Fate Theme Analysis

Like a template for countless strong, silent Western heroes in old movies, protagonist John Oakhurst is a stoic. He perfectly embodies the word, which means someone who accepts hardship without complaining or showing emotion. Initially, this seems admirable—when he receives the sentence of banishment from his town, Oakhurst reacts “with philosophic calmness,” making him appear strong and unflappable. However, stoicism was also linked in Harte’s time not just to acting calm but to accepting one’s fate, which seems to be exactly what Oakhurst does. Following Oakhurst from the moment of his sentence to his suicide in the mountains, the story asks whether it is noble to calmly accept one’s fate without protest, or whether this is foolish. Ultimately, the story resists easy answers: while Harte clearly admires some of Oakhurst’s traits, he also finds weakness in the gambler’s passive world view.

John Oakhurst is not like the rest of the outcasts. He faces hardship and death without complaining or backing down from the hard truth of their situation, making him seem admirable, and even heroic. The Duchess wilts after the group is exiled from Poker Flat, but John Oakhurst stays strong. He even gives up his superior riding horse to the Duchess, and takes her broken-down mule. Like the Duchess, Mother Shipton doesn’t take the news of their exile lightly. She curses the townspeople and curses Fate. Meanwhile, “the philosophic Oakhurst alone remained silent,” even though he arguably has more reason than any of the group to complain. He never challenges the committee for banishing him just because townspeople lost money to him at gambling, and never even complains later to the rest of the group. Uncle Billy is also far from accepting of the group’s fate and, like Mother Shipton, delivers “a Parthian volley of expletives.” In first-century Asia, the Parthians would routinely pretend to flee before suddenly turning back to shoot their enemies, which is effectively what Uncle Billy does when he goes on to steal the group’s mules, leaving his companions to die. In contrast, despite his clear understanding that stopping to camp is not “advisable,” Oakhurst neither returns to Poker Flat nor carries on to the next town on his own. The narrator suggests that “The thought of deserting his weaker and more pitiable companions never perhaps occurred to [Oakhurst],” emphasizing the value of his fierce loyalty and quiet heroism.

However, Harte does not make John Oakhurst a faultless hero, as he suggests that Oakhurst’s calm demeanor may come from a place of apathy and weakness, not strength and heroism. Throughout the story, Oakhurst doesn’t do anything to remedy his problems, and he barely tries to avoid death. He knows that the group shouldn’t stop to camp because they don’t have enough rations, a “fact [that] he pointed out to his companions curtly, with a philosophic commentary on the folly of ‘throwing up their hand before the game was played out.’” However, “In spite of his remonstrances,” or forceful protests, Oakhurst’s companions choose not to listen to him and begin drinking instead. Oakhurst, for his part, refrains from drinking and stands off to the side, “calmly surveying” his companions. Though Oakhurst does speak out in an effort to save his own life as well as his companions’ lives, he quickly shifts from making impassioned “remonstrances” to calmly accepting what he knows to be a dangerous situation. Later, Oakhurst also tries to discourage Tom and Piney from sticking around. He is clear about “the fact that there was no provision, nor means of making a camp,” but once again Oakhurst’s efforts are “in vain.” It’s curious that Oakhurst tries to save Tom and Piney’s lives, but doesn’t take his own advice, raising the question of whether his inaction is nobly self-sacrificial or a death wish.

When he wakes up the following morning to a snowstorm, Oakhurst finally jumps into action: “He started to his feet with the intention of awakening the sleepers, for there was no time to lose.” However, when he finds that Uncle Billy has escaped with the mules, Oakhurst immediately reverts back to “his usual calm” and chooses not to wake up the rest of the group, stoically accepting his fate. And as time goes on, the group’s chances of escaping to safety get slimmer and slimmer: when they wake up the next morning, the snow is piled so thickly around the cabin that it’s like “a hopeless, uncharted, trackless sea,” and within a week, the snow “towered twenty feet above their heads.” As time goes on and Oakhurst continues to choose passivity over action, he “settled himself coolly to the losing game before him.” At the end of the story, Oakhurst takes his stoicism to the extreme of suicide. Stoicism was associated in popular imagination with some famous ancient Romans who killed themselves when placed in difficult situations, not unlike this instance of being exiled from town and stranded in the mountains. After encouraging Tom to hurry into town on a pair of homemade snowshoes and declining to go with him, Oakhurst wanders deeper into the woods and shoots himself. Harte writes that the dead Oakhurst, lying dead below his final words written on a playing card, is “still calm as in life.” This might at first be read as only a compliment, but Harte is also criticizing Oakhurst. He’s suggesting that in a way, the gambler was like a dead body even when he was alive. In other words, his “calm” wasn’t just coolness under fire, but a deadness in life that kept him from fighting to stay alive.

Harte ends the story calling John Oakhurst “at once the strongest and yet the weakest of the outcasts of Poker Flat.” The strength refers to the gambler’s bravery and composure in the face of death, but Harte also suggests that there are limits to this uncomplaining acceptance of hardship. In deeming Oakhurst “the weakest of the outcasts,” Harte suggests that in committing suicide, Oakhurst simply gave up and succumbed to the situation he was dealt, when he should have tried harder to fight back against life.