The Brutality of the Old West Theme Analysis

While many Western stories have the protagonists battling outlaws, Harte introduces his characters battling the law itself. It is a “change in moral atmosphere” of the townspeople, not bad guys in black hats, that sentence the titular outcasts to death. Even more deadly than the townspeople, nature is the force that actually kills the outcasts—there is no dramatic shootout or rough-and-tumble fight. Through his depiction of how unforgiving life can be in Old West towns, and the even more unforgiving natural landscape, Harte punctures the romanticized myth of the Old West as idyllic and full of opportunity and adventure.

Far from being a stable, supportive community, the Old West settlement of Poker Flat is immediately revealed to be a dangerous place, governed by the whims of a powerful few. From the outset, Poker Flat is in a precarious state: the town has recently “suffered the loss of several thousand dollars, two valuable horses, and a prominent citizen.” In the wake of this emotional and financial loss—which perhaps came as a blow to the town’s ego as well—a “secret committee” decides to cleanse the town of all of its residents that it deems “improper.” The town is “after somebody,” and they don’t seem too particular about who they get. In their desperation to regain a sense of stability and normalcy, the townspeople find themselves whipped up in a “spasm of virtuous reaction.” In this frenzied state, the townspeople are “lawless and ungovernable”—perhaps, the story implies, even more so than the “improper” outcasts that they plan to exile. The sinister secret committee has already hung two people before the outcasts are banished, making it clear that the townspeople are ruthless and a genuine threat. It’s not just a matter of being run out of town—the outcasts risk being killed by the townspeople if they stay.

Furthermore, it’s not clear that secret committee is really concerned about morality. Several members of the committee want to take back money they have lost to Oakhurst gambling and are willing to hang him (though are talked into merely exiling him) in retaliation. This paints Poker Flat, and Old West towns more broadly, as corrupt and fueled by petty grudges and revenge. Poker Flat’s isolation also makes it a dangerous place. The closest town is through the treacherous mountain pass, and this isolation and insularity seems to give the town an added level of power over its residents, as they must either comply with the town’s rules and whims or face a dangerous journey that could end in death.

Exiled from their homes, the outcasts are forced to make the deadly trip through the mountains to the next town over. However, nature proves itself more severe than the unfeeling townspeople, as at least three out the outcasts die in a snowstorm. At first, most of the outcasts seem to act as if they are on a camping trip. Ignoring Oakhurst’s advice that they carry on for their own safety, the group drinks too much and stops to make camp in a beautiful spot by a cliff, playing into the myth of the Old West as being one big adventure in a stunning “wooded amphitheater surrounded on three sides by precipitous cliffs of naked granite.” Later, Tom and Piney are even more heedless of the danger, as they can’t conceive that the beautiful natural surroundings are far more dangerous than a picnic ground. Failing to internalize the gravity of the situation, Tom is delighted when the group is snowed in, suggesting happily that they’ll “have a good camp for a week, and then the snow’ll melt, and we’ll all go back together.” Like several of the other outcasts, they, too, underestimate the power of the West’s natural landscape.

Throughout the story, nature does seem beautiful. Near the end of the story, Harte writes, “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.” However, nature’s grace and beauty in this moment is hiding an ominous reality. Trapped beneath dozens of feet of snow, the remaining outcasts lie dead, no match for nature’s brutal power. But from the outside, “all human stain, all trace of earthly travail, was hidden beneath the spotless mantle mercifully flung from above.” With this, the myth of the Old West gives way to a deadlier reality for the outcasts of Poker Flat. There is no high-spirited frontier or adventure in a majestic wilderness for them. They are crushed between the dangers of a corrupt town and uncaring nature, a bleak situation that reveals the brutal reality of life in the Old West. Townspeople threaten to kill the outcasts, and nature finishes the job without sentiment or mercy.