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The Devil and Tom Walker
After hearing Tom's report of the deal he had been offered by the devil, whereby he could basically "sell his soul" in return for great wealth (the gold buried by Kidd the pirate), Tom's wife goes...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
Tom encounters the Devil deep in a swamp, dressed more or less as a lumberjack. When he challenges the Devil (while unaware of his true identity) that the land belongs to Deacon Peabody, the Devil...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
One of the first things that is satirized in the story is marriage. Tom and his wife have a rather turbulent relationship and Irving satirizes this by saying that single people passing by their...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
Tom Walker's house mirrors the decay of Tom and his wife's relationship. They are abusive to each other, lazy, and let their horses starve because of their own greed. The lifeless trees and forest...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
The Devil, or Old Scratch as he is called in the story, initially tries to persuade Tom to become a slave-trader. Tom says that even the Devil himself could not persuade him to partake of such an...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
Tom Walker sells his soul to the devil in exchange for great wealth in the form of buried treasure. As part of the deal he must be employed in his lifetime in the devil's service, and to do this...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
Romanticism was a movement in the arts that began as a revolt against the scientific rationalism after the Industrial Revolution. Possessed of a distrust of industry and the city life, Romanticism...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
There are several possible morals, and since it was told as a potential fable or oral tradition, we are supposed to learn from it. Here are some possibilities:1. Money does not bring happiness.2....
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The Devil and Tom Walker
Tom and his delightful wife don't have a very good relationship; in fact, it is downright contentious and hateful. In the second paragraph of the story, we learn that they are such money-grubbers...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
1. Tom Walker is stingy. He does not want to share anything with his wife or witness her taking pleasure in anything that he does not get to enjoy. His house even represents this character trait,...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
In his short story "The Devil and Tom Walker," Washington Irving incorporates many motifs from various folk tales. One of these is the avarice and sanctimonious hypocrisy of the Puritans in Boston...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
Washington Irving makes his disapproval of slavery and the slave trade very clear by making it one of the primary interests of the devil. For example, in the story, the devil describes his...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
Satire is the use of hyperbole, irony, and humor to critique people, institutions, and even social norms. The purpose of satire is to alert people to crucial problems in society and to encourage...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
Washington Irving creates two very miserable characters in his short story, "The Devil and Tom Walker." Tom Walker is a "miserly" man who will do anything for money, even sell his soul to the...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
There appear to be any number of different conflicts that occur in this masterful short story by Washington Irving. These are mainly external conflicts, that is conflicts that are between people...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
The setting of Irving's fictional sketch is New England, a few miles from Boston, Massachusetts, in the early eighteenth century, a historical area settled by Quakers and Puritans where religious...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
Irving is talking satirizing people who show insincere piety and in reality are greedy or covetous. In the story, Tom Walker makes a pact with the devil for wealth. The devil comes through on his...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
The first supernatural element in the story would be the devil, himself. His image cannot be explained with any scientific accounts, and his presence conjures up the image of "the other side."...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
Tom Walker does not change as he ages; he merely grows fearful of the hereafter because he has sold his soul to the Devil. Washington Irving writes that as Tom grows older he begins to feel anxious...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
Washington Irving's "The Devil and Tom Walker" speaks to the age old story of a person desiring something so much that he or she will "sell" his or her soul to the Devil. In the story, Tom...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
Tom Walker and his wife were both misers; "...they were so miserly that they even conspired to cheat each other." Mrs. Walker was a tall, ill-tempered woman who looked like she was angry and had a...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
Washington Irving's "The Devil and Tom Walker" presents a rather wry portrait of a miserly man who will not make a deal with the devil not because he does not want to lose his soul, but because he...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
Imagery, as the name implies, is a description in accordance with human senses, often with emphasis upon certain details or interpretations which associate the imagery with emotion. The same scene,...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
In this brilliant satire by Washington Irving there are certainly any number of examples of humour to pick from. You might however want to analyse the presentation of Tom and his wife, and the kind...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
Probably not. Tom Walker willingly makes a deal with the Devil in exchange for his soul; however, as time progresses, the story states, "As Tom waxed old, however, he grew thoughtful. Having...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
"The Devil and Tom Walker" ends when Tom is shouting at his customer, whom he's about to ruin financially to make a profit for himself, even though they are supposed to be friends. When this...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
Even though the story is one based on a dark legend of one selling his soul to the devil for personal gain, Irving tells it with wry humor. When Irving describes both Tom Walker and his wife, he...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
Irving creates humor, in large part, through irony and subtle sarcasm. Tom Walker and his wife are described in the second paragraph as being extremely miserly. In the next paragraph, he tells...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
In "the Devil and Tom Walker," Washington Irving uses natural surroundings to convey both mood and meaning. When Tom Walker first encounters "Old Scratch," the black man wearing a red sash, he is...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
"The Devil and Tom Walker" contains both physical conflicts and ideological ones. An example of a physical conflict is the one that, according to the most popular legend of the surrounding events,...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
When he is walking in the woods with the devil in the first place, there is no indication that Tom refused the devil right then and there, but rather wanted to ponder it for a while, to see if he...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
In The Devil And Tom Walker, the author's purpose in writing is to warn against avarice and selfishness; he appeals to anyone who thinks that he/she can gamble the happiness of his/her life for...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
The setting in “The Devil and Tom Walker” is very important to the story. The story is set in Boston in 1727, which is important to the theme of the story because it is a place originally settled...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
Tom Walker initially meets "Old Scratch" as he takes a shortcut through the swamp. When Tom reaches the site of an old fort that is said to be abandoned, he kicks at a skull on the ground. When...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
The narration in "The Devil and Tom Walker" is interesting because it doesn't exactly mesh with the content of the text. Typically, stories told about the Devil are frightening, and the narrator is...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
At the beginning of the story, it is established that the treasure, already "ill-gotten", is presided over and guarded by the Devil. In stories like this, that usually doesn't bode well for the...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
At the beginning of the story, Tom's house is described as a "forlorn looking house that stood alone and had the look of starvation". Because of the stinginess and mistrust of both Tom and his...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
Tom's selfish, greedy approach toward religion also manifests itself in his financial decisions. When Tom barters away his soul to the devil and agrees to be a usurer for him, he immediately...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
The mood--that attitude that an author evokes from his readers--in "The Devil and Tom Walker" is humorous and didactic. Irving uses the story to satirize cold marital relationships and...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
Old Scratch, or the black man, or the Devil, tells Tom that he can make him wealthy and allow him to become hugely successful as a money lender in the community. He also asked Tom to be his go-to...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
Washington Irving's "The Devil and Tom Walker" tells of the age old story (originating with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust) of a man willing to sell his soul to the Devil for a better life. In...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
Actually, what's interesting is that the imagery and its purpose vary a fair amount. If you look at the first paragraph of the story, you see fairly realistic and straightforward description,...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
"The Devil and Tom Walker" has elements of both Gothic and Romantic literature, partly because the influences of these genres overlapped the time period in which it was written. Romantic literature...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
Characterization can be defined as the process of "fleshing out" a character by giving details about its thoughts, behaviors, physical qualities, motivations, and other features which contribute to...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
Part of the idea behind Romanticism was to explore the inner nature of man. Here, the whole story focuses on the inner nature of Tom Walker. We see his struggle with his own greed and ambition,...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
The story makes clear that when Tom strikes his bargain with the Devil, he uses the money that he gains to become a usurer; that is a man who lends out money at great interest in order to receive...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
Yes, Irving does imply that there are degrees of sinfulness. One of the more obvious examples of this implication is when the devil suggests to Tom that he make his fortune by slave-trading and...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
I think there is some truth in all of your statements, but perhaps the one that comes closet, for me, is the last. I don't know that Irving believed that "the majority" of the world...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
Irving is trying to show the temporal nature of all things through this symbolism. Money turning to worthless chips, horses reduced to skeletons, and the destruction of a house by fire all point to...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
1. Tom Walker and his wife hate each other and share the vice of greed. 2. Tom meets Old Scratch (the devil) in the forest, and the devil offers to make Tom rich if he will barter away his soul for...
