The Luck Of Roaring Camp

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Hanoi - 10/2010. Question 1: Coming to “The Luck of Roaring Camp” by Bret Harte- a very famous American writer, readers may equip or imagine themselves with some information about the author and the background of the work. Bret Harte wrote this short story at the time of Gold Rush in California in 1850, the place which witnessed hardship, pain, loss, sacrifice and many deaths…in search for gold. The story heeds the readers with the event that a baby is given a birth, accompanying with his mother’s death. This is a unique event, at least in this context, because “deaths were not all uncommon in Roaring Camp, but a birth was a new thing”. Therefore, with the appearance of the little child, the people there seem to always think of something new, lucky, good and bright. This child is especially significant because the gold miners hardly see any women at the Roaring camp except for Cherokee Sal, “a coarse and very sinful woman” and any child…the things reminding the miners of their families. However, the presence of the infant, then named Luck, awakes these men to head for the hopeful things. Question 2: The coming of the baby has, actually, led to two main changes to the gold miners at the Roaring camp in terms of their responsibility and behavior. For the one thing, the men are more responsible for the life of the little child after his mother’s death. Right at the time the baby comes into being; they have a wish of “contributing anything toward the orphan”. And the miners are willing to devote some of their values, which are very hard to gain, to him such as money note, gold, silver… In particular, a man called Kentuck touches the child very tenderly and embarrassingly like a father. In the following day, “a formal meeting” is held by the miners to decide how to bring up the child in the mining camp as they, for sure, do not plan to give the

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