invigorating climate” (5) and the “rare atmosphere of the Sierra foothills” (5), Stumpy credits man’s efforts with Tommy’s survival: “‘Me and that ass,’ he would say, ‘has been father and mother to him!’” (5)

During a “golden summer” and “flush times” of great prosperity, the men improve both themselves and their environment. Inspired by finding gifts for Tommy, the men’s eyes are opened to nature’s magnificence. For the first time, they notice the natural beauty around them and bring Tommy flakes of mica, glittering pebbles, and “cluster[s] of wild honeysuckle, azaleas, or the painted blossoms of Las Mariposas” (7). Previously they had seen these only as “trifles […] trodden carelessly beneath their feet” (7). Left to his own devices as the men work, Tommy is content with nature as his “nurse and playfellow […] to him the birds sang, the squirrels chattered, and the flowers bloomed” (8). Tommy’s connection with nature reinforces his status as a Christ figure, as he is in tune with the world around him.

The men work and plan for the future as if nature will continue her goodwill, but Harte emphasizes that nature is uncontrollable and unpredictable. The camp’s luck abruptly changes, and as part of natural, seasonal cycles, a deep snowpack melts in the mountains, producing “a tumultuous water-course” (8) that uproots huge trees, scatters debris, and inundates Roaring Camp. The flood destroys the camp and causes Stumpy, Kentuck, and Tommy’s deaths. While the deaths are tragic, Kentuck is heartened by following Tommy into the afterlife, indicating peace with the natural order of things. Westward expansion and gold prospecting both relied on narratives about man’s power over nature, a belief that often led to over-extraction and overhunting. Harte’s story provides a counterpoint; in the always unequal struggle between man and nature, what fickle nature gives, she can also take away.

“The Luck of Roaring Camp” incorporates Christian language and allusions to promote the value of Christian redemption for the camp’s men, even if it does not ultimately change their fate.

From the beginning of the story, biblical and Christian terminology are used in ways that draw sharp distinctions between the characters and their situations. Sal is “coarse” and “sinful” and has been “abandoned” by other women. Nonetheless, her suffering in childbirth is described as “martyrdom,” or religious self-sacrifice. She is compared to Eve when her labor pains are called “the primal curse” and “expiation of her sin” (1). At the same time, she is a Virgin Mary figure because she gives birth to Tommy Luck, the story’s Christ figure. When she dies, the narrator implies that she is redeemed: “She had climbed, as it were, that rugged road that led to the stars,” leaving behind the camp’s “sin and shame” (3).

By contrast, the men’s initial representations are lighthearted, lacking both the Christian language and the seriousness of Sal’s description. Sandy Tipton, for example, prepares to cheat in a card game but “rose superior” to his intention by sympathizing with Sal. Stumpy’s likely bigamous previous families possess a mere “legal informality” (1) compared to Sal’s sins. When Tommy is born, the men begin their regenerative transitions, beginning with a reverent silence. The story’s Christian themes emerge with the focus on Tommy Luck as a Christ figure. Similar to Jesus, he is laid in a makeshift crib, and the prospectors bring gifts of silver and gold like the Three Kings in the Bible. He is also nursed with donkey milk, an image that links him further with Christ, as donkeys are important figures in the New Testament.

With this, Christianity slowly appears in the text. This is a transitional phase, with Harte alternating between secular and church-related language and allusions. Most of the language is approving but not religious; it is only “remarkable” (4) that the men’s discussions over Tommy’s fate were less heated than previous ones. Their refusal to bring disreputable women into the camp is “the first spasm of propriety” (5).

All this changes when the men decide on a christening. Naming the child Luck suggests the new and better life symbolized by church christenings. “It’s better […] to take a fresh deal all around. Call him Luck, and start him fair” (5), advises Parkhurst. As they plan the event, the narrator recalls the camp’s “reckless irreverence,” and Parkhurst plans “a burlesque of the church service” (5). However, Stumpy halts that plan as unfair to the child. The tone shifts abruptly when Stumpy closes the ceremony with “so help me God” (6), invoking God outside of a curse for the first time in the camp.

The transition here is sharp. Although the narrator calls it “ludicrous,” the service changes the men profoundly: “Nobody saw it [the absurdity], and nobody laughed. ‘Tommy’ was christened as seriously as he would have been under a Christian roof” (6). After this, the camp’s “regeneration” begins, and the men begin to integrate Christian virtues into their lives, inspired by Tommy. The men clean themselves and their homes, abandon profanity, and often lie quietly under the trees at twilight. One prospector even describes the camp’s newfound calm as “‘evingly [heavenly]” (7). In nurturing their Christlike child, they develop new reverence for nature and the world around them, even entertaining the idea of bringing women into the camp. With their new attitudes, the camp also becomes prosperous, indicating that there is objective value in their new, god-fearing behavior.

Tommy completes his Christ arc by dying in a flood, floods being another biblical allusion. While Tommy has died, the changes he has brought to the men endure. Kentuck ends the story excited to follow Tommy into the afterlife, making Tommy’s redemptive powers as a Christ figure complete. With this, Harte emphasizes the enduring power of Christian salvation.