The Devil and Tom Walker

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   ms-mcgregor Teacher
   High School - 12th Grade

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   Irving portrays land speculation as a sickness, "a fever", which infected the country with greed. He writes," . . .everybody was dreaming of making sudden fortunes for nothing." Someone who is sick needs a doctor and the doctor was reality. Once people realized their dreams were gone, they became "patients", and were given a good dose of reality when they discovered their paper credit was virtually worthless. Ironically, this proves to be a wonderful time for Tom Walker. As a money lender, he "accumulated bonds and mortgages" as collateral for the loans he made. When people couldn't pay back their loans, he seized their property and became rich.

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   Posted by ms-mcgregor on Friday September 12, 2008 at 9:11 PM
   
   

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