The Outcasts Of Poker Flat Summary

The Outcasts of Poker Flat is an epitome of the realism genre, this story has a very plain, desolate setting, but it follows up with very complex characters. Also, this story and their characters can be connected to what society is today. This story also focuses on regionalism because it is focusing on one specific region of the world. With the fact that there are complex characters and a plain setting you are able to connect it to the time period of today because of the similarities that are shown in the story and today’s society. The Outcasts of Poker Flat is set in a very boring and blah town of Poker Flat in the Wild West. The town is overrun with taverns and bars with poker games and prostitutes and all types of robbery throughout the …show more content…
While all of them were stereotyped and labeled because that is the human nature thing to do, all of the characters had unique traits. The main character, Mr. Oakhurst, was labeled a poker player. Usually the traits that come with those people are cold-hearted, tricky, and cruel. But, Mr. Oakhurst was unique, he did have a soft side to him. At one point in the story Mr. Oakhurst explains how he gave Tom Simson’s money back to him because he did not feel it was right to take his money since Tom was so bad at poker. Also, when they were on the mountain Mr. Oakhurst gave his horse to the Duchess to ride and he walked. He also did not leave the group, which he easily could have done being one of the smartest in the group. This shows his love and compassion that people did not realize he possessed because they did not get to know him. They just threw a label on him and called him a no-hearted poker player, just like all the others. This happens even in society today, people do not realize the good in people because they throw a label on people and never get to find out who they really are. But, with the good must come the bad, Mr. Oakhurst did not have that much confidence in himself and that almost was the factor that drug him down. He listened to those stereotypes and people so much that he started to believe that he was the person that they were describing. The author …show more content…
He was stereotyped as being a thief. There was actually barely any dialogue or anything with him in the story so he is open to considerable analysis. His background was not addressed in the story, but one thing we did know was that he was a thief. But, why was he a thief? He was very quiet and secretive in the story just like a thief should be, but what forced him to become the person he became? I could see back in that day and age that he had a family that was very poor and he needed to steal to keep his family alive. Or maybe he was an outcast to begin with because he was very quiet. Him being an outcast goes along with the story when he “stole” the horse, or he was accused of stealing it. Since he was an outcast to begin with he thought about himself first, he did not think about others because people exiled him. He was also a drinker, which drinking is used as a depressant, so this leads me to believe that he was exiled before and he was used to the feeling of being alone and the whole time he was trying to come up with a way to escape being with this group of people because he knew that they were all going to die. This might be smart to some people but heartless to others depending on whether or not you feel alone in life or not. He wanted to survive and continue his life, not die with people he did not care