Examples Of Social Injustice In The Outcasts Of Poker Flat

Harte’s Attack on Social Injustices In the realistic short story, “The Outcasts of Poker Flat” by Bret Harte, the social injustices are exposed. Harte wants to tell the world that the standards of society are dragging everyone down and making it impossible for people to live truly free. He uses realism to convey his message because he is can show the problems in society in a way people can relate to and understand. The audience can relate with the characters and see how easily they could be ruined by society. Reputation is the root to every action that took place in the 1850s, the time period of story. In an attempt to save a man’s reputation he will do anything, even if it means going against his will or causes a moral conflict. The

During the Civil War, only ten years after “The Outcasts of Poker Flat” took place, men would fight to save their reputation. Some men from the South knew that the North had better resources and would make them suffer greatly, but they knew that if the did not fight for the valiant Southern Cause, they would suffer the disgrace and loss of a reputation. Others did not want to fight because war conflicted with their morals, but their morals didn’t matter. Only the morals of society were able to determine what was right or wrong in the eyes of a reputation. “[I]t was only in some easily established standards of evil that Poker Flat ventured to sit in judgement.”(Harte 676). The people of Poker Flat had to banish the outcasts because the rest of society would condemn them for allowing such defamatory people into their society. The characters’ loss of reputation allowed them to truly act as themselves. Society forced them to only act in their own self interest. A person is never truly free until they lose their reputation. Due to their banishment, the outcast now have nothing to lose, so they are able to aid the innocent the best they could until their inevitable demise. “But turning to where Uncle Billy had been lying he found him gone.”(Harte 679). Uncle Billy truly was a man that only acted for the advancement of himself. The rest of the outcasts devoted themselves to survival

In this selection, Harte focused the dialect, history, manners, and habits of the characters to a small mining town in California in the 1850s because people could relate to the common people in the story. Traditionally people came to California in search of fortune and to make money quick, so there is no surprise that there are moral conflicts in the lifestyles of the people that live there. The dialect of the characters is fitting for the location and the time period. Reputation was a critical part of the society in America during the mid 1850s. The town’s sudden need to comply with their newfound moral righteousness in an attempt of a religious cleansing, conveys religious and moral beliefs that become apparent. This constant change to benefit one’s self is an attempt to show that even if society is comfortable with your sins, the standards may change and you may lose everything like the characters in “The Outcasts of Poker Flat.” Harte showed the world the injustices in society through a literary perspective in an effort to make a