Try It
Read the questions about Harte's short story "The outcasts of Poker Flat" and choose the best answer.
1.) How does the setting affect the story "The Outcasts of Poker Flat"?
Answer: Poker Flat is a town that is losing its money because of certain individuals. The outcasts are subjected to harsh elements when they left Poker Flat. "The wind lulled as if it feared to waken them. Feathery drifts of snow, shaken from the long pine boughs, flew like white-winged birds, and settled about them as they slept."
2.) Why is the town of Poker Flat banishing several members of their town?
Answer: They wanted to protect their town from people of poor taste.
3.) Who are the four outcasts of Poker Flat?
Answer: The Duchess, John Oakhurst, Mother Shipton, and Uncle Billy
4.) The only chance to save Piney Woods is for
Answer: Tom to make it to Poker Flat in 2 days and bring back help
5.) Which of the following are important symbols in the story?
Answer: the outcasts, the frozen bodies, and the town Poker Flat itself
6.) What is John Oakhurst’s profession?
Answer: a professional gambler
7.) How is John Oakhurst both the strongest and the weakest of the outcasts?
Answer: He committed suicide instead of dying a slow death by freezing.
8.) How does the Duchess change during the course of the story?
Answer: She became friends with Piney and was interested in her well-being.
9.) What happens to Mother Shipton?
Answer: She dies of starvation because she saved her food for Piney.
10.) What happens to John Oakhurst?
Answer: He shoots himself
11.) What is the narrator's tone, or attitude, toward Poker Flat's secret committee and its "improper persons," and what words convey that tone?
Answer: The narrator is bitter towards the committee using phrases like "made spasm of virtuous reaction" and "lawless and ungovernable action."
12.) What can you infer about John Oakhurst’s character based on the way he treats Tom and Piney?
Answer: he is compassionate and generous
13.) Why is Poker Flat’s governing group “after somebody”?
Answer: They are reacting illegally to stolen goods
14.) Why is Tom Simson devoted to John Oakhurst?
Answer: Oakhurst won all of his money, returned it to him, and told him not to gamble again.
15.) Why are the outcasts trapped in the Sierras?
Answer: they are trapped by a snowstorm
16.) What is the allusion, or reference to another literary work, in the story?
Answer: The reading of the Iliad