Literary Analysis Of Outcasts Of Poker Flat

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The writer of this story is well known and credited for his many literary works. The story is a narration giving a certain group of individuals in a town who are treated as more or less of outcasts without there being specified reasons that can be pointed out for the mistreatment. The condition results to the creation of an armed group being formed and that eventually ends up in misery. There are various aspects or literary elements that are clearly evident in the story the Outcasts of poker Flat (Harte, 1985). Literary Analysis of “The Outcasts of Poker Flat” The story being highly dramatic and relatively intense applies the literary aspect of voice. The use of

The major characters in the story up to and including the protagonist in the story are individuals who are relatively ill behaved and considered as being outcasts not worthy being part of the whole society. The case is however totally different when these key characters are faced by an aspect or a feature that threatens them, “The Duchess, more cheerful than she had been, assumed the care of Piney. Only Mother Shipton--once the strongest of the party--seemed to sicken and fade”. The kind treatment that these characters show towards the two people who approach them illustrate the kindness in them. An important and characteristic aspect of the characters is their ability to live with each other tolerably and encourage each other irrespective of the intensity of the challenges that they are faced with. The death of the characters is noble and illustrates or indicates a great deal of courage in them (Harte, Olivier, & Clark,

The members of the secret committee are hypocrites because they come up with judgment against Oakhurst irrespective of the fact that they too had at one time or another engaged in gambling with Oakhurst only that he outsmarted them in the game. The committee’s judgment was to help get rid of Oakhurst from town given that they had been outsmarted by him for long and this would give them an opportunity to win if they gambled (Harte, 1997). The aspect of hypocrisy in the members of the committee is clearly evident when and where one member of the committee comes up with a suggestion that they would just hang Oakhurst and get their money back. This is a clear indicator that they too were gamblers though they were convicting one of their own with personal interests and due to the hypocrisy in them. “A secret committee had determined to rid the town of all improper persons. This was done permanently in regard of two men who were then hanging from the boughs of a sycamore in the gulch, and temporarily in the banishment of certain other objectionable characters. I regret to say that some of these were ladies” (Harte,