Humanity In Bret Harte's The Outcasts Of Poker

Bret Harte’s short stories convey the idea that nature and humanity reflect one another. Nature and humanity can be both welcoming and ominous. Humanity, like a storm, can be suddenly raging. Both can push you out of a place into something you’ve never expected to face, or into a better place. They can both be calm and gentle at times; and they both have the potential to end. In The Outcasts of Poker, Flat Bret Harte has an excellent portrayal of nature reflecting a communities actions. As the town walks the troublemakers to the town limits “[there] were no comments from the spectators, nor was there any word [from] the escort” (341). Not long after that “the air [grew] strangely chill and the sky overcast” (343). This sudden change of weather mimics the attitude of the people of Poker Flat. They had
People became so wrapped up in the town’s image that they were willing to harm the lives of a group of people by casting them out of the comforts of a familiar place. Nature in turn greets them with rather the same attitude; hostility. The group has to fend off the weather, which seems to be a mercifulless force against them. But it isn’t until after they’ve died that it quiets, as if ashamed of what it’s done to the people. When the town finally do show up they seem to be upset about the death of the group, despite the fact that they were partly to blame. In The Luck of Roaring Camp one can see a different, more nurturing side of nature and humanity. When people realize the fact that the baby has no family they begin to change their ways to better suit the baby. The entire camp feels obligated to be s good role model for the child and to show him the right way to live. The child’s innocence alters the way the men saw themselves and their life styles. Nature welcomed the baby and “took [him] into her broader breast”(para. 14). Nature becomes a maternal