30 pages • 1 hour read
Bret HarteThe Luck of Roaring Camp
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1868A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Literary Devices
Diction
Harte uses diction to separate the narrator from the other men in the camp. His language is formal, educated, and detached, especially when compared to the men’s rough vernacular. For example, Kentuck sends Stumpy to attend Sal’s birth by saying, “See what you kin do. You’ve had experience in them things” (2). In stark contrast, the narrator describes Stumpy as an “extempore surgeon and midwife” (2).
The narrator’s diction also establishes his character and his view of the events he describes. He is clearly an educated man and expects the same of his readers. Without explanation, he tosses a few Latin words into his commentary, such as ab initio (1), meaning from the beginning, and ex officio (3), meaning by virtue of office. His vocabulary is also that of an educated man, and he uses words men in the camp would likely not understand like “apostrophizing” (5), “imperceptibly” (6), and “lugubrious” (7).
This diction is also used to portray Roaring Camp with mild amusement. He does not describe Stumpy as a fugitive; rather, he says the camp is “indebted to his company” (2) due to him escaping the consequences of the “legal informality” (2) of two previous, possibly bigamous families. Likewise, he makes light of one of the men’s gifts to Tommy, a silver teaspoon that is stolen, remarking that “the initials, I regret to say, were not the giver’s” (3).
Vernacular
In contrast to the narrator’s elevated diction, Harte uses the prospectors’ vernacular to establish their lack of education and culture. This vernacular also contributes to the Gold Rush setting, creating a realistic texture in the story. Throughout the text, the prospectors violate the rules of grammar and misuse words as they speak.
Stumpy, for example, asks for donations for Tommy’s upkeep “from them as wishes to contribute” (3). One of the men says of Tommy that he “ain’t bigger nor a derringer” (3), comparing the baby to a handgun. In protesting the planned satirical christening, Stumpy complains that it “ain’t exactly on the squar” (6). The men use words like “ain’t” and expressions such as “them fellows” (4). Kentuck refers to “cherry-bums” (8) when he means cherubim, and Cockney Simmons remarks, “This ‘ere kind o’ think […] is ‘evingly” (7).
Still, Harte avoids using vernacular in a condescending or judgmental way. Instead, he uses it to show the men in a positive light; it is simply the way they speak.
Allusion
Harte makes liberal use of allusion, referring to other works of literature or art to invite comparisons in the story. These allusions bring their own associations with them. When he speaks of Sal’s painful labor, for example, he mentions “the primal curse” (1) to recall Eve’s punishment for original sin. This invites comparisons between Sal and Eve, reinforcing the story’s Christian parallels and setting the groundwork for the Christian Redemption theme.
The narrator describes two of the men with allusions, one with a “Raphael face” (2) and another with the “melancholy air of a Hamlet” (1). Harte uses these allusions to juxtapose the men’s behavior with their beautiful faces and emotional airs. In another example, in relating the success of using donkey’s milk to feed Tommy, the narrator refers to Remus and Romulus. This ancient Roman myth involves a wolf nursing abandoned human twins, one of whom goes on to found the city of Rome. The allusion here suggests that Tommy is the founder of a regenerated Roaring Camp.
Anagnorisis
Anagnorisis is an epiphany, suddenly realizing one’s true identity or becoming aware of a new way to see a situation. Kentuck’s epiphany arrives when Tommy first grasps his finger. Despite his initial embarrassment, Kentuck uses “more tenderness and care than he might have been deemed to be capable of showing” (4) to remove his finger from the baby’s grasp.
In that moment, Kentuck’s image of himself changes. However unexpected, tenderness and care present themselves as part of his character. He keeps looking at his finger, and unable to sleep, he wanders and shares “with great gusto his experience” (4). Later, he requires reassurance from Stumpy that the child is well. His embarrassment demonstrates his awareness of the change in himself and his discomfort with the transition. These feelings continue as Kentuck finds his new cleanliness “a cruel mortification” (6), but the power of his epiphany forces him to see the changes through. After some time, Kentuck is able to watch Tommy without embarrassment “in a breathless state of excitement” (8), indicating that the change sparked by his anagnorisis is complete.
Related Titles
By Bret Harte
