“The Luck of Roaring Camp” 517father’s death, Alec takes control of the fortune and
makes the most of the new money and the new fam-
ily name. Although Alec does assist the Durbeyfield
family and offers Tess a job tending his invalid
mother’s fowl, his primary motives for hiring her
are personal. He is attracted to Tess and relentlessly
pursues her. Tess, however, has no feelings for Alec,
firmly resisting his many advances until he takes
advantage of her one night when they are traveling
alone together on an abandoned road. After learning
she is pregnant, Tess returns home and gives birth
to a son, Sorrow, who represents the merging of an
old name with new money. The child lives for only
a short time.
After burying the child, Tess accepts employment
as a dairy maid and encounters many honorable,
hard-working country folk, including Farmer Crick.
He is a master of his trade, treats his employees
well, and works hard for his living. While there, Tess
meets and falls in love with Angel Clare, a member
of the ambitious middle class. He is the son of a min-
ister, yet he has rejected the clergy, choosing instead
to seek his fortune in agriculture. Angel has grand
ambitions, which include buying a large plot of land
and establishing a farm, but no genuine aptitude for
farming or clear sense of direction. On their wedding
night, he and Tess both confess their past indiscre-
tions. Though Tess immediately forgives him for an
affair he once had in London, he cannot accept her
past. After giving her some money, he leaves Tess
behind and boards a boat to Brazil.
Following her rejection by her husband, Tess sets
out in search of a place in this stratified society. As
one born into a poor country family, seduced by a
member of the newly rich, and married to an ambi-
tious middle-class gentleman, Tess does not fit any-
where. She tries returning to the fields, but nearly
collapses under the cruel conditions and the strain
of the labor. When she learns that her mother is ill,
Tess returns home. Within a few weeks, her mother
recovers and her father passes away, causing the fam-
ily to be evicted from their cottage. In an effort to
keep her mother and siblings fed and sheltered, Tess
reluctantly agrees to live with a still smitten Alec,
whom she meets during a chance encounter.
Alec provides for the family, and for a brief time
Tess lives the life of a wealthy lady, dressing in fancy
clothes and residing in a luxurious boardinghouse.
Seeing the error of his ways, Angel returns from
Brazil to reclaim his wife and finds Tess in her new
life. He tells her that he has forgiven her and begs
her to return to him, but Tess refuses, saying that
he has come too late. Angel leaves heartbroken and
Tess regrets her decision to stay with her lover. After
stabbing Alec to death, she flees with Angel to an
abandoned country mansion where they live in rela-
tive luxury for a week until they are discovered. Tess
is captured at Stonehenge and put to death, bringing
an end to her search for a place and social identity.
Erica ArtilesHarTE, brET “The Luck of roaring
Camp” (1868)
Bret Harte’s 1868 short story “The Luck of Roaring
Camp” depicts a fictional western community in
the Sierra foothills of California, known as Roar-
ing Camp. The small, male-dominated community
of rowdy and at times uncivilized characters are
faced with the challenges of accepting and raising
a newborn child while at the same time upholding
their belief in not welcoming newcomers into their
community.
When Cherokee Sal, the only female at Roar-
ing Camp, dies during childbirth, the inhabitants
of Roaring Camp find themselves taking care of a
newborn baby, whom they later name Tommy Luck
or “The Luck.” Stumpy, who helps deliver the child,
is elected to take the lead in raising the child with
the only other female entity in the camp, a mule
named Jinny.
As the camp comes together to help raise the
child, the men find themselves indulging in their
“softer” sides, often exchanging their rowdy behav-
ior for a quieter, more civilized way of life. The
men at Roaring Camp, including Kentuck, a rough
individual without much attention to his outward
appearance who takes a particular liking to Tommy
Luck, nurture the child in their own way by bring-
ing flowers and gifts from nature to the young child.
The birth of Tommy Luck introduces a range of
unfamiliar concepts to the residents of Roaring
Camp—the innocence of a newborn child and the
realization of their own flaws.