The Devil and Tom Walker

When Tom Walker meets the Devil, the Devil tells him, "I am the great patron and prompter of slave-dealers." Therefore, Irving suggests that slave traders are diabolical and are associated with the...

“The Devil and Tom Walker” is an 1824 short story written by Washington Irving and appearing in his Tales of a Traveller collection. Tom and his wife have a combative and secretive relationship,...

The agreement between Tom Walker and the the devil in "The Devil and Tom Walker" has a variety of terms and conditions. According to the most basic terms of the deal, the devil promises to give Tom...

Tom Walker and his equally miserly wife live in a house in New England that "stood alone and had a look of starvation." This "forlorn-looking" building is surrounded by a few scrawny, sterile trees...

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...

The characterization in this story is a mixture of direct and indirect characterization. Indirect characterization occurs when the reader must deduce for himself or herself the characteristics of...

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...

The trees and the swamp support a grim, foreboding mood that characterizes Tom Walker as an unpleasant character. He is hard already, willing to take risks that would repel the average person. He...

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...

How's this? "Tom's wife was a tall termagant." A termagant is "a violent, turbulent, or brawling woman. or When Tom sticks his walking stick into the ground he finds a human skull with an...

"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...

First, a sense of the supernatural infests the ominous swamp that Tom Walker is not afraid to cross (though others are) on the way home. He behaves as if he is oblivious to its dangers, and...

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,...

The Devil and Tom Walker is the kind of story that has a great moral lesson to it. The devil wants to make a deal with Tom Walker, but Tom isn't so sure. He goes home to talk it over with his wife....

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...

The most significant lesson to be learned from Washington Irving's short story concerns the harmful effects of unrestrained greed and malice. Throughout the short story, Tom Walker is a miserly...

In the exposition of Washington Irving's "The Devil and Tom Walker," the descriptions of the Walkers' "forlorn-looking" house and the "miserable" horse that have "an air of starvation" about them...

In Washington Irving's short story "The Devil and Tom Walker," the protagonist, Tom Walker, is described as a "meagre, miserly" fellow who conspires to cheat his wife—who is equally as meagre and...

At the end of Washington Irving's short story "The Devil and Tom Walker," Tom Walker, who is a moneylender, is foreclosing a mortgage. This foreclosure will ruin the speculator who borrowed the...

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...

In addition, the downed trees have names engraved on them that Tom recognizes. These people he remembers as being "wealthy and important" to society in the past, and should have been his...

As was mentioned in the previous post, Tom Walker and his wife are both greedy, cantankerous, miserable individuals. At the beginning of the story, Irving describes Tom's wife as being "termagant"...

Old Scratch offers Tom Walker Kidd the pirate's buried treasure in exchange for his soul. Irving writes that Tom never disclosed the "certain conditions" agreed upon during their meeting, but it is...

An early indication that Washington Irving was about to satirize the Quaker and Puritan influences that permeated New England during the period he depicts in his short story “The Devil and Tom...

The tone of a story is the author's attitude toward the subject, and the mood is the emotional landscape. The tone of the story changes the mood. So at the times when the story is satirical, you...

The reader need not invest too much time in Washington Irving’s short story “The Devil and Tom Walker” to develop a sense of the setting in which the story takes place. Irving, in fact, begins “The...

Washington Irving cleverly satirizes the institution of marriage, Puritan culture, and the slave trade at various moments in the short story “The Devil and Tom Walker.” Irving satirizes the...

Tom Walker and his wife are extremely greedy, insensitive people who are both willing to sell their souls to the devil in exchange for wealth. At the beginning of the short story, Tom's unhealthy...

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...

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...

In the story, Tom Walker makes a pact with Old Scratch, or the devil, after his wife dies at the devil's hands. For his part, Tom finds little to mourn about his wife's death. In fact, he believes...

The factors that contributed to Tom's initial refusal to the Devil are as follows:Tom didn't want to accept the Devil's offer because he wasn't sure whether he wanted to make his wife happy by...

When Tom Walker comes upon the Devil, Tom is not at all shaken. He is not afraid in the slightest, in part because his wife is such a difficult woman that he is used to this kind of abuse. He in...

Though Tom doesn't recognize the man he encounters in the swamp as the devil right away, it doesn't take him long. Washington Irving describes the man, saying, Tom lifted up his eyes and beheld a...

The stranger in the woods is better known to Tom as "Old Scratch", which is really just another name for the Devil. However, he is never actually named as the Devil specifically, but this is...

In "The Devil and Tom Walker," a story that is an indictment against American economics and dealings as driven by greed, Washington Irving employs satire. He also satirizes religious hypocrisy and...

Washington Irving employs strong natural imagery to establish a mood capturing the fear of supernatural forces that pervaded the Puritan colonies. The landscape outside the Puritan settlement is...

Dark Romanticism is a form of literature that uses the mysterious and dark settings characteristic of Romanticism as a whole in ways that are often threatening and scary. Dark Romantic settings are...

The most significant way in which Tom displays hypocrisy is through religion. Tom has cut a deal with the Devil (here named Old Scratch) to trade his soul for a buried pirate treasure. Tom is...

In Washington Irving's "The Devil and Tom Walker," there are several mentions of the devil's influence or presence in America's "goings on." When he and Tom Walker initially meet in the woods, the...

In "The Devil and Tom Walker" Tom tries to get out of his deal with the devil by becoming religious. As he grows older Tom starts to attend church services and pray and sing loudly. In fact, the...

At this point in "The Devil and Tom Walker," Tom has made his pact with the devil and grown rich as a moneylender. Now he is getting old and is beginning to regret the pact, so he tries to find a...

Tom Walker's wife is depicted as a termagant, selfish woman who loves confrontation and continually argues with her husband. After learning about the deal Old Scratch offered her husband, Tom's...

I believe that Washington Irving definitely creates an atmosphere of eeriness in "The Devil and Tom Walker." Here are some ways in which he achieves this. Irving begins by detailing the swamp that...

When Tom returns him to his wife and tells her all about his meeting with Old Scratch, we learn his reason for not making a deal. According to the text: However Tom might have felt disposed to...

One of the most important relationships that must be understood in “The Devil and Tom Walker” is the one that exists between Tom and his wife. The reader should understand that Tom and his wife do...