The tone of “The Luck of Roaring Camp” is simultaneously ironic and empathetic. This comes across in passages like the following (in which the men of Roaring Camp debate how to raise baby Luck after his mother’s unexpected death):
The introduction of a female nurse in the camp also met with objection […] [T]he speaker urged that “they didn’t want any more of the other kind.” This unkind allusion to the defunct mother, harsh as it may seem, was the first spasm of propriety,—the first symptom of the camp’s regeneration. [...] But when questioned, [Stumpy] averred stoutly that he and “Jinny”—the mammal before alluded to—could manage to rear the child. There was something original, independent, and heroic about the plan that pleased the camp.
In this passage, the narrator’s tone shifts between earnestly appreciating the men’s efforts and gently mocking them. For example, when one of the miners, when referring to women, says that they “didn’t want any more of the other kind,” the narrator jumps in to make sure readers understand that this isn’t the blatantly sexist remark that it seems to be. As the narrator puts it, this statement “harsh as it may seem, was the first spasm of propriety,—the first symptom of the camp’s regeneration.” In other words, though this statement seems “harsh,” it is actually evidence of the men collectively prioritizing, for the first time, the needs of the baby. And, in this way, it is the start of the “regeneration” or transformation that is about to happen to all of them, as they shift from hypermasculine outlaws to gentle and kind caregivers.
The narrator’s tone does shift into a more mocking and ironic tone, however, as seen in their comment that “there was something original, independent, and heroic” about Stumpy’s idea that he and a literal mule could raise baby Luck as their own. The hyperbolic language of “original, independent, and heroic” signals that the narrator is using verbal irony here while gently teasing the characters for this silly idea.
