Children, Caregiving, and Masculinity Theme Analysis

“The Luck of Roaring Camp,” plays into the age-old idea that it takes a village to raise a child. It follows a gold-mining community in the American West, populated by gruff men who are in charge of rearing a baby after his mother, Cherokee Sal, dies in childbirth. Over the course of the story, these hypermasculine, hardened men take on more maternal, traditionally feminine qualities as they learn how to raise baby Luck and be his chosen family. The men’s transformation from rough-and-tumble criminals to more selfless and sensitive (if imperfect) caregivers highlights that raising a child is indeed a group effort. But it also suggests that caring for children can give men permission to engage with this more tender, gentle side of themselves in a way that society often doesn’t allow.

Kentuck’s character shows how the men of Roaring Camp are the very picture of hypermasculinity. After Luck is born, all of the men of the camp approach the baby one by one to give him gifts. When Kentuck, a particularly unruly character at the camp, meets Luck, the baby latches on to Kentuck’s finger, which delights Kentuck. After this tender interaction, “[Kentuck] drank quite freely, and related with great gusto his experience, invariably ending with his characteristic condemnation of the new-comer. It seemed to relieve him of any unjust implication of sentiment, and Kentuck had the weaknesses of the nobler sex.” Here, Kentuck fights to keep his hypermasculine façade by drinking to excess and generally being loud and scornful—but nevertheless, he can’t help but excitedly tell everyone about how baby Luck “rastled with [Kentuck’s] finger.” That Kentuck is described as having “the weakness of the nobler sex”—that is, sentimentality and sensitivity—suggests that he always stuffs down these qualities, but that baby Luck is making it particularly difficult to continue to do so. One night, Kentuck resolves to visit Stumpy’s cabin to see Luck, but he tries to make the visit look casual and unplanned. He pretends that he’s on an aimless nighttime walk, “whistling with demonstrative unconcern,” but it’s clear that he is eager to visit the baby. Just like Kentuck did after first meeting Luck, here he displays a performative brand of masculinity, carefully concealing any sensitive feelings or emotions that go against the grain of his reputation. But once again, Kentuck struggles to keep this tenderness (his concern and affection for the infant) under wraps. This moment suggests that baby Luck—and children in general—spur hypermasculine men like Kentuck to engage with a more softhearted side of themselves.

Because it takes a village to raise a child, all of the men—not just Kentuck—find themselves softened by baby Luck. When the men decide to keep Luck, “Certain articles were sent for to Sacramento. ‘Mind,’ said the treasurer, as he pressed a bag of gold-dust into the expressman’s hand, ‘the best that can be got,—lace, you know, and filigree-work and frills,—d—m the cost!” In this instance, the settlement’s treasurer emphasizes the men’s commitment to baby Luck (they’re willing to pay any price to get the best clothing or furniture for the baby), as well as how they’re beginning to show softer, more feminine sides of themselves as a result. Wanting “the best that can be got” for the baby, the treasurer asks for “lace, you know, and filigree-work and frills”—all delicate and stereotypically feminine fabrics and patterns. Similarly, when the men are working in the wilderness, they settle baby Luck in a shady place that they try to make pleasant for him: “there was a rude attempt to decorate this bower with flowers and sweet-smelling shrubs […]. The men had suddenly awakened to the fact that there were beauty and significance in these trifles, which they had so long trodden carelessly beneath their feet. A flake of glittering mica, a fragment of variegated quartz, a bright pebble from the bed of the creek, became beautiful to eyes thus cleared and strengthened, and were invariably put aside for ‘The Luck.’” The “rude attempt” underscores that the men still are gruff, but that baby Luck’s influence is helping them to shed their hardened exteriors and be “suddenly awakened” to beauty. The only outsider allowed in and out of the camp is the expressman (a mailman on horseback), and he tells people from other settlements about Roaring Camp: “They’ve got vines and flowers round their houses, and they wash themselves twice a day. But they’re mighty rough on strangers, and they worship an Ingin [sic] baby.” Here, too, the expressmen stresses that the men of Roaring Camp still are these rough-and-tumble outlaws, but they’ve specifically softened toward baby Luck given their deep love for him. (In this passage, the expressman calls Luck an “Ingin,” or American Indian, baby, which is a reference to baby Luck’s mother, Cherokee Sal, being an American Indian woman.) Tough as the men may still be on the outside, it seems that baby Luck has given them permission to engage with the more tender, sensitive parts of themselves that are attuned to beauty.