The Outcast of Poker Flat written by Bret Harte is a satirical story of the nineteenth-century conventional morality in America. Setting in the western area during the California gold rush 1850, it was the age of boom towns, vigilantes and the Old West. Bret Harte uses irony, euphemisms and humor to describe the twisted story plot by opening with John Oakhurst as a gambler stepped into the town’s main street and was about to be exile. Within specific situations, Harte brings out the best characteristic in John Oakhurst. Although Oakhurst consider to be the strongest character, he is also the weakest among the outcast.
John Oakhurst is characterized as an avid gambler, a calm yet generous person. The story begins with specification of Oakhurst
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first and personal trait is that he is a gambler. “As Mr. John Oakhurst, gambler, stepped into the main street of Poker Flat on the morning of the twenty-third of November, 1850, he was conscious of a change in its moral atmosphere since the preceding night.” (Harte). Oakhurst was “conscious” with the surrounding when he stepped into the main street, this action shows that he knew what was coming. By gambling and good fortune, Mr. Oakhurst had won other town’s people money. His acquired wealth was reason for jealousy and spite. The special committee decided to exile those who were not belong to Poker Flat. “Mr. Oakhurst’s calm, handsome face betrayed small concern in these indications” (Harte). Without hesitation, Oakhurst receive his sentence peacefully. Along with Oakhurst, the party consisted of “Uncle Billy”, two other women known as the “Duchess” and “Mother Shipton”. When the outcast started their journey, we see that Harte depicts Oakhurst as a kind and courteous man, “he insisted upon exchanging his own riding-horse, “Five Spot,” for the sorry mule which the Duchess rode” (Harte). The calmly face shows that Oakhurst is a professional gambler who knows how to control his facial expression, he accepted his sentence as if it was meant to be his fate. However, the twist plot that Harte created is that Oakhurst appeared to have irrelevant trait; kindhearted. If a professional gambler shows merely a generous action, he will begin to lose. And so as Oakhurst, his characteristic leads him to a horrific action that end his life. When the outcasts’ journey begin, Oakhurst being the leader shows a lot about his strength. He is consider to be thoughtful, courageous and prudent. The road to Sandy Bar as Harte said “was distant a day’s severe travel”. It is known that the journey is difficult and Oakhurst knew the group would hardly manage to reach the town. It is he who first understands the party's terrible predicament. When the Duchess and the rest of the outcasts decided to stay for camp, he knew that even without stopping the journey is scarcely accomplish. He suggests they move on alone, and when that fails, he rations the food and keeps the order and assumes the largest part of the responsibilities, including the major part of night watch. He even knew by camping, there would be a dangerous challenge awaiting for him. Yet, as a gambler, as a daredevil, he want to feel that excitement. He bets his own life and the life of those outcasts for a game that he knew he could barely win. The author characterizes Oakhurst as a good gambler man; when he won Tom Simson money rather than take all to teach Tom a lesson, Oakhurst instead “handed him his money back”. Later on, his good trait carries out during the camping, to protect the innocent of Tom and his lover, Oakhurst did not reveal the truth about their journey. All together seated by the fire as if they were a family, the author shows the desire of Oakhurst. When at first he was calmly to accept his sentence, Oakhurst portray to be familiar with this. As a gambler shifting from town to town, he was always alone. During the journey, his affection grows toward “The Duchess” by exchanging the mule for his horse, toward the couple by protecting their innocent and toward Tom as Oakhurst gave him the snow-shoes. Although Oakhurst shows his good trait as a strength but he also has his weakness.
When the outcasts decided to stay, he failed to insist the party to move on. It was then he knew the forthcoming future as “the gloomy walls that rose a thousand feet sheer above the circling pines around him; at the sky, ominously clouded; at the valley below, already deepening into shadow” (Harte). This symbolic foreshadows what will be coming to the outcasts as his terrible leading skill bring to a gruesome ending. At this moment, Oakhurst shows his weakness as he resists to leave the group rather than move on alone with his journey. If he leaves the rest of the group and starts his journey alone, he would not end up with suiciding. When “Uncle Billy” took off with the mule and the provision, Oakhurst could tell the couple the truth and he could just go on with his journey to Sandy Bar. However, he couldn’t bare the fact that he would maculate the innocent of Tom and his lover, Pinney. It is his emotion that get him killed. Having the snow shoes, he is the one who has the greatest chance of surviving the storm and yet, he gave it to Tom to save his lover. His affection once more kill his chance and as a gambler, he knew he is too weak. “Then the Duchess, feeding the fire, found that someone had quietly piled beside the but enough fuel to last a few days longer.” (Harte). By the end, even when he knew his fate, his last action showed that he felt responsibility to “The Duchess” and Pinney. As a gambler, his emotion should be detach from himself. Somehow, he is emotionally attached to the outcast. His emotion considers to be an impediment that make him losing his
game. He calmly dismisses from his mind the fear that he is the likely object of the consequences of the moral transformation of Poker Flat. His calm acceptance of his fate is evident later on when he faces the catastrophes that befall him and his fellow outcasts with an admirable equanimity. We are left to conjecture whether Mr. Oakhurst is able to so easily dismiss thought of his imminent danger because he believes he deserves his fate, or from an innate nobility of spirit. This quality of Mr. Oakhurst allows him to somehow assume a moral high position nd voice of reason when the outcasts make camp. He is able to take their being snowed in, the loss of the mules and provisions, and the flight of Uncle Billy' in step. Throwing his own life on the table and the life of the outcast, John Oakhurst is reckless with his life and in a way he is courage to bet all, he is the type of “go big or go home”. The author reveals that Oakhurst is a bold man as he challenges himself with the danger ahead. It appears that Oakhurst kept his gun with no one knows and he puts a bullet in his heart. He simply was out of luck. He finally accepted his fate. By doing so, Oakhurst suffered an outrageous pain as Harte said he “struck a streak of bad luck”. This action symbolizes the mistake that Oakhurst at the end had realized. His feeling, his affection day by day grows upon the outcast is much stronger. He realized that it was his heart that led him to this position. He realized that it was his emotion that led him to a bad decision. His heart’s desire is stronger that his head. For so long, he strives for this emotion, the one that make he feels alive, the one that make he want to be responsible. It was his feeling that make him becomes the strongest among the outcasts.
Surprisingly, the gambler, who is thought to be undependable and self-absorbed, never had the idea to desert his companions. Another instance where Mr. Oakhurst breaks the common stereotype
John Oakhurst is the main character in “The Outcasts of Poker Flat”. John is an outstanding person and has some phenomenal traits. Such as that he is unusually calm, courageous, and modest.
In the short story “The Outcasts of Poker Flat” by Bret Harte we see a reoccurring theme with the characters within the story. Most of the characters in “The Outcasts of Poker Flat” seemed to be “bad guys”, majority prove by the end of the story that they were genuinely good people. The theme that even wicked people can change is very prevalent with three characters. The town of Poker Flat was determined to get rid of specific characters that were cause for trouble and harm to the community. John Oakhurst, The Duchess, and the owner of a brothel Mother Shipton were the troublemakers that they had to get rid of.
Here are something’s that I’ve found in the story of The Outcast of Poker Flat. The first reason why I think that Mr. John Oakhurst is a outcast is because he is nothing but a gambler that does nothing but causes trouble with most people. Then plus it doesn’t say that he has a family or friends so that makes him a loner which he is a outcast. The next one is that two or three men, conversing earnestly together, ceased as Mr. John Oakhurst had approached the mens and they had changed signifiant looks. But that is one reason why I think that Mr. John Oakhurst is a outcast is because all the people in the town and how they act and look at him like he is the bad guy which
... treats Piney as her own child, and is moved with the couples love. After ten days of living in the cabin, she died from starvation. She requested to Oakhurst to give the rations she has been saving to Piney. He felt all them were already hopeless, so he ordered Tom to hike to Poker Flat and try to get some help. After a couple of days, when the help arrived in the cabin, the found two women huddled together, frozen to death, and close by Oakhurst was found with a gun near him, a bullet right through his heart, and a suicide note saying “Beneath this tree, Lies the body of John Oakhurst, who struck a streak of bad luck on the twenty third of November, 1850, and handed in his checks on the seventh of December, 1850.” (Harte 458). This story shows that people can change their life when they want to, and that anyone can develop feeling despite whatever they did before.
The public when the women first came out writing stories they had no clue what to think about their writings. It wasn’t like the traditional men writing where it kept the reader on the edge of their seats and being entertained. The women wrote more of a darker kind of story to where some people would call it a horror story, it was the first time that women had a voice. Women often talked about one thing and it was freedom, they always feel like they have been trapped. Also men wanted to inform and they had a lot of humor in their stories, where the women did not. Female authors had a much darker, melancholy storyline to their writing, while male authors wrote primarily to entertain their readers.
The question to then ask here, is whether this trait of gambling was just a simple hobby that meant nothing about themselves, or that it did infact represent a deeper understanding of who they were. Beginning with the idea of independence, Breen explains that the people within society sought no form of constraint by a higher political leader, but at times worked together to make sure their colony was stable Moreover, by understanding their preferences, it is safe to say that they w...
He begins to feel finally free. In the passage, “ The Outcasts of Poker Flat,” the author uses Duchess, a saloon girl; Uncle Billy, a local thief and drunk; Mother Shipton, a madam; and Mr.Oakhurst, a poker player to illustrate his definition of isolation. Being stranded in the mountains and dealing with starvation, they are left to fight for life. In the end, Mr. Oakhurst commits suicide in order to not deal with being isolated. Through all of the passages, the authors use different themes to illustrate isolation in different
his family to pursue a life of gambling. The fact that the son prefers a short,
Fitzgerald uses setting to criticise society’s loss of morality and the growth of consumerism after the Great War. The rise of the stock market in the 1920s enabled business to prosper in America. However, although the owners of industry found themselves better off wages didn’t rise equally, causing the gap between the rich and poor to grow markedly. Parkinson argues that the settings “represent [these] alternative worlds of success and failure in a modern capitalist society”. The valley of ashes symbolises this failure and moral decay, acting as a foil to the affluent “world of success”, East Egg, and highlighting that the lower classes must suffer to support its existence. This setting is introduced in Chapter 2 and is described as where “ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens”. The personification of the environment creates the sense that these failures are rooted in the land, suggesting that poverty is an inescapable part of American society. This is emphasised through the use of tripling which creates a sense of endlessness. By describing the men who live there as “crumbling through the pow...
This book from Bret Harte did an excellent job in capturing the attention of the reader, despite the story being incredibly short. “The Outcasts of Poker Flat” tells the events of a band of exiles from the city of Poker Flat and the people they meet while leaving for another town. The group consisted of John Oakhurst, a gambler; Mother Shipton and the Duchess, both prostitutes; Uncle Billy, a suspected thief and drunkard; Tom Simson, also known as the “Innocent”; and Piney Woods, Tom’s lady. At the end of the story, everyone ends up dying, but one death in particular that piqued interest was the death of Mr. Oakhurst. Before dying, he pinned a two of clubs to the bark of a tree with a Bowie knife. This two of clubs pinned to the tree has a
1. In all three of our readings, the Western landscape has been described as a dangerous obstacle to overcome: in Bret Harte’s “The Outcasts of Poker Flat” and Hamlin Garland’s “Under the Lion’s Paw,” the land threatens the character’s lives, while in Zane Grey’s “The Ranger,” Vaughn must seriously consider the terrain and his horse’s abilities as he first tries to catch up to Quinela’s people and later works to escape them. Clearly, nature was a hostile force for Western people. This constant hostility would contribute to the determination, independence, and strength associated with the Western character.
In “Editha”, she believes in the ideal that a man should ‘win’ a woman’s love and, she also believes in the ideal of an American war hero. She begins to push these ideals on to her fiancé George. She manipulates him by saying the war is glorious and, also by saying things like, “God meant it to be war”. (Howells 1082). Editha’s most manipulating plan throughout this story in the letter that she writes for George. She packs all his letters, gifts and even the engagement ring to send with the letter which says, “So I am sending you these things for your keeping till you have made up your mind.” (Howells 1082). “The Outcasts of Poker Flat” has more than just one idealist, all of the community of Poker Flat believe in the ideal if they banish the improper people their community will be a better place. The people of Poker Flat forbid a gambler, thief and two prostitutes from ever coming back which forces them to go on a trip to the next place they can stay. On this trip the outcasts get snowed in and all but one lose their life at the expense of someone else’s
In the Outcasts of Poker-Flat the death of a group of renegades expelled from the diligent village is depicted. Bret Harte tries to show that these "dubious personalities" are ultimately victims of social evil. In everyday life they were showing weakness and instability, but dormant moral forces awoke in them in exceptional circumstances in the face of death. They showed courage, a sense of human friendship and solidarity.
Two of the main characters, Jack and Algernon, strive to be "Ernest" and "Earnest" in the play, yet they both deceive others to escape lives which they grow tired of. They both hope to marry the girls that they love, yet they are starting the relationship based on false pretence and lies. It is ironic that they both call themselves "Ernest," a name that suggests honesty and sincerity, yet they both create stories to escape something or the other. Jack creates a brother called "Ernest" in the city that he uses as a scape goat' to leave his prim and proper, respectable country life, whereas Algernon creates a friend by the name of "Bunbury" to escape his aunt's high class society parties. He shows his lack of interest in such social events when he tells Jack.