Less Than Lucky: Bret Harte

            I can’t think of a less lucky character than Thomas Luck. Even though the campsite improved during the time that all the men were caring for and looking after baby Luck, overall I thought that the story was kind of depressing. His mother, Cherokee Sal, is described as a dirty “Ingin” and feels “dissolute, abandoned, and irreclaimable” while giving birth because the town is filled with men and there is not a single woman to help her deliver her baby. To make matters worse, she dies just after giving birth to the baby and Luck is left an orphan in a town full of men! Then, at the end of the short story, Luck is killed in a random natural disaster that sweeps away the house that he was living in and he dies, still an infant. Despite the name of the baby, I think that the settlement of Roaring Camp imagined their luck during the time they have the small boy in their possession.

            One thing I really enjoyed about the story was the imagery that Harte uses to describe nature scenes. When he is telling the audience about the setting of the village, he paints the scene as he describes the only outlet of the settlement as “a steep trail over the summit of a hill that faced the cabin, now illuminated by the rising moon.” There are several references to pine boughs throughout the story that “add sociability” and the river is described often, although ironically it is that river that steals their Luck away. I thought Harte captured the natural images of the west quite beautifully in this piece, even if the actual topic of the piece was less than beautiful.

            Another thing that really stood out to me while I was reading was the non-adherence to the typical story line of the American Western frontier. There is hardly any mention of what the men are actually doing out in the middle of California by themselves (although I expect they are part of the gold rush). The men in the story are not your typical rugged heroes that steal everyone’s heart, but just a bunch of men who cuss and don’t know how to raise a baby in the slightest. Finally, the only woman in the piece is Cherokee Sal who is not described to be a perfect specimen of female beauty with a personality to boot, as most western tales display, but rather as a “course and…rather sinful woman” who doesn’t even know the father of her child. I liked that Harte strayed from the norm in producing his tale and gave the characters an atypical path to follow, even if it didn’t turn out so well for them in the end.