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The Outcasts of Poker Flat
Tom ("the Innocent") finds Oakhurst and the others by accident—he is running off with his fiancé to be married at Poker Flat. For Tom, the adventure of elopement is only made even better by the...
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The Outcasts of Poker Flat
There is a certain amount of subjectivity to the two questions being asked here. I think that most definitely the story is making a statement that humanity and human decency can be found in all...
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The Outcasts of Poker Flat
The term Regionalism usually refers to the sketch or short story that focuses on specific features of a particular region. These features of a region are often type characters, dialects, history,...
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The Outcasts of Poker Flat
The theme of redemption is an important one in "The Outcasts of Poker Flat." It's notable that it's the most disreputable characters who go above and beyond the call of duty in sacrificing...
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The Outcasts of Poker Flat
John Oakhurst, the gambler, is called “both the strongest and the weakest of the Outcasts of Poker Flat.” To understand why, one must look back to the beginning of the story, when Oakhurst left the...
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The Outcasts of Poker Flat
The wonderful thing about literature is that it is subjective. Opinion questions like these illustrate this truth. Here's what I mean: If you think Mr. Oakhurst is admirable because he is so...
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The Outcasts of Poker Flat
Piney Woods and Tom Simpson are a young and in love couple in the short story "The Outcasts of Poker Flats." They are on their way to Poker Flat to elope. In addition to their romantic attraction...
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The Outcasts of Poker Flat
I don't know that John Oakhurst really changed all that much during "The Outcasts of Poker Flat." Oakhurst was a different kind of gambler: Although he was always cool and confident, he also had a...
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The Outcasts of Poker Flat
In this story by Bret Harte, there are definitely heroes and heroines. The main character, John Oakhurst, is a hero. He had once won $40 from Tom Simson and then returned it because Simson was so...
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The Outcasts of Poker Flat
In "The Outcasts of Poker Flat" by Bret Harte, the fine, upstanding Christian citizens of Poker Flat have a problem. Poker Flat was "after somebody." It had lately suffered the loss of several...
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The Outcasts of Poker Flat
The title, "The Outcasts of Poker Flat," is referencing the four characters who have been thrown out of the town of Poker Flat. Apparently the town of Poker Flat is a beacon of morality, because...
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The Outcasts of Poker Flat
The Sierra Nevada Mountains are unforgiving in the winter. This is the setting of the story “The Outcasts of Poker Flat” by Bret Harte. This poignant story involves a motley group of people who...
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The Outcasts of Poker Flat
Several of the characters could be considered the most admirable in the story. It could be argued that Oakhurst is the most admirable because of his "philosophical calmness." Oakhurst has the...
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The Outcasts of Poker Flat
Mr. Oakhurst is a professional gambler. As such he is intelligent, shrewd, and honest. As a gambler, Oakhurst knows well how to assess the odds of any given situation. When the party to which he...
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The Outcasts of Poker Flat
In literature and drama (plays) internal conflict is defined by Dictionary.com 21st Century Lexicon as a struggle taking place within the hero's or protagonist's mind. The resolution of an internal...
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The Outcasts of Poker Flat
The central conflict in the short story revolves around the outcasts, who are escorted to the edge of town and warned not to return. The town has decided to purify itself of undesirables, people...
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The Outcasts of Poker Flat
Tom Simson represents the character archetype known as "The Innocent." In fact, that's exactly how he's referred to in the story itself. And Tom certainly displays all the character traits...
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The Outcasts of Poker Flat
The stoic gambler John Oakhurst shows the most class of all the members of the party in Bret Harte's short story, "The Outcasts of Poker Flat." He alone remains silent when the group is forced out...
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The Outcasts of Poker Flat
Uncle Billy probably was plotting against the other outcasts from the moment they were banished. The story doesn't specifically indicate this, but the reader knows that Uncle Billy should not be...
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The Outcasts of Poker Flat
The shortest answer possible to your question is this: all but two of the travelers die at the camp. The travelers that wind up at the camp are John Oakhurst, Mother Shipton, Duchess, Tom Simson,...
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The Outcasts of Poker Flat
In order to answer this question, you need to make sure that you read the story carefully. Is the answer clearly spelled out in the story by what characters say or do - or what the narrator tells...
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The Outcasts of Poker Flat
The outcasts are thrown out of the town of Poker Flat because they are the undesirables of the town. Duchess, despite what her name implies, is not high class royalty in any way. She is the town...
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The Outcasts of Poker Flat
"They'll find out the truth about us all when they find out anything," he added, significantly, "and there's no good frightening them now." John Oakhurst tells Mother Shipton and Duchess to keep...
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The Outcasts of Poker Flat
The characters in "The Outcasts of Poker Flat" were not given a choice to leave town; they were escorted out by the leaders of the place. At the beginning of the story, Mr. Oakhurst "was conscious...
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The Outcasts of Poker Flat
The story starts off in the little town of Poker Flat. The mood of the setting is ominously quiet. The first paragraph contains two sentences intended to establish this mood: . . . he [Oakhurst]...
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The Outcasts of Poker Flat
Being exiled and snowed-in has a surprisingly positive dramatic effect on the characters in "The Outcasts of Poker Flat." Mother Shipton, the madam, finds her true self during the final stages of...
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The Outcasts of Poker Flat
Clearly a dynamic character, Mother Shipton transforms from a hardened, self-centered female in a profession of "impropriety" to an altruistic, tender, and motherly woman. Ironically named Mother...
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The Outcasts of Poker Flat
Bret Harte’s short story, The Outcasts of Poker Flat, displays the good, the bad, and the exceedingly judgmental within the confines of its seven pages. In much literature of the Western genre, as...
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The Outcasts of Poker Flat
When the outcasts are trapped by a snowstorm, Oakhurst assumes leadership of the group. After putting together a makeshift pair of snowshoes, he gives them to Simson, instructing him to go to Poker...
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The Outcasts of Poker Flat
Tom and Piney bring out the best in three of the outcasts, because Piney and Tom are innocent and completely clueless. Tom believes that Oakhurst is a good man, because Oakhurst gave back to Tom...
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The Outcasts of Poker Flat
The settings of "The Outcasts of Poker Flat" have a decided affect upon the plot and characterization; in fact, it is the most important element of the short story. 1. Poker Flat is a town that is...
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The Outcasts of Poker Flat
When a question asks whether an action is right or wrong, the answer is generally going to be subjective. That means, of course, that two people who read the same story might have different answers...
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The Outcasts of Poker Flat
John Oakhurst, the kind-hearted and realistic gambler who was among the group of undesirables run out of town in "The Outcasts of Poker Flat," probably chose the deuce of clubs to illustrate the...
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The Outcasts of Poker Flat
It is interesting to note that Bret Harte launched the career of the great humorist Mark Twain, especially in light of the irony that contemporary readers of his failed to find the humor in his...
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The Outcasts of Poker Flat
The travelers who come through the camp, Tom Simson, otherwise known as the "Innocent," and Piney Woods, with whom Tom has run away, stay with the outcasts from Poker Flat for a week. When the...
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The Outcasts of Poker Flat
Two of the most important symbols in "The Outcasts of Poker Flat" are the town of Poker Flat itself and the group of "objectionable characters" that it sends out into the wilderness. These two...
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The Outcasts of Poker Flat
The rescue party first comes upon the cabin where the outcasts had been snow-bound at the end of the story. There, they find the Dutchess and Piney Woods, where the author states, "you could...
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The Outcasts of Poker Flat
In the third paragraph of the story, Bret Harte states, "A secret committee had determined to rid the town of all improper persons." These "improper persons" include Mr. John Oakhurst, a gambler;...
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The Outcasts of Poker Flat
The original group that leaves Poker Flat includes Mr. John Oakhurst, a gambler; Uncle Billy, a thief and drunk; the Duchess, a prostitute; and Mother Shipton, a witch. All of these characters are...
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The Outcasts of Poker Flat
In Bret Harte's "The Outcasts of Poker Flats," one of the main characters in the story is the Duchess, who is a prostitute. She is one of the several "undesirable" people who have been exiled from...
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The Outcasts of Poker Flat
Gambler John Oakhurst is the most intelligent of the "Outcasts of Poker Flat." Well-dressed, with a "handsome face," Oakhurst is a "cooly desperate" man who has been exiled from the town because of...
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The Outcasts of Poker Flat
The Duchess begins the story as a prostitute who is ejected from Poker Flat along with her pimp, Mother Shipton. As such, she is crude and garish, obviously having been corrupted in life. However,...
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The Outcasts of Poker Flat
Oakhurst is an interesting character. He is called both the strongest and the weakest of the outcasts. Although he had great leadership qualities, it was he who committed suicide and gave up...
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The Outcasts of Poker Flat
Uncle Billy is the one true evil character in "The Outcasts of Poker Flat"--a cowardly man who is guilty of the original charges against him and who seals the others' fate when he takes off with...
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The Outcasts of Poker Flat
Tom Simson is a "guileless youth," a young man whose name can be interpreted as the son of a simple man. He does not realize the severity of the predicament in which the outcasts are placed, and he...
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The Outcasts of Poker Flat
Many of the citizens of Poker Flat are hypocritical because it is only after the townspeople have a change of luck and monetary status that they become moral. After having "suffered the loss of...
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The Outcasts of Poker Flat
In Bret Harte's "The Outcasts of Poker Flat," certain disreputable characters are told to leave town and are "forbidden to return at peril of their lives." With ironic humor, Harte describes the...
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The Outcasts of Poker Flat
There are several themes explored in "The Outcasts of Poker Flat." Fate is a condition over which the characters have little control. The outcasts are subject to a "spasm of virtuous reaction" from...
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The Outcasts of Poker Flat
This quote is used in the very first paragraph of the story. It states, “There was a Sabbath lull in the air, which, in a settlement unused to Sabbath influences, looked ominous.” In this part...
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The Outcasts of Poker Flat
Bret Harte's western story is certainly not a typical one. His experiences provided the material for many of his stories and helped to form the unsentimental and often cynical and even pessimistic...
