“The Luck of Roaring Camp” is a short story that belongs to the Western genre. Westerns are a type of fiction set in the Old West (also called the American Frontier) during the period of westward expansion. While westward expansion technically occurred from the 1600s to 1900s, most Westerns are set between the 1700s to 1800s, which is the case for “The Luck of Roaring Camp.” Westerns often focus on the lawlessness of the Old West, including characters who are criminals, outlaws, and fugitives.
While the “The Luck of Roaring Camp” does center on the relationships between rugged criminals in the Old West (most of the miners are also fugitives), the story also subtly subverts the Western genre by having the men transform into tender, kind-hearted individuals who love their collectively adopted son and each other. Rather than centering violent conflict between hypermasculine characters, Harte focuses on the camaraderie of increasingly gentle men and decides to center the conflict on the relationship between man and nature rather than man and man.
“The Luck of Roaring Camp” also belongs to the genre of Regionalism, a genre of literature that emerged in the years after the Civil War (though set in the 1850s, the story was published in 1868) and celebrates the unique geographies, social dynamics, and cultures of different regions of the United States. While authors like Mark Twain were capturing the particular cultures in the rural South, Harte was showing the local color of Northern California, where he spent much of his time.
