"The Outcasts of Poker Flats" Reflection

Reflection on “The Outcasts of Poker Flat”

While I was reading “The Outcasts of Poker Flat”, I found that the author used tone and irony to influence the story. Many of the characters in the story have ironic meanings, like Tom Simson’s nickname, the Innocent, even though he is an amateur gambler. The main character in this story was a man that was a professional gambler and he was from the town called Poker Flats. Tom’s future wife is named Piney and she is destined to freeze to death among the pine trees. Another one of the outcast’s names is Duchess, even though duchesses in history would never get in trouble with the law. Uncle Billy deserted all these people and so he is not much of an uncle. Mother Shipton was a foul mouthed lady that took a liking to Piney, and ended up doing a very motherly thing for Piney; by starving herself, she saved food for Piney so that Piney could survive. Mr. Oakhurst dies at the end of the story and his tombstone is a deuce of clubs card that states that he got a streak of bad luck and had to turn in his money; and bad luck is a gambler worst enemy and turning in his money is something a gambler never wants to happen. But Mr. Oakhurst turned in his checks to increase his remaining friend’s chances of surviving.

The author also uses tone by almost making fun of the characters by saying it was dumb to be caught in a situation like this and getting the two others involved in their problems. Also, he wrote it was dumb to stop and take a break for the night when they should have just rode all the way through to the next town and now get stuck in snowstorm that ends up taking all character’s lives but one survives, and he was the one that stole the horses from the people he was traveling to save his own skin. Later, when the snowstorm was in full swing, the author changed his tone and made it more sympathetic to the people trapped in the snowstorm by making these hardened outcasts go soft and motherly towards the young piney and having two of the characters sacrifice their lives to give the rest of the characters a chance at living.