The Regeneration of Roaring Camp essays

The Regeneration of Roaring Camp essays And so the work of regeneration began in Roaring Camp(4). The regeneration referred to takes place in a California mining camp in 1850. It takes the birth of Tommy Luck, son of Cherokee Sal, the camps prostitute, who died giving birth, to start this transformation of the town. Sometimes one doesnt realize how much he needs to change until he gets a small push from fate. Just a little addition to the world can cause a regeneration of an entire town. Bret Harte demonstrates this idea in the story The Luck of Roaring Camp. In this story, Harte shows that even the roughest men can change into kind, gentle, wholesome people, through the love of a child. America is an early, crude and lawless place where regeneration can occur. The men of Roaring Camp were all unruly and all it takes is the love a child to change the rude into responsible. To the burly men of Roaring Camp, deaths were an ordinary event, but the birth of a child was a very special event that never took place because there were not any women. A commotion started as a result of the baby being born, but the men did not take it that serious and even made bets on whether or not the baby and Cherokee Sal would survive. They had no respect for the fact that Sal was in pain and in need of some type of assistance in the beginning, but as the screams worsened and the knew that Sal had passed on then, The camp rose to its feet as one man! (2). People were lined up single file and orderly because they had wanted to see the baby. This was the first sign of regeneration in the story. The first encounter with the baby was the start of a whole new lifestyle for the men. As they walked past the newborn, the men would give items that they had. A variety of things were given such as a diamond ring, a gun, a Bible, and around 200 dollars. As man named Kentuck walked by, the baby grabbed his finger in a cute way that awed K...