Throughout this whole semester we have covered many different ideas about children’s literature. In the beginning we are told, “authors gave scant attention to settings of their narratives” (McLeod 90). Now in the reading “The Luck of Roaring Camp” by Bret Harte setting is very important. If we did not know that they were in California, would that have affected the name the men chose to give the child, “Thomas Luck” (Harte 535)? I think the author plays off of the setting to make the plot line make more sense. If they had been in Texas at this point in time, it would have been completely stupid to have Luck in the name. Since they are taking a hold of the idea of making it big, they show the amount of trust in luck that the people who went out in search of gold had. I think that we see how authors have decided to start to use the settings to play into what they really want to point out. At first they just wanted to make sure that the readers would get the point they wanted to make, but now they have decided that using the setting they can make the idea more meaningful.
We also talked about luck when it came to making it big. We are presented with the idea of the “American Dream” at this point in time and everyone is wanting to make it big. Many different people have many different ways or paths they thought would lead to greatness. For Roaring Camp they believed “that the baby had brought ‘the luck’ to Roaring Camp” (533). I think that we see luck portrayed as more common, but not necessarily people receiving benefits from it. People have a weird way of wanting to find that bit of luck. I mean a bunch of men found it in a kid for crying out loud. I think that people are looking for help when they figure out they cant make it on their own, and the author knows this is a general struggle so he plays off of that.
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I never really thought about associating the baby's name with the setting. I like the connection you made between the two because it is very true if we did not know their environment the name "Luck" would not have as much meaning. In the past we have talked about the fact that a vague setting makes it easier for anyone to relate to the story, but I think the detail that Harte presented in the story makes it easy for people to understand a little better.
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