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 Devil and Tom Walker” with a rather detailed description of the setting in which his protagonist, the titular figure of Tom Walker, first encounters “Old Scratch,” the dark-skinned and exceedingly gruff individual who will be revealed as the embodiment of Satan:
A few miles from Boston, in Massachusetts, there is a deep inlet winding several miles into the interior of the country from Charles Bay, and terminating in a thickly wooded swamp or morass. On one side of this inlet is a beautiful dark grove; on the opposite side the land rises abruptly from the water's edge into a high ridge, on which grow a few scattered oaks of great age and immense size.
The year is 1727. The setting is rural Massachusetts, a heavily wooded area surrounding a swamp. Irving’s protracted description emphasizes the foreboding nature of the environment in which Tom will make his fateful encounter—an encounter the ramifications of which he can only barely comprehend. Note in the following passage the author’s use of haunting imagery to emphasize the nature of the tale that will follow:
The swamp was thickly grown with great, gloomy pines and hemlocks, some of them ninety feet high, which made it dark at noonday and a retreat for all the owls of the neighborhood. It was full of pits and quagmires, partly covered with weeds and mosses, where the green surface often betrayed the traveler into a gulf of black, smothering mud; there were also dark and stagnant pools, the abodes of the tadpole, the bull-frog, and the water-snake, where the trunks of pines and hemlocks lay half-drowned, half-rotting, looking like alligators sleeping in the mire.
Irving employed images intended to invoke nightmarish scenarios. Phrases like “gloomy pines and hemlocks,” “full of pits and quagmires,” “gulf of black,” and “dark and stagnant pools” all suggest a gothic and frightening atmosphere. For a story about an ignorant, poor, “meager and miserly” man with an ill-tempered and domineering wife who encounters and makes a deal with the Devil, Irving’s choice of a setting was entirely appropriate.
Less evocative of such a scenario, but consistent with the story’s theme, is the second main setting in “The Devil and Tom Walker.” Having shook hands with the Devil, Tom is transported to urban environs of Boston, where he occupies a position of responsibility while seated at a desk. Tom had sold his soul for short-term financial success and was occupying entirely different housing, at least until the long-anticipated bill came due. In the meantime, he is something of a responsible if avaricious citizen of the city, a church-going member of the community.
Irving switches settings consistent with the change in fortunes of his protagonist. This is New England in the years soon following...
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the infamous witch trials of Salem. Puritanism is intermingled with sin. Irving describes the setting at the conclusion of his, and Tom’s story as follows:
The good people of Boston shook their heads and shrugged their shoulders, but had been so much accustomed to witches and goblins, and tricks of the devil, in all kinds of shapes, from the first settlement of the colony, that they were not so much horror-struck as might have been expected.
The story concludes where it began, in the woods occupied by Old Scratch. All vestiges of Tom Walker’s existence, and successes, have been destroyed.
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 by Quakers and Puritans. These people were very religious, almost to the point of fanaticism. In “The Devil and Tom Walker,” the author reinvents the Faustian tale of selling one’s soul to the devil for money. Tom Walker, who seems very pious on the outside, is in reality a sinner who has sold his soul to the devil. The story is a satire of people who present a pious image on the outside but are not what they seem to be.
In addition, the author describes a dark, mossy swamp. This is where Tom will meet the devil, and therefore it is important. “on the opposite side the land rises abruptly from the water’s edge into a high ridge, on which grow a few scattered oaks of great age and immense size. Under one of these gigantic trees, according to old stories, there was a great amount of treasure buried by Kidd the pirate.” The author goes on to tell us that Kidd sold his soul to the devil, so this description is foreshadowing for what will happen later. When Tom meets the devil in the swamp, it is described as: “full of pits and quagmires, partly covered with weeds and mosses, where the green surface often betrayed the traveler into a gulf of black, smothering mud; there were also dark and stagnant pools, the abodes of the tadpole, the bullfrog, and the water snake; where the trunks of pines and hemlocks lay half-drowned, half-rotting, looking like alligators sleeping in the mire.” The swamp is a reflection of the sin-stained souls of the people who go there to sell themselves to the devil. It is no accident that the large trees standing there are representative of the souls the Devil has purchased; when he cuts them down, this symbolizes the end of the sinner’s life and his eventual arrival in Hell.
What is the setting of the story "The Devil and Tom Walker" by Washington Irving?
There are basically three physical settings, all in New England, which provide the backdrop for Washington Irving's tale "The Devil and Tom Walker." The time is "about" 1727, when New England was a colony of Great Britain and, as Irving reports, the area was beset by earthquakes. One of the physical settings is "a thickly wooded swamp or morass" populated by groves of hemlock trees and a "few scattered oaks." This is the lair of "Old Scratch" as Tom calls him, but is in reality the incarnation of the devil. He lives in these woods and protects the treasure of "Kidd the pirate," buried under a tree many years before the events of the story.
Another setting is Tom Walker's house near the swamp. It is "forlorn-looking" with "an air of starvation." Irving describes it as a sterile place marked by "straggling savin trees." The savin juniper is a low-maintenance shrub and is certainly symbolic of the neglectful ways of Tom Walker since it seems to be the only thing which will grow in the vicinity of his house. The barren nature of the place is further noted by the appearance of Tom's horse, which is "miserable" with "ribs. . . as articulate as the bars of a gridiron." Moreover, the place is referred to as a "land of famine."
After his wife apparently becomes a victim of "Old Scratch," Tom moves to Boston, where he is seen "seated behind his desk in a countinghouse." When he rejects the Devil's request that he become a slave trader, Tom settles on usury and makes his fortune, with the initial capital provided by the Devil, loaning money to Bostonians who are gullible enough to pay the exorbitant interest rates which Tom offers. Finally, Tom is picked up by the Devil and "whisked" off to the "hemlock swamp," which is subsequently hit by a "thunderbolt" and bursts into flames.
What is the setting of the story "The Devil and Tom Walker" by Washington Irving?
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 piety and fanaticism are prevalent among the citizens. It is around the year 1727, and much of the narrative takes place in a forest primeval, much like Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter.
Tom Walker, the main character, heads home by taking a shortcut through a swamp filled with quagmires and pits. As he struggles along, Tom becomes exhausted and sits upon a fallen hemlock trunk where he espies the skull of an Indian with a tomahawk buried in it when a strange figure appears before him, neither "Negro nor Indian" and "begrimed with soot" with "great red eyes." This odd figure is known as Old Scratch, and it is with him that Tom Walker deals.
After Tom strikes his bargain with the devil and his wife dies, he moves to Boston where he becomes "a violent churchgoer" because in his old age he worries about the deal he has made with the devil in the swamp.
The good people of Boston shook their heads and shrugged their shoulders, but had been so much accustomed to witches and goblins and tricks of the Devil...that they were not so..horror struck....
There in Boston, Tom comes to his end.
What and where is the setting in "The Devil and Tom Walker"?
The setting is simply the place that the literary action occurs, although a better and more thorough definition usually includes the time and mood as well. Sometimes the setting is compared to modes of theatrical diction, where the same statement can be said with different accents or tone of voice, lending a different meaning. Likewise, details of the setting, such as night versus day, influence the way in which the action that takes place there is cast.
The overall setting of the story is Massachusetts in the year 1727, about a hundred years before the story was published. After briefly describing the location of a buried treasure (which is not mentioned again), the story's setting moves between a swamp with an old Indian fort, Tom's house, and Boston. The swamp is dark, foreboding and has some supernatural elements that make it a suitable place to put Old Scratch in terms of his characterization; a good majority of the story takes place in the swamp, and contributes to the overall mood of darkness and corruption. Tom's house is forlorn and miserable. Boston is full of people and business and comes across as more upscale.