The Outcasts Of Poker Flat Character Analysis

Robert Smith American Literature
Professor Liu 2/23/2017

Throughout American Literature characters are represented in many different lights, some better than others. John Oakhurst in “The Outcasts of Poker Flat” by Bret Harte is a old school western man who is an avid gambler. Morgan in “The Pupil” by Henry James is a young boy who has a very kind but weak heart. Editha in “Editha” by William Dean Howells is a woman who only sees the romantic sides of life and not the whole picture. All three characters have very different obstacles to conquer
in their respective stories.
John Oakhurst in “The Outcasts of Poker Flat” by Bret Harte is a very unique man.
Harte states that he is an avid gambler who solely lives his life by chance and luck. Oakhurst realizes a change in moral in Poker Flat and shortly after he is banished from the land. As the story progresses Harte begins to show a lighter, good side of Oakhurst. After he is banished from Poker Flat he runs into a man by the name of Tom Simson who he previously gambled with and took a massive amount of money from. What we learn is Oakhurst returned all the money to Tom and warned him not to play anymore. Just by this happening John Oakhurst goes from a flat character to a round character. By the end of the story Oakhurst and Tom go to find help and supplies due to the weather and lack of food. John Oakhurst’s body was found under a tree with his gun laying beside him and a note pinned to a tree with a bowie knife stating, “Beneath this tree lies the body of John Oakhurst who struck a streak of bad luck on the 23rd of November, 1850, and handed in his checks on the 7th December, 1850” (Harte 40). This shows how at the same time John Oakhurst was the strongest and yet the weakest of the outcasts of Poker Flat since he was the only one of the group that took his own
life.
Morgan in “The Pupil” by Henry James is a young boy who is extremely intelligent and wise beyond his years.
He forms a very good relationship with his tutor Pemberton who is a very good man but also comes off as quite naive. Another interesting thing about this relationship is the fact even though Morgan is the younger of the two he comes off more clever than his own tutor. Morgans biggest flaw is that he has the weakest heart but yet the greatest heart of all the characters in the story and that comes to light by the end. Morgan's parents act and behave very irresponsibly, their biggest flaws are that they are very manipulative and live life way beyond what their income allows. It becomes clear that his own parents can’t continue to pay Pemberton so they ask him to give them money in order to keep themselves afloat which Pemberton simply laughs at. Pemberton agrees to work for free as long as he can be honest with Morgan, Morgan already knew and expected that this would happen which shows how intelligent Morgan truly is. By the end of the story the Moreens want Pemberton to become solely responsible for the child and even though he wants to he knows he is not ready for that responsibility. Even though Morgan knew all along that his parents did not want him he couldn’t believe that his very own tutor who he had formed such a strong relationship with didn’t want him either. His poor little weak heart couldn’t take it, and right there on the spot he dropped dead from a broken
heart.
Editha in”Editha” by William Dean Howells is a very young beautiful girl who is quite naive. She has this sentimental view on war due to all the stories she reads in the newspaper but doesn’t realize how deadly and horrifying it truly is. Editha begins to put a massive amount of pressure on her fiance George about enlisting in the army so him and her can have this amazing sentimental war story that she reads about. The problem is George is extremely against the war and has no interest in joining, Editha can simply not understand his point of view on the matter. Editha believes any man that is lucky to have her must win her over and she believes George has the perfect chance since a war just broke out. Even after Editha expresses how much she wants him to enlist George doesn’t change his mindset, even his own mother is extremely against war due to the fact her husband lost a limb in a previous war. Editha goes to extreme measures and puts her engagement ring and other mementos into a package including a letter telling George to keep it all until he enlists to join the war. At the last moment she decides to keep it for awhile just in case George decides to do the right thing. When George returns home she gives him the letter putting the ultimate pressure on him and he finally decides to enlist in the war which gives her such joy. His love for Editha leads him to go against his very own moral beliefs and principles. People believe the war will amount to nothing but they couldn’t of been more wrong because in one of the very first encounters George lost his life. This finally makes Editha wake up and realize how wrong she was about war. She decides to go to George’s mother for comfort but what she doesn’t realize is that the mother already knows the true reason George joined the war was because of Editha. The ironic part of all this is the fact his mother wasn’t even mad at her she was happy her son go killed before he had the chance to kill someone else. Editha’s whole perspective finally changed on war but sadly it took her losing a loved one in order for that to happen.
American Literature has created numerous different characters, all with different personalities and problems but all can relate in one way or another. Whether it was John Oakhurst, Morgan, or Editha, all of these characters experienced controversy and transformation throughout their respective stories. None of which had a happy ending but all provided a lesson and a reason for that lesson.