Trauma
Henry is mentally unsound, for he is certain that his wife will return home even though “she’s been dead nineteen years.” The narrator recalls: “It was getting very close to nine. Henry was standing in the door with his eyes directed up the road, his body swaying to the torture of his mental distress. He had been made to drink his wife's health and safety several times, and now Tom shouted: "All hands stand by! One more drink, and she's here!" Tom’s yell is anticipated to distract Henry from his depression. Henry’s trauma builds up, yearly, around that exact time that his wife vanished. The trauma is so paramount that it thrusts him into inconceivable delusions.
American Dream
“The Californian’s Tale” transpires in a paradise where people “went away when the surface diggings gave out.” The people took advantage of the paradise by excavating gold. The utilization of the paradise is the same as undertaking the American dream. “The Californian’s Tale” illustrates the convergence between love and “The American dream”. Henry’s wife epitomizes Henry’s American dream, her demise smothers the dream as it plunges him into inescapable lunacy.
