"The Outcasts of Poker Flat" is a well-known example of the genre of Naturalism—a mode of writing popular with American Realist writers whose works focused on American life in the mid-to-late 1800s. Stories in this genre attempt to show how local customs, characters' environments, and characters' hereditary traits shape their personalities, choices, and fate. As with all Realist stories, it attempts to do so in a way that accurately reproduces the setting, feeling, and social conduct of the time in which it is set.
The story is also a Western—a story that takes places in the American West in the late nineteenth century. Harte is considered one of the most important writers of this genre, as the majority of his stories and poems recount the experiences of people living on the very edge of American expansion into the continental United States, battling the hardships of an "untamed" country. Although some Westerns have cowboys and cattle ranches, many of the stories in Harte’s body of work are about the emotional and social experiences of small-town life in the West.
This short story is also an example of a tale focused on local color—a style of writing which develops from an intimate knowledge of the behavior of the inhabitants of a particular area. These stories are often recounted in a Realist mode of writing, as the lived experience of the author often informs the use of imagery, diction, and dialogue.
