Bret Harte is usually labeled a local colorist. The local-color, or regional-realism, movement hit its peak in American literature between 1870 and 1890. It was fiction that emphasized the speech, dress, mannerisms, and values of a particular region. Literature of this type was usually more concerned with surface presentation of the characters than with probing their psychological motivations. The characters are more likely to be representatives of a specific place than clearly defined individuals, and the stories often descend to the facile conventions of hack writing. Harte never quite transcended this genre, but he became one of the most famous practitioners of local color, along with the early Mark Twain, Hamlin Garland, Kate Chopin, Sarah Orne Jewett, George Washington Cable, and Joel Chandler Harris.

Two aspects of local color that help illustrate the attributes of a locale and its people are humor and hyperbole. Harte uses comic scenes, dialogue, and descriptions to offset the tragedy of the story and to keep it from turning into melodrama. Much of the humor is based on hyperbole—language that is exaggerated or overstated for the situation. Sometimes this is reversed to understatement, in which the words seem too insignificant for the occasion. The language is often a parody of romantic or sentimental fiction. Also involved in balancing the tragedy is the gambler’s stoical approach to life. Outwardly impervious to pain or anger, Oakhurst faces life as if it were a game of cards, and his attitude is defined in language associated with gambling. The ridiculous or pathetic aspects of the others are contrasted with the dignity of Oakhurst.

The opening pages are filled with language that seems too grand for the events. Oakhurst notices that there is a change in the “moral atmosphere” of the town. There is a “Sabbath lull” in a community “unused to Sabbath influences.” Poker Flat is experiencing a “spasm of virtuous reaction” to the crimes that have been committed. The secret committee rids the town “permanently” of two alleged criminals, while it “sits in judgment” on the “impropriety” of the “professional ladies” it decides to banish. The gambler is saved from hanging caused by “local prejudice” only because of a “crude sentiment of equity” in the breasts of several townsmen who had been lucky enough to win from him.

For a brief period in the story, Uncle Billy serves as a foil to Oakhurst. When the “deported wickedness” of the town is abandoned by the vigilantes, Mother Shipton uses some bad language, but Uncle Billy explodes a “volley of expletives” at his tormentors in an attempt to gain revenge through the colorful use of words. Billy then directs his attention to his fellow expatriates and condemns them in a “sweeping anathema.” When Tom Simson arrives, Billy, at the threat of a kick from Oakhurst, stifles his laughter while listening to the youth talk about how he is going to Poker Flat to “seek his fortune.” He can barely restrain himself when Simson refers to the Duchess as Mrs. Oakhurst. Billy has to retreat from the group until he can “recover his gravity,” but not before he “confides his joke” to the trees with leg-slapping, face contortions, and the “usual profanity.” As he returns and surveys the “sylvan group,” Uncle Billy formulates his plan of desertion.

In contrast, Oakhurst sees the situation from the stoical viewpoint of a gambler who has not unexpectedly fallen on hard times but who has to make the best of it in an honorable way. He tries to hide Billy’s treachery from the others by suggesting that he and the mules only got lost in the blizzard, but their morale is damaged by the loss of the supplies. Only Simson enjoys the “prospect of their forced seclusion,” and he tries to entertain them with “square fun,” including tales about Homer’s “Ashheels” (or Achilles). Oakhurst, however, concerns himself with the “losing game before him.” When he sees that there is no hope left, he “hands in his checks” to conclude his “streak of bad luck.” His acceptance of death has been learned from his “pariah trade,” and his suicide note is written on the deuce of clubs, the lowest card, to symbolize that his luck and life have run out.

The tone of the story, though, is essentially humorous. Life is cheap in the Old West, where gold is more important than morality. However, with his objective method of telling the story, the author is able to make his social commentary unobtrusively. The story is, first of all, entertaining.

The simplicity of the story is a result of the too-easy transformation of such characters as “the Duchess,” a prostitute who reveals a “heart of gold,” and “Mother Shipton,” an old reprobate who gives up her food, and thus her life, so that the innocent Piney Woods can live. The unlikely combination of the innocence of the young couple and the “sin” of the outcasts forms a sympathetic human community.

The story’s sentimentality reaches its climax when Piney and the Duchess are found frozen to death and all “human stain, all trace of earthly travail, was hidden beneath the spotless mantle mercifully flung from above.” One cannot tell which is the innocent virgin and which is the sinful prostitute.

The gambler, John Oakhurst, is the most interesting and complex character in the story, even though he too, in his philosophic attitude toward reality, is more a cliche than a fully embodied person. Although he stoically accepts his fate throughout the story and reveals his basically noble nature, at the tale’s conclusion he takes his own life rather than await death by freezing and starvation. Thus he is called the strongest and yet the weakest of the outcasts of Poker Flat.

Oakhurst approaches life as his profession dictates, basing his actions on his awareness of luck; knowing when it will change is what makes a man, he says. His suicide at the end can thus be attributed to his knowledge that he has “hit a streak of bad luck"; he “cashes in his chips” before he “loses the game” of life.

Gold Fever and the Manifest Destiny
In the late 1860s, Harte's stories about the California Gold Rush catapulted him to national fame. For the rest of his career, he used the West as the backdrop for his narratives and as material for his lectures on life in the gold mines. Americans across the nation were captivated by the country's expansion, and tales of the wild West became ingrained in the national consciousness. At the time of their publication, Harte's stories primarily presented an idealized version of a recently bygone era. By the 1870s, the West was becoming increasingly settled, and the frontier's vigilante justice was rapidly disappearing. While the settlement of the West continued to be a significant theme in books and magazines, it's important to remember that "The Outcasts of Poker Flat" was published less than four years after the Civil War ended. For a nation weary from war, Harte's tale of heroism and tolerance evoked a nostalgic period of innocence and opportunity.

It is hard to overstate the significance of the Gold Rush as a historical event; within just two years, the sparsely populated territory of California became the fastest-growing state in the union. Aspiring miners flocked from Europe, Asia, South America, and nearly every American state, causing San Francisco's population to explode from around 800 people in 1848 to over 40,000 by 1850. Although the frenzy for gold had waned by the late 1850s, California was left with an infrastructure for industry, transportation, and agriculture that would have taken decades to develop under normal circumstances. For Americans of the era, the rapid settlement of California affirmed the doctrine of Manifest Destiny: the belief that it was God's will for the nation to expand across the continent.

However, romanticized portrayals of the Gold Rush often ignore the unfortunate outcomes for many prospectors. Very few of the '49ers managed to amass significant wealth. Although most prospectors did find gold, the high cost of living in California meant that miners couldn't keep much of their newfound riches. Another consequence of the Gold Rush was the near-extermination of California's Native American population. The region was home to dozens of autonomous Indian tribes, most of which lived in areas that became primary centers for mining activity. As a result, these cultures suffered from disease and military attacks, and by the 1870s, they were nearing extinction.

Country Longs for a More Simple Time
Harte's fiction was not only a portrayal of the past but also a response to contemporary events. The American Civil War had halted westward migration from 1861 to 1865. Once the conflict ended, however, the nation was eager to resume its expansion. Although the Pacific coast had become a hub for industry and commerce, the vast expanse of the Great Plains remained largely unsettled by whites. Like in 1849, the late 1860s was a period marked by movement into new territories.

Although the post-Civil War years were seen as a period of great opportunity, much of the nation was still reeling from the war's impact. The South lay in ruins and harbored resentment towards Reconstruction policies. Nationwide, financial depressions plagued the economy as it adjusted to peacetime conditions. Ulysses S. Grant's election to the presidency in 1868 marked the start of an era characterized by widespread and notorious governmental corruption. Given this context, it is not surprising that Harte's portrayal of a Western society filled with clever yet honorable individuals like John Oakhurst resonated with contemporary readers. Eager to overlook their own flaws and escape the current troubles, audiences turned to authors like Harte to conjure a noble past, hoping for a future return to those ideals.

Setting
The setting of "The Outcasts of Poker Flat" plays a crucial role in the story. It takes place in November 1850, during the height of the California Gold Rush. At that time, law and order on the mining frontier were often synonymous with vigilante justice, where townspeople took matters into their own hands. Communities like Poker Flat typically operated beyond the reach of established judicial systems, and the sort of vigilante activity Harte describes was a common aspect of daily life.

The narrative unfolds in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains, a remote region in eastern California where a sudden winter storm could easily lead to death for travelers. The most infamous example of such a disaster is the Donner Party of 1846, where twelve travelers starved to death, and the survivors resorted to cannibalism. This tragedy was widely publicized for years and was undoubtedly known to the original readers of Harte's story. In an era before cars or extensive railway systems, the fear of being stranded while traveling was very real and vivid.

Genre
The term "genre" refers to a category of literature. "The Outcasts of Poker Flat" is primarily a Western story. Other literary genres include science fiction, horror, and romance. Genre works can be identified by their conventions; for Westerns, these include settings on the frontier, the presence of "good" and "bad" guys, female characters who are either virtuous or "fallen," and conflicts that often culminate in showdowns or gunfights, frequently ending in death. All these elements are prominent in Harte's story. One might even say the "showdown" is the struggle between the travelers and Mother Nature.

Comic Relief
Although Harte's story is fundamentally a tragedy, it contains moments of humor. Instead of featuring a purely humorous character, the story's levity comes from the narrator's understated and sometimes condescending tone toward the characters. For instance, the narrator observes that "notwithstanding some difficulties attending the manipulation of this instrument, Piney Woods managed to pluck several reluctant melodies from its keys." Elsewhere, the narrator assesses Tom's recitation skills by noting he had "thoroughly mastered the argument and fairly forgotten the words." Critics have often praised Harte's ability to balance the tragic with the comic as one of his greatest strengths as a writer.

1850s: The United States adopts the idea of "Manifest Destiny," a term introduced in an article in the July-August 1845 issue of United States Magazine and Democratic Review. This term reflects the belief that it is God's mandate for the young nation to expand across the continent. As a result, settlers rush westward to California in search of gold in 1849.

1997: Although the notion of expansionism as God's will is no longer prevalent, the United States continues to explore new frontiers. U.S. astronauts collaborate with their Russian counterparts aboard the Russian space station Mir to investigate the potential for long-term cooperation in space.

1850s: Generally, American society views gambling at cards and other games of chance, where money is involved, as activities associated with drifters, con-men, and prostitutes.

1997: Casino gambling is no longer limited to Las Vegas or Atlantic City and is now seen as a means to revitalize the economies of major American cities. Candidates for municipal office often base their political campaigns on their ability to bring casino gaming to their towns, while those who oppose casinos are publicly criticized as out-of-touch prudes and Puritans.

Multiple film adaptations of "The Outcasts of Poker Flat" have been created. The earliest was a 1919 silent film produced by Universal Studios. In 1937, RKO-Radio Pictures released a remake featuring Van Heflin as John Oakhurst. Twentieth Century-Fox produced another version in 1952, starring Dale Robertson, Anne Baxter, and Cameron Mitchell.

In 1959, "The Outcasts of Poker Flat" was adapted into an opera, with music composed by Jonathan Elkus and a libretto by Robert Gene Bander. Perry Edwards later created a one-act play based on the story, which was published by Dramatic Publishing in 1968.

Several filmstrip versions of "The Outcasts of Poker Flat" are also available. Brunswick Productions released a version in 1973 that includes captions, while a 1977 filmstrip from Listening Library comes with a cassette recording.

Additionally, in 1973, Listening Library released an audiocassette titled The Best of Bret Harte: "The Outcasts of Poker Flat" and "The Luck of Roaring Camp," featuring readings by Ralph Bell.

Sources
Brooks, Cleanth, Jr. and Robert Penn Warren. "Tennessee's Partner," in Understanding Fiction, pp. 219-220. New York: F. S. Croft, 1943.

Polsom, James K. "Bret Harte," in Critical Survey of Short Fiction, edited by Frank N. Magill, Salem Press, 1981, pp. 1129-1135.

Glover, Donald E. "A Reconsideration of Bret Harte's Later Works," in Western American Literature, Vol. 8, Fall 1973, pp. 143-151.

Kolb, Harold H., Jr. "The Outcasts of Literary Flat: Bret Harte as Humorist," in American Literary Realism, Vol. 23, Winter 1991, pp. 52-63.

Morrow, Patrick. "The Predicament of Bret Harte," in American Literary Realism, Vol. 5, Summer 1972, pp. 181-188.

Quinn, Arthur Hobson. In American Fiction: An Historical and Critical Survey, New York: D. Appleton-Century Co., 1936.

Starr, Kevin. Americans and the California Dream: 1850-1915, New York: Oxford University Press, 1973.

Further Reading
Gardner, Joseph H. "Bret Harte and the Dickensian Mode in America," in Canadian Journal of American Studies, Vol. 2, Fall 1971, pp. 89-101.
Primarily a comparison between Bret Harte and Charles Dickens, summarizing numerous reviews of Harte's writing from 1870 to 1902.

May, Ernest R. "Bret Harte and the Overland Monthly," in American Literature, Vol. 22, November 1950, pp. 260-271.
A valuable account of Harte's early career and the significant magazine he helped to establish.

Scharnhorst, Gary. Bret Harte, Twayne, 1992.
A concise yet thorough volume on the author's life and career, including a bibliography.