The Outcasts of Poker Flat

Harte utilizes the concept of fate as not only a power beyond the characters’ control, but a personified force: “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” (Paragraph 5). The capitalization of “Fate” and its descriptor as a “dealer” give it human qualities. This personified imagery of fate as a dealer giving cards to a player embodies how Oakhurst views everything that happens to him. If life is a gamble and Fate is the dealer, the only control he has as the player is to figure out what to do with his cards.

The personification of natural elements, such as the sun, the wind, and the moon, creates pathos in the outcasts’ predicament. The sun “saw the outcasts divide their slowly decreasing store of provisions […]. It was one of the peculiarities of that mountain climate that its rays diffused a kindly warmth over the wintry landscape, as if in regretful commiseration of the past” (Paragraph 28). This image of these “objectionable characters” (Paragraph 3) receiving the sun’s warmth and mercy—as though the sun itself empathizes with their plight and feels the shame foisted upon them—juxtaposes with the mercilessness of the Poker Flat committee and the inhumane nature of the exilic punishment.

After the Duchess and Piney comfort each other in their final moments, “the wind lulled as if it feared to waken them” (Paragraph 36). When personified, the wind recognizes their deaths, the “equal peace” (Paragraph 37) the two women attain, and does not wish to disturb them. That night, “[t]he moon through the rifted clouds looked down upon what had been the camp” (Paragraph 36). The personification of the moon looking at a sight once filled with human activity suggests a cosmic compassion for the outcasts’ demise.

The narrator uses similes to highlight themes of moral complexity. As Oakhurst rushes to wake the others when he discovers Uncle Billy’s desertion, “the virgin Piney slept beside her frailer sisters as sweetly as though attended by celestial guardians” (Paragraph 18). The two outcast women, condemned for the “impurity” of their sex work, are now compared to “celestial guardians,” even while the narrator dryly describes the women as “frail” (an archaic term for weakness in morals or character). The simile juxtaposes notions of corruption and purity, using irony to indirectly interrogate moral assumptions. The idea of the Duchess and Mother Shipton acting as angels and protecting Piney also foreshadows their future roles to her.

After Piney and the Duchess die holding each other, “[f]eathery drifts of snow, shaken from the long pine boughs, flew like white-winged birds, and settled about them as they slept” (Paragraph 36). This simile is another angelic image, comparing the snow to “white-winged birds” that cover the women’s bodies after they sacrifice themselves to comfort each other. This second reference to heavenly creatures offering protection further highlights the virtuousness these varied characters elicit from each other.