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The Devil and Tom Walker
At the beginning of Washington Irving's tale "The Devil and Tom Walker," it is unclear what the title character does for a living. The narrator notes that Tom is both "meager" and "miserly."...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
In his dealings with "Old Scratch," Tom Walker refuses to outfit a slave ship as originally requested by the Devil: "Tom resolutely refused: he was bad enough in all conscience, but the Devil...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
Tom Walker's prime motivation for agreeing to the devil's terms is to get his hands on the buried treasure of the pirate Kidd. Tom schemes to keep the treasure for himself and not share it with his...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
When Tom Walker encounters him, the Devil is busy cutting down trees. He tells Tom Walker that he will have a good harvest of firewood for winter. As Tom surveys his surroundings, he realizes that...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
From his reaction to the swamp and the skull, we can infer that Tom Walker is not easily intimidated or swayed by public opinion and popular superstitions. We can also infer that Tom Walker has a...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
Washington Irving begins this short story by describing its setting. Some miles from Boston, Massachusetts, there is a deep body of water. It ends in a wooded swampland, which has different trees...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
"Melancholy" is an interesting and appropriate word to use for the description of a location that has relevance to the mood of the writing. This term is often loosely defined as sad, gloomy or...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
When Tom initially meets the devil, Old Scratch tells him to get off of his grounds. Tom responds by saying that the grounds belong to Deacon Peabody. The devil then comments, "As I flatter myself...
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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
Irving portrays the dark side of religion and wealth through the actions of the main character, Tom Walker, who uses both very selfishly. When Tom makes his deal with the Devil to give high...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
I think Washington Irving's main purpose for writing "The Devil and Tom Walker" was to critique and warn of the dangers of greed. In the story, Tom Walker meets a man in the woods who is implied to...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
The Devil being referred to as "The Black Man" mostly likely has no one true origin in literature, but was a euphemism that had become widely accepted by the time period of Irving and Hawthorne....
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The Devil and Tom Walker
Two cultural attitudes which might be deduced from Washington Irving's short story "The Devil and Tom Walker" involve slavery and usury. Although slavery thrived in the southern states in the early...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
In Washington Irving's "The Devil and Tom Walker" the title character makes a Faustian bargain with the devil. After meeting "old scratch" in a swamp he yearns for the riches which the incarnation...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
The man in the swamp probably likes Tom for having a fearless, tough attitude. This happens near the beginning of the story. Tom is taking "an ill-chosen shortcut" through a dark and creepy patch...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
Good question! Many readers stop paying attention to the text after they find out that the devil has carried Tom away on his black horse, into the swamp, which is struck by lightning and bursts...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
Usually if the incarnation of the devil is a character in a story, it can be assumed that he is the antagonist. An antagonist is a character in opposition to the main character or protagonist. Even...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
Originally created in the middle ages, the legend of Faust or Doctor Faustus, as he was later named by the English playwright Christopher Marlowe, is about a man who sells his soul to the devil. In...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
Folktales are defined as stories or legends that are passed down through generations as part of an oral tradition. They typically focus on universal themes and contain supernatural elements....
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The Devil and Tom Walker
Because the white religions condemn him, the "black woodsman" or "old scratch" seems to revel in the persecution of whites. He notes that the Indians, who first settled the woods where he lives,...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
"The Devil and Tom Walker" begins by establishing a legend surrounding Captain Kidd, a pirate and privateer who once operated in the New England area. Kidd supposedly had amassed a large fortune,...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
The narrator of the short story "The Devil and Tom Walker" describes how Tom sets up his business as a money lender "at this propitious time of public distress," when people were absolutely...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
The narrator of "The Devil and Tom Walker" sometimes reports events by starting with "It is said that..." instead of just stating straightforwardly that the event definitely happened. Even more...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
The opening paragraph of Washington Irving's short story "The Devil and Tom Walker" describes a wooded area just outside the city of Boston. It is here that the greedy Tom Walker first meets "old...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
A good general statement about Tom would probably refer to his personality and demeanor, but a better statement would evaluate this as well as his role in the plot and his contribution to the...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
Washington Irving uses both direct and indirect characterization to portray the personality traits of Tom Walker in the short story "The Devil and Tom Walker." In the second paragraph Irving comes...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
Tom looked in the direction that the stranger pointed, and beheld one of the great trees, fair and flourishing without, but rotten at the core... The quote is slightly modified from its more...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
Toward the end of the story, after Tom has struck his bargain with the devil and received his riches, he begins to grow old. We read that he becomes "thoughtful" and "anxious," even that he feels...
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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
Toward the end of his life Tom Walker, the main character in Washington Irving's short story "The Devil and Tom Walker," becomes a terrible hypocrite. A hypocrite is someone who pretends to have...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
This is a great question! The narrator doesn't tell us why, but we could take some good guesses based on information from the story. First, let's take a close look at that spot: "Trustees were...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
The story begins with a prologue, which was probably intended to provide the story with elements of the Romantic genre as well as a distinct "American" quality. The prologue establishes that...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
"The Devil and Tom Walker" is Washington Irving's tale about a greedy man who sells his soul to the devil to become wealthy. It is based on the German story of Faust. Tom Walker first meets the...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
In the story, the trees that the Devil cuts down for firewood represent the souls of men. We know this because the text describes trees inscribed with the names of great men on their trunks. The...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
When Tom Walker takes a short cut home, his trek leads him through the swamp and he encounters a number of obstacles and frightening sights and sounds. This shortcut of Walker is, in reality, an...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
Let's look closely at those lines. They appear near the beginning of the story, when it's a particularly good time to pay attention to any imagery. (Why? Imagery, especially near the very start of...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
Mrs. Walker is a miserly woman always battling with her husband. Mrs. Walker does not have a good relationship with her husband. She hides things from him and fights with him. He had a wife as...
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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
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
As was mentioned in the previous post, Tom and his wife share a very contentious relationship. They are continually trying to "cheat" each other by hiding valuables from one another. Tom and his...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
What an interesting question! As we answer it, I think we'll see that the story is universal: that it could happen anywhere, during any time, because it's simply the story of someone so greedy and...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
The latter half of "The Devil and Tom Walker" describes the remainder of Tom's life after he makes a deal with Old Scratch, the terms of which are implied to be his soul in exchange for a great...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
One main character is Kidd. Without him the story can't really happen. He is an old, dead and gone pirate that made a deal with the devil to secretly hide his treasure. Tom Walker is the main...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
Early in the short story, Tom Walker and his wife are both described as miserable. Even though they didn't have a lot, they both hid what they could from each other. Although Tom was described as...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
In the story, Tom Walker's residence undergoes a rapid transformation after his success as an usurer. Let's first analyze the look of his house prior to this change. They lived in a forlorn...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
Tom eagerly accepts the occupation of usurer, which is a somewhat outdated term for a person who lends money at an unreasonably high rate of interest. As part of his agreement with "Old Scratch"...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
First, the story includes the famous scene at the pine and hemlock swamp where Tom Walker meets the devil or Old Scratch. Tom makes a pact with Old Scratch; however, this fact taken alone, may...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
This quote is a reference to the Salem Witch Trials, an infamous event in early American history in which various women in and around the village of Salem, Massachusetts, were accused of...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
In "The Devil and Tom Walker", Tom begins reading the Bible in order to keep the devil from claiming his soul. Earlier in the book, Tom struck a bargain with the devil that he can have his soul in...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
Tom never really says how he knows that "Old Scratch" is the Devil; in fact, he never even explicitly states that the two are one and the same. However, in the language of the time period,...