Historical Narration and Reconstruction -- The Luck of Roaring Camp from the Perspective of New Historicism

Abstract

The Luck of Roaring Camp, a story written by Bret Harte, begins with Cherokee Sal giving birth in a California Gold Rush town,
where the men raise the baby themselves. The childs influence leads them to reform, but tragedy ensues when a flood claims their lives. New
Historicism, a new type or a new way of literary criticism, emphasizes the interaction between literary texts and non-literary texts assisting
with some other knowledge in culture, politics etc, so that literary texts can show some historical truth and historical texts also can be fully
understood without any boundary and limitation. By recounting the small history of characters like Stumpy, Kentuck and others, Bret Harte
effectively reconstructed the big history of the Gold Rush-era California during the American Westward Movement. This paper will employ the perspective of New Historicism and its two key concepts of the text is historical and the history is textual to analyze The Luck of
Roaring Camp within the context of the Gold Rush-era, thereby illustrating the spirit of Gold Rush-era California reflected in the storys portrayal of virtuous characters: independence, morality and rebirth.