The Devil and Tom Walker

Compared to the Romantics, Puritans had no connection between their writing and the reader. An abundance of examples can easily be found throughout Irving’s The Devil and Tom Walker, Bonet’s The Devil and Daniel Webster, and Poe’s The Masque of the Red Death. Each of these stories was written to humanize the writing so the readers could connect to it easier. The humanization helped the reader to connect to the characters that were able to defeat evil without God’s help, using the human power…

The Devil and Tom Walker is set in colonial New England and is centered on a man of self-centeredness and greed.The man of Greed was named Tom Walker. Tom Walker sold his soul to the devil for buried gold the devil offered him. The story is a old folks tale about selling your soul to the devil, though this one takes greed to a whole new level. Tom doesn't care about anything but money. Tom doesn't even care when his wife is murdered, he goes ad thanks the devil instead. The theme of The Devil…

read this year has molded the way that I see life and the factors that I consider while making decisions. I’ve learned to never The Great Gatsby has taught me to do whatever makes you happy regardless of what others think. Fitzgerald makes Daisy and Tom seem reckless, ignorant, and selfish, when in reality they’re just doing what makes them happy. “Tom’s got some woman in New York” and Daisy eventually rekindles her past with Gatsby. Yes, the Bucannons mess up people’s lives; no, it’s not okay…

From the thorough description of Tom, one finds out that he isn’t a lovely character. “...there lived near this place a meager, miserly fellow, of the name Tom Walker” (Irving 314). The man also has a wife that is very similar to him, but more aggressive. Birds of a feather flock together, yes? Tom chooses a shortcut one day that leads him in the presence of the Devil. Where he gives him an offer and Tom leaves contemplating it. He briefs his wife about his interaction and in spite of her…

Tom Walker lived in Moscow, Russia, in a massive, upscale apartment building with his wife. They were both very avaricious people, wanting everything for themselves. Tom worked as a mostly corrupt mouthpiece, becoming rich off of over pricing lawyer fees. His wife was a chef at a top-level restaurant in Russia. His apartment is on the outskirts of Russia, near the outer borders of the city. He frequently traveled into the taiga, hiking around and advocating sticky situations; that is until one…

In the short story “The Devil and Tom Walker”, Washington Irving incorporates many distinctly “American” elements in his tale. The setting of the story is Boston Massachusetts when Quakers and Puritans were settled, part of it taking place on an old Indian battle ground- about as American as one can get. Greed also stands out as a very American characteristic in the story. The reader is introduced to Tom Walker and his wife as “a meager, miserly fellow…He had a wife…

Van Winkle”, and “The Devil and Tom Walker.” “The Devil and Tom Walker” tells us of a man who took a shortcut home by going through a forest, but got confronted by the devil. The devil offered him a large sum of money to work as a banker for the rest of his life, and he accepted. At first, the devil,”... Proposed, therefore, that Tom should employ it in the black traffic; that is to say, that he should fit out a slave-ship. This, however, Tom resolutely refused.” The devil offered him the…

burning”(Poe 438). As the unknown force induces fear in him to turn away and back into the chamber. The entrapment is then occasionally metaphoric like Irving uses in “The Devil and Tom Walker” to depict the emotional state of the character like “The house and its inmates had altogether a bad name.”(Irving 322). Which deliberately says what Tom and his wife's emotional state looks like at this moment. The examples above have shown this sense of emotional state and entrapment in Gothic literature…

Gothic elements are used exquisitely and meticulously in gothic-era short stories to captivate the type of mood the author is portraying for the reader. Examples of this are exemplified in: “The Devil and Tom Walker” by: Washington Irving, “The Feather Pillow” by: Horacio Quiroga, “A Rose for Emily” by: William Faulkner, “The Black Cat” by: Edgar Allan Poe, “Prey” by: Richard Matheson, and “The Raven” by: Edgar Allan Poe. Specifically, are significant because they utilize ambiguity and…

to believe) sold his soul to protect. Mr. Crayon imparts that Kidd had hidden his treasure in a Massachusetts swamp near Boston and made a deal with the devil for its protection. Kidd died and the treasure was left in the swamp; the devil still guarding it. Skip time to 1727 in that same area of Massachusetts near the swamp where Tom Walker, a miserly man, lives with his equally miserly, and possibly abusive, wife. Tom’s wife is presented to us as a “scold”, Irving’s choice of words here…