Appreciating the Clear NewView in Bret Harte’s Classic Short Story, “The Outcasts of Poker Flat”
Bret Harte’s short story, The Outcasts of Poker Flat, is somewhat subtle, but it is popular and has been made into a successful movie at least five times, 1952 being the most recent film.
Summary Analysis
1-OldView strong value statement, early on
Mr. Oakhurst received his sentence with philosophic calmness . . . he was too much of a gambler not to accept Fate. With him life was at best an uncertain game, and he recognized the usual percentage in favor of the dealer.
This OldView strong evaluation of Oakhurst’s strength of character isn’t stated emotionally but calmly. Yet it strongly confirms and establishes his dominant strength, his completely cool imperturbability and his strongly philosophic acceptance of whatever ‘hand’ that Life and Fate may deal to him.
2-OldView supports/undercuts, in middle
Description.
The philosophic Oakhurst alone remained silent. He listened calmly . . . With the easy good humor characteristic of his class, he insisted upon exchanging his own riding horse, “Five Spot,” for the sorry mule which the Duchess rode. But even this act did not draw the party into any closer sympathy. The young woman readjusted her somewhat draggled plumes with a feeble, faded coquetry; Mother Shipton eyed the possessor of “Five Spot” with malevolence, and Uncle Billy included the whole party in one sweeping anathema.
This supports Oakhurst’s strength of calmness, as compared to the other outcasts being weak and edgy.
Conflicts & Resolutions.
Mr. Oakhurst knew that scarcely half the journey to Sandy Bar was accomplished, and the party were not equipped . . . for delay. This fact he pointed out to his companions curtly, with a philosophic commentary on the folly of ‘throwing up their hand before the game was played out.’ . . . The thought of deserting his weaker and more pitiable companions never perhaps occurred to him. [Also, he told Tom Simson,] If you can hold your cards right along you’re all right.”
These conflicts and statements of resolutions support the OldView of Oakhurst’s strength of character and of mind. And they serve as strong contrasts that set up Oldhurst’s unexpected end by his own hand, the brutal finality of the NewView ending of the story.
3-NewView Reversal, at end
Reverse. In a NewView Reverse, the characteristically philosophical and strong Mr. Oakhurst unexpectedly commits suicide rather than suffer the excruciating pain and heartbreaking loneliness of surely freezing to death:
And pulseless and cold, with a Derringer by his side and a bullet in his heart, though still calm as in life, beneath the snow lay he who was at once the strongest and yet the weakest of the outcasts of Poker Flat.
