Project 1

Samuel McDuffie
English 205
Professor Joellen Hiltbrand

March 3, 2010

Two Different Views on Love

“The Luck of Roaring Camp” and Self Reliance” tell the story of different times and context. The short story of “The Luck of Roaring Camp” by Francis Bret Harte and “Self-Reliance” By James Whitfield are different themes and context but each tells a story of a certain things you need to make the most out of. Although they are two different genres and speak of two different telling’s, they both identify the meaning of love, hope and purity through harsh times. 

Francis Bret Harte was an American short-story writer and poet who wrote short fiction featuring miners, gamblers and other figures during the California Gold Rush. He wrote the short story “The Luck of Roaring Camp”. The short story speaks of a woman named Cherokee Sal who is the only woman in the camp. She has gone into a difficult labor and once the child is born, Sal dies after, leaving the boy in the hands of the miners. The miners grow attached to the baby as the time goes by and they decide to name him Tommy Luck because they feel that that is what he has bought to the camp. They decide against trying to bring a nurse into camp and continue to raise him as their own.The infant baby symbolizes more than one thing. It may symbolize life, and it may also be a Christian symbol. After being born, the baby revives the spirit of the camp, giving it a new life. The men start to wash themselves and act with decency. The Christian symbol comes into play when they take the baby to church for its christening. The baby is like a recreation of Jesus who gave faith to people and life to the land. It also symbolizes love, purity, calm. Although the town gets greedier, in the story it tells how the baby changes the men through the power of love. 

“The Luck of Roaring Camp" depicts the ways in which men must embrace societal norms and act maternally for the sake of an orphaned child.The miners show that through their affection, sensitive protection, and even the naming of the child show that these men moved past the social flaws of the time to make a positive life for Tommy Luck, saying:

As Kentuck bent over the candle-box half curiously, the child turned, and, in a spasm of pain, caught at his groping finger, and held it fast for a moment. Kentuck looked foolish and embarrassed. Something like a blush tried to assert itself in his weather-beaten cheek. "The damned little cuss!" he said, as he extricated his finger, with perhaps more tenderness and care than he might have been deemed capable of showing. He held that finger a little apart from its fellows as he went out, and examined it curiously. The examination provoked the same original remark in regard to the child. In fact, he seemed to enjoy repeating it. "He rastled with my finger," he remarked to Tipton, holding up the member, "the damned little cuss!"”

Mining men had to embrace deviancy and act maternally for the child. Tommy Luck signifies love and purity which is something the men were not known for as we witnessed them when Cherokee Sal gave birth. The story shows the miners found hope and love in an unexpected way.

James Whitfield was a poet and activist for African Americans. He wrote about oppression and discrimination, as well as, the enslavement of his kind. In “Self-Reliance” we witness James Whitefield share the message of love to his people (and how they should share amongst themselves), so that they can me it through the oppression and not allow those who hurt them win. James Whitfield’s poem “Self-Reliance” speaks of the theme of reliance, the need to depend or trust someone, for the sake of ones’ happiness, the ways of life, and the realization that our strength reflects from within us. It also tells the story about a man’s conscience informed by Christianity. Ways of finding happiness is through others who surround you during difficult times. Whitfield states: “When numerous friends, whose cheerful tone/In happier hours once cheered him on,/With visions that full brightly shone,”(Whitfield). Whitfield doesn’t signify his target audience, but he defies it openly. One must have people around them to get through the harshest and darkest of times. He uses words like cheerful, happier, brightly to indicate that he knows of love in various forms. Whitfield says “with visions that full brightly shone” expressing that someone or something can see the brighter side of these harsh moments. 

Whitfield states how being in love also defines our youth and purity: 

When love, which in his bosom burned

With all the fire of ardent youth,

And which he fondly thought returned

With equal purity and truth

The youth through their struggle find comfort in one another. Almost as if to blind themselves from the hardship, they focus on each other. Their purity cannot be destroy because of their love. Whitfield emphasizes the young’s purity, as it may change as the years go by and they experience more harm than good.  Their truth is their being. Whitfield indicates that though all may be struggling, happiness and love does not take away the pain, but it makes it accompanies and eases it out. He emphasizes that love is a stronger bond than allowing the suffering to win.  

            Harte and Whitfield both use their text to show their meaning of what love is and why it is needed. Harte depicted the telling of miners becoming more nurturing as they grow closer to Tommy Luck. Whilst Whitfield told the story of oppression and how his own kind must stick together and love and support each other during difficult times. Love is a stronger bond and it can have a powerful affect, not only on one individual, but on an entire society – and this is proven by both writer’s work.