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The Devil and Tom Walker
There is one comment about earthquakes in "The Devil and Tom Walker" and it goes as follows: About the year 1727, just at the time that earthquakes were prevalent in New England, and shook many...
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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
At the beginning of the story, Tom Walker takes a shortcut home by traveling through the ominous swamp, where he comes across Old Scratch. The devil proceeds to offer Tom Walker a fortune in...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
At the beginning of Washington Irving's classic short story "The Devil and Tom Walker," the protagonist is described as being a miserly, greedy man who lives with a termagant wife in a...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
One of the themes of the story is that money isn't everything. This may seem like an old saw, but it's as well to be reminded of it every now and then, as far too many people seem to believe that...
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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
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
During Tom Walker's first meeting with Old Scratch, the Devil proceeds to tell Tom that all the pirate's buried treasure is under his command and protected by his power. Old Scratch also informs...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
"Devil" certainly demonstrates the normal elements of American Romanticism (supernatural encounters, time spent in nature--especially the dark forest, and moral lessons). In regards to...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
The narrator’s attitude toward the events of the story is almost one of detachment. Although the narrator relates the story to us, it is not evident how he feels about what is happening. He is...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
One of the primary themes Washington Irving explores throughout his classic short story "The Devil and Tom Walker" concerns the consequences of greed and avarice. Irving's portrayal of the...
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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
Tom Walker wants to know what the Devil is doing on what is supposed to be Deacon Peabody's property. The Devil replies that the land is now his and points Tom in the direction of a rotten tree. As...
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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
The Devil and Tom Walker was written at a time when Puritanism was in decline. Before this era, it was the ruling doctrine of the American life and informed everything that people did, thought, and...
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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
As the story's title implies, we might consider either the Devil or Tom Walker to be the main character. The Devil is important because "he" (in the guise in which he appears to Tom) drives the...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
I would hesitate to say that Tom Walker comes to realize, on his own accord, that the man he is speaking to is the devil. Tom flat-out asks the man who he is, and then the devil provides multiple...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
It is notable that, when the devil and Tom discuss the particularities of their arrangement, the devil suggests that Tom outfit a slave shape. This, in itself, is evidence enough for Irving's...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
In "The Devil and Tom Walker," Washington Irving writes that: he built himself, as usual, a vast house, out of ostentation; but left the greater part of it unfinished and unfurnished out of...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
Direct characterization is characterization that happens when a narrator or different character directly tells readers about a character. In "The Devil and Tom Walker," direct characterization can...
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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
The strong imagery in the story appeals to various senses. The swamp is dark and forbidding, "grown with great gloomy pines and hemlocks." It is a visual image of pits, quagmires, weeds, moss,...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
After Tom amasses a fortune as a greedy usurer, he begins to worry about his soul and becomes a zealous Christian. Tom vehemently chastises others for their sin and is an enthusiastic churchgoer....
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The Devil and Tom Walker
The exposition when it comes to thinking about the plot and how it develops is the section of the story that establishes the setting, main characters and the conflicts that emerge. Given this it is...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
There isn't very much information given about the Devil that helps us to specifically fit him to any particular theme or stereotype. "Americanizing" him should, by definition, involve attributing...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
Washington Irving is critical of a number of different things in "The Devil and Tom Walker" including religious hypocrisy and avarice. However, the most central target of his criticisms is the...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
Like most of Irving's stories, "The Devil and Tom Walker" is a satire; so because the author is mocking Puritan beliefs and superstitions, hypocritical church members, greedy husbands and wives,...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
This is an interesting question, but I think the "correct" answer will strongly depend upon the reason the question is being asked. For example, if this is a comprehension question to see if...
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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
A thesis statement on Washington Irving's short story The Devil and Tom Walker could be many different things based on the idea upon which you focus your paper. A typical thesis revolves around a...
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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
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
I'm going to assume you mean Tom's initial refusal to accept the Devil's offer. When Tom is talking to the Devil, he decides he better spend some time thinking about the offer before accepting it,...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
When asked to analyze diction, one is meant to consider the words selected by the writer and how those words impact the experience of the story. For "The Devil and Tom Walker," Washington Irving...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
This is a bit difficult to say for certain, because the Puritans, historically, ceased to exist as a distinct cultural group well before the time period that the story is set in. However, American...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
Washington's archetype was Faust, based on the play by Christopher Marlowe (and perhaps other sources of the Faust legend as well.) Faust is the man who sells his soul to the devil in order to...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
The language Washington Irving uses in "The Devil and Tom Walker" allows readers to infer (make a knowledgeable guess) that the setting is sinister and possesses supernatural characteristics. The...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
They are two of the most miserable human beings ever known. They live to make one another's lives miserable. The only reason that Tom does not take the devil up on his proposal is to spite his...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
The reader is never meant to be sympathetic to Tom OR his wife. In the second paragraph, Washington Irving tells us that Tom's wife was, "....fierce of temper, loud of tongue, and strong of...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
The moral of the story, "The Devil and Tom Walker" is that greed will land a person in hell, which is what happens to the very greedy Tom Walker. The deal Tom made with the devil was for money and...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
Tom Walker, who was a greedy man, traded his soul to the Devil for pirate treasure. Tom's wife, who believed herself a better bargainer than Tom, never returned after leaving to meet with the...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
In "The Devil and Tom Walker," Washington Irving centers the story on Tom Walker, a greedy man who is willing to do just about anything to make more money. This all-consuming desire for wealth...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
In Washington Irving's short story The Devil and Tom Walker, the protagonist, Tom, does not immediately accept the devil's offer to place Kidd's treasure within Tom's reach. The circumstances by...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
In "The Devil and Tom Walker" by Washington Irving, the central struggle has to do with Tom's greed. In the beginning of the story, Tom and his wife both display miserly habits and go so far as to...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
The story is set in 1727 (the early eighteenth century), which is a significant time period in American history. A Revolutionary-era person might be interested in Irving's story because it alludes...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
Tom stops at an old forest, where the common folk are afraid to go. As Tom takes his journey through the forest, he stops at the old fort. He knows that the common people feel that the place is...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
It is important to realise that in this story, Irving is updating the traditional archetype concerning a man who makes a deal with the devil only to lose his soul in the end for the new America...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
Irving almost certainly drew a lot of inspiration from the "Faust" storyline, which parallels "The Devil and Tom Walker" in many ways, including the moral lesson. Irving appears to have intended to...
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The Devil and Tom Walker
The rising action in "The Devil and Tom Walker" by Washington Irving consists of all the events that take place between the devil and Tom before the turning point of the story when Tom refuses to...
