The Outcasts Of Poker Flat As Local Color

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Clearly, the Outcasts of Poker Flat is an example of local color. First of all, The Outcasts of Poker Flats is set in a real place, Poker Flats being a city near the very real La Porte, California. Bret Harte, being a realistic writer, would therefore make the characters in the short story act and speak like real Californians straight out of the old west time period. The main characters are all bad influences on society, being a drunken thief, a professional gambler, a prostitute, and a brothel owner. These bad influences on society will always be around and were very common back in the old west, and therefore they are common occupations, another sign of this story being an example of local color. There isn’t much dialogue in The Outcasts, because the conversations between characters are mostly described instead of reported verbatim. Although, there is one good example of old western dialogue, when Oakhurst describes his feelings on luck. (“when a man gets a streak of luck,—nigger-luck,—he don’t get tired. The luck gives in first. Luck,” continued the gambler, reflectively, “is a mighty queer thing. All you know about it for certain is that it’s bound to change. And it’s finding out when it’s going to change that makes you.”) Even though this story is about a bunch of law breakers, they still follow a code of conduct, such as when Oakhurst shows he has manners and lets the duchess ride his horse while he rides her mule so that she may have a more pleasant Journey. These characters were also thrown out of Poker Flats because they broke the accepted code of conduct that is abided by all the other citizens of Poker Flats. This story arouses sentimentality out of its reader many times. Readers most often feel sadness when they learn of Oakhurst’s death, Piney’s death, and the Duchess’s death. They might feel shock when Oakhurst kisses the Duchess, happiness and sorrow
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