ipl-logo

Miners In Bret Harte's Roaring Camp

431 Words2 Pages

“One or two of theses were actual fugitives from justice, some were criminal, and all were reckless”, stated Bret Harte as he portrayed a picture of all the miners in Roaring Camp (pg. 1483). Before the birth of the baby, the miners in the community did not care to what happened to both, their own community and the people living in it. Most of the miners had incredibly un-reputable backgrounds and all of them were just working in the mining town to become rich, which further helps explain their lack of care for themselves, each other and their community. The birth of the baby or as stated in the book the “lucky baby” brought a sudden change in the miners and the community. The birth of the baby changed Roaring Camp from being just a mining town to an actual caring community. “Almost imperceptibly a change came over the settlement”, “stricter habits of personal cleanliness” and “”rehabilitation of the cabin became a necessity” are some ways in which the miners started to change the community in order for the good of the lucky baby; the miners were willing to work together as a community in order to care for that baby. …show more content…

He portrayed the miners as criminals and people of bad backgrounds who were just trying to make a living or make themselves richer by working in a very unclean camp. However, with the birth of “the luck” or the baby and the miners’ attempt to improve the community, Bret Harte did romanticize it. Phrases such as: “They were flush times, and the luck was with them”, “They’ve got vines and flowers round their houses, and they wash themselves twice a day”, “ They’ve a street up there in ‘Roaring’ that would lay over any street in Red Dog” help the camp seem as a camp that anyone would like to work in even though some of these phrases are over

Show More
Related
1296 Words | 6 Pages

Introduction The Arizona Copper Miner strike of 1983 began on July 1 when negotiations failed between labor unions and the Phelps Dodge Corporation. Shortly after the strike began, Phelps Dodge was granted an injunction restricting Strikers presence on and up to the line. The result of this was the presence of women on the line. These women became the face of the great strike. For purposes of this essay, I will examine the conflict at the root of the strike.

Read More
852 Words | 4 Pages

He pointed out Mr. Cathey consistent bombardments of challenges and how he handle each situation. Every good point in his life such as becoming a father was met with a bad point in which he couldn’t go to school because he became a father. The author allowed us to feel happy for the situations that seemed any reasonable person would feel good about and upset about the unforeseen variables that tend to find Mr. Cathey. The author makes sure you feel the joy and pain of a young man who could have made it to a higher level but came up short because of his bad decision

Read More
806 Words | 4 Pages

In the extract from “Maestro” by Peter Goldsworthy, the author discusses the protagonist, Paul, and how he and his family moved from the South to Darwin. They stay in a motel room the first night and the next day they visit their new house. It shows the relationship between the family and their environment, expressing their feelings about the situation. In the prose extract, the author illustrates a rough atmosphere which the protagonist immediately loves, unlike his family, in order to create characterisation through the family’s first impression of the new town. The text conveys Nancy as a strong-willed person by her initial rejection of her new circumstances and then she improves them by quickly moving forward with the situation, showing

Read More
582 Words | 3 Pages

Eventually, the Bedwetters are excluded from all camp activities, intolerant of their disruptive behavior, and even bullied for being different. The conflict has changed the other camper’s impressions negatively. The boys are so disgusted by the oppressive treatment, that they run away from camp. It was not until after they embark on a road trip, alone, that they begin to mature. They were shown capable of solving their own problems and reached their goal of freeing innocent buffalo from inequality, thus becoming real men (Swarthout, 1970).

Read More
506 Words | 3 Pages

The family shows signs of being part of either a low or poor class based off the conditions of the household they are living in and the bareness of their apartment. For instance, the dining room is extremely small and the kitchen seems old and worn out. Correspondingly, the family members seem to lack personality due to to the simple clothing they are wearing. However, the bright colors found interior of the home create a contrast between the dreary environment of the household. This helps convey the message that although the family may not be as economically stable and live a dull life, they still happily interact among one another and come together every evening to have a meal together.

Read More
1024 Words | 5 Pages

For instance, descriptive imagery along with metaphorical language were used to compare the harsh conditions at camp to the calming natural surroundings. These differing simultaneous occurrences brought on the mood of seriousness, bitterness, and uncertainty of the future. This can be thoroughly demonstrated, in one of the rising actions of the story, in the fifth and sixth paragraphs of page 33, when the Jews were being selected either for labour or for death. The text says, "The world? The world is not interested in us.

Read More
599 Words | 3 Pages

During the 1930’s thousands of Dust Bowl migrant workers made their way from the central plain into California seeking work. In their search for work and some form of income many of the migrants and their families ended up in Hoovervilles, which were makeshift roadside camps that were greatly impoverished. Steinbeck was able to travel through the labor camps and recorded the horrible living conditions of the migrant workers. The collection of these recordings was published as Harvest Gypsies. During the tours of the labor camps he saw the oppression of the workers first hand in addition to workers being demoralized by wealthy land owners.

Read More
997 Words | 4 Pages

There was a stove in the center of the hutment, and she wasn’t allowed to cook on it. During winter in this crammed space, ice, frost, and snow would blow in through the open windows, and make the poor residents suffer. These terrible conditions of overcrowding and a lack of sufficient homes created terrible conditions of suffering and personal sacrifice to the people of Oak

Read More
961 Words | 4 Pages

John Steinbeck, in the novel, Grapes of Wrath, identifies the hardships and struggle to portray the positive aspects of the human spirit amongst the struggle of the migrant farmers and the devastation of the Dust Bowl. Steinbeck supports his defense by providing the reader with imagery, symbolism and intense biblical allusions. The author’s purpose is to illustrate the migrant farmers in order to fully exploit their positive aspects in the midst of hardships. Steinbeck writes in a passionate tone for an audience that requires further understanding of the situation.

Read More
736 Words | 3 Pages

In the end, his suffering paid off as his hope and dream of finding his family alive finally came true. Through the story of a young boy who treasured all his blessings in a harsh environment, I learned to value the things I have and to not waste these special

Read More
868 Words | 4 Pages

The Road Essay Theme: Morals can survive even in the worst settings. In the harsh world of The Road, there is a man and boy who both struggle to survive and their only hope is to cling on to the good morals. People have abandon all the good morals and have resorted to violence, murder, and cannibalism to survive.

Read More
715 Words | 3 Pages

In John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, the era of the Great Depression in the 1930’s is revealed through a simple story of ranch workers who hope to improve their lives. Migrant workers, George and Lennie, have a friendship that is based on trust and protection. The other workers lack the companionship and bond that these two men have. In the novel, the absence and presence of friendship is the motivation for the characters’ actions.

Read More
837 Words | 4 Pages

A dead man had appeared on this village’s island, and this man was like no other ordinary person they had seen, he was a lot bigger, muscular and handsome than anyone. As the people gathered around him they started imagining his life, “they thought that if that magnificent man were to live in the village, he would need to have had the widest doors, the highest ceiling, and the strongest floor…”(pg. 49). The village used the narratives created about this man to improve their village, not only for the better of the villagers but if anyone else different were to land on the island. This gave the people on the island greater cultural identity as they worked to become a more comforting and welcoming village as a

Read More
775 Words | 4 Pages

Whether it is the “rude sepulture” for the mother’s funeral, the naming of the infant “call him Luck and start him fair”, his feeding, the idea of adoption quickly rejected because “them fellows at Red Dog would swap it”, and the baptism that starts quite satirically but ends up being rather serious and when the name of God is pronounced “otherwise than profanity”, life in Roaring Camp is definitively different from what it used to be. The irreverence exposed sometimes is quickly turned into an apology to the advantage of the baby, whether when it is time to choose his name or baptize him: “It’s better (…) to take a fresh deal all round.” Even at the end, when they are looking for their baby after he has disappeared in the flood, his body is saved by Kentuck, himself “cruelly crushed and bruised” but not giving up their Luck. Even dead, the baby is their hope in the afterlife as Kentuck says “he’s a taking me with

Read More
464 Words | 2 Pages

This is what we encounter in this tragic story. From the beginning of the story, the author presents a lively outlook of the village life and the different people who are

Read More

More about Miners In Bret Harte's Roaring Camp

Related Topics

Open Document