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Analysis of Bret Harte’s Short Story “The Outcasts of Poker Flat”
Local color author Bret Harte was a famous and successful author of regional short stories about the American West, most notably California (Morrow 1). He wrote in such a way that he realistically, yet exaggeratingly, described characters, dialects, customs, topography, and other features of the western part of the United States for those who had never been there.
He wrote with details that were consistent with the timing of his stories and made most of his readers believe that he had been there and done that (Levine). His stories were melodramatic, had an air of artificiality, and did not always ring true (Morrow 1). Harte used humorous irony, similes, and metaphors to portray an exciting and glamorous, yet suspenseful view of the American west in his story “The Outcasts of Poker Flat,” but he did not necessarily portray it in a way that was real for the people who lived there (Abdulrahman).
Bret Harte effectively used literary devices and elements like irony, similes, and metaphors to illustrate the relevance of the Western California mining towns during a time when the west was beginning to open to Eastern travelers. His stories were based on real places he had lived near and briefly visited in California, but with somewhat exaggerated realism.
