Bret Harte -- "The Luck of Roaring Camp"

Discussion Questions

1.) How  and why might this story be considered a "tall tale" of the western frontier?

2.) Do you see this story as "a retelling of the gospel story of the Nativity"?  See NAAL, page 308, first full paragraph.

3.) How do stories like this one “create” the ‘literary West’?  See NAAL, page 307, second paragraph.

4.) Some critics argue that since Harte was raised in an educated family from the East, he “brings a full portfolio of cultural experience to the wilds, and playfully and earnestly he experiments with applying those [Eastern] allusions, metaphors, and tropes to the description of people and situations that are often ‘off the map,’ fundamentally different from the experiences of his [Eastern] audience.” Do you see his story this way, or not?  See NAAL, page 307, paragraphs 2-4.

5.) Another critic maintains that “Harte can also be enjoyed as an American writer in the midst of a contest between romanticism and realism: [1] a well-established tradition of sentimental fiction, with high feeling and outbreaks of nobility and valor, and [2] a rising imperative to tell the truth about new places and new varieties of American social life.” Where does this story fit in to this assessment?  See NAAL, page 307, third paragraph.

6.) To focus on style and rhetorical strategy, run an eye over the story again, looking for peculiar or glaring comparisons or metaphors -- “a Raphael face,” “Romulus and Remus,” the “Arethusa, Seventy-Four,” “Caliban and Miranda,” “Memnon,” and so on. What is Harte up to here? Showing off? Do these allusions add any interesting dimensions to the narrative? If so, how?

7.) Harte’s stories, and many tales of the West written after his time, often feature deep, wordless bonds between people who choose to live apart, in a vast landscape. Rarely do the people in these relationships explain them well -- or at all. What is the thematic effect of that reticence or silence?