Poker Flat Summary

John Oakhurst

  • Main character
  • Expert gambler
  • Banished from Poker Flat
  • Traveling to Sandy Bar with Mother Shipton, The Duchess, and Uncle Billy
  • Commits suicide at the end of the story
  • 'The Outcasts of Poker Flat' is a short story by Bret Harte about a western town that has banished a group of improper people. Local color is first shown in the beginning of the story when Harte talks about the people that will be banished later on in the story.
  • The Outcasts of Poker Flat, short story by Bret Harte, first published in the magazine Overland Monthly in 1869 and later published in the collection The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Sketches (1870). It has become a minor classic of American literature. One of the best examples of Harte’s.

Poker Flat Alaska

Tom Simson

The story takes place in a California community known as Poker Flat, near the town of La Porte. In November 1850, four 'immoral' characters are exiled as part of the 'cleansing' of bad elements by the townspeople: professional gambler John Oakhurst, two women, 'The Duchess' (a prostitute) and 'Mother Shipton' (a brothel owner), and Uncle Billy, a drunkard and suspected robber.

  • Nickname: “The Innocent”
  • Traveling to Poker Flat with lover, Piney, to get married
  • Continues the venture to Poker Flat in the snow for help

Mother Shipton

Summary Of Poker Flat

  • Owner of a brothel
  • Banished from Poker Flat
  • Eldest of the traveling party
  • Dies of starvation

Piney Woods

  • The virgin
  • Fifteen years old
  • Tom’s lover
  • Died of hypothermia while sleeping
Poker Flat Summary

The Duchess

  • Prostitute
  • Banished from Poker Flat
  • Died of hypothermia while sleeping

Uncle Billy

Poker Flat Summary
  • Suspected thief
  • Alcoholic
  • Leaves the others in the night while it snowed, and took the mules