Rachel Powell
Mrs. Gehbauer
English 3- Virginia
30 November 2015
His Greed Makes Him His Own God
Tom Walker is obsessed with power. His love for greed is over-powering and he will do anything to advance himself economically, even going above the health and safety of his wife. After his wife’s death, he seems unfazed, and continues forward pursuing the devil. The Devil and Tom Walker is one of Washington Irving’s most remembered stories. The Devil and Tom Walker is inspired by the German folktale of Faust. Irving takes the legend of Faust meeting the devil and selling his soul to him and transplants it into a New England setting. Washington Irving is one of the earliest known writers in the American Romanticism period. American Romanticism
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After tracking the devil through the forest and finally finding him, Tom tries to strike a deal with the Devil. After a little push and shove, Tom talks the devil out of [Tom] being a slave trader and instead a usurer in Boston. While discussing his deal with the devil and negotiating what to charge customers, the devil orders, “’You shall open a broker’s shop in Boston next month’ ‘I’ll do it tomorrow, if you wish,’ said Tom Walker.‘You shall lend money at two percent a month.’‘Egad, I’ll charge four!’ replied Tom Walker” (Irving 9-10). Tom is very quick to jump to charging the customer more, knowing that the more he charges, the more goes into his pocket. He is very eager to please the devil and does not have any issues complying with his [the devil’s] requests. When Tom is first introduced to the reader at the start of the story, Irving uses harsh adjectives to describe Tom, stating that he is a “Meager, Miserly Fellow” (Irving 1). Tom is lost in his greed for money and power. He is very stingy with his money, and a miserable excuse for a human, since he is overcome with his greed and selfishness that consumes him. Tom Walker is a sickening symbol of what happens when humans become consumed in greed- they lose their soul to the obsession of obtaining
And when Tom tells his wife about the strange encounter, she greedily pleads and encourages him to accept the devils’ offer (Page 319, Line 151), but only to spite her he refuses (Page 319, Line 153-156). “He was not damned to please her.” (Page 319, Line 155). When she finds that she is unable to change his mind, she sets out to find the devil herself, planning to offer her own soul for the same prize, a rumored buried treasure. She takes all of her household possessions that were worth anything of value, and sets out to find old scratch.
He had to learn how to play the devil and become smarter than him. The devil took many things away from Tom, but he didn’t let that stop him. This story gave a great lesson, and really brings out the greatness in Irving’s writing. The way Irving writes really portrays the characters with much description really brings them to life.
The Devil and Tom Walker had a very sad and truthful ending to it. The story talks about how the man spent his last days trying to turn to God in hope that God could save him from the Devil’s wrath. Then the story says that Tom Walker was seen being taken on the back of a black horse as the Devil came to collect and was never seen again. The sad truth that this the story is telling is that your actions affect how your life will turn out. Someone could have saved Tom Walker if he would have been more generous and respectful to the other people around him.
Behind all the characters presented in The Devil and Tom Walker, there is a slave trader figure with extreme greed that sacrifices his own conscience to earn large profits and treats people the same way as property.
The selling of one’s soul to the devil is caused by one’s goal to obtain something of great value like, fame, fortune and power. Which leads one to getting hurt or losing everything. The story and the movie had various motivations, by dealing with the consequences. Foremost, In Washington Irving's “The Devil and Tom Walker” demonstrates his motivation of greed by dealing with the devil.
Eventually, the devil comes to collect Tom's soul, and Tom is never seen again along with all of his possessions. The story is a cautionary tale about the dangers of greed and the consequences of making deals with the devil. Irving adapts omens and grotesqueness; two gothic elements into this short story.
Created in the midst of neoclassicism, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” by Washington Irving is an American classic, and a common tale to tell around the campfire. In a time of reconnection with the roots of Greek and Roman schools, this gothic tale was created and holds up to other more free form stories that of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. How, you may ask, is this possible? How can a time of critical thinking and harsh minds swell under the creepy campfire story that is “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”. The answer can be found in similar Knickerbocker stories.
In The Devil and Tom Walker the author portrays archetypes in the characters Tom Walker, Mrs. Walker, and the Devil. Initially, archetypes can be found in Tom Walker. The archetype that Tom portrays is that of greed. The narrator explains, “… there once lived near this place a meagre miserly fellow of the name of Tom Walker.” (Irving online).
Throughout the course of this story Tom Walker becomes a religious man. “He became, therefore, all of a sudden, a violent churchgoer.” Tom becomes a “violent churchgoer” in effort to avoid having his soul taken b y the devil. Still, Tom continues to drive people to bankruptcy. Deacon
I have been tasked with writing an alternate ending to washington Irving's “the devil and tom walker”. Irving was a writer of folktales, this particular folktale takes place a few miles from boston massachusetts, it foretells of a man and a woman who try to make a deal with the devil. the woman fails and is never seen again but tom walker, the man, succeeded and became a very rich and prosperous man as a usurer or a money lender however as the years passed by, Tom grew older and while in dealings with a man he mistakenly yelled “devil take me” and in “The Devil and Tom Walker” the devil did indeed take him that very night. My alternative ending will begin on page 244, in the second column at “Tom lost his patience and his piety--”.
“The Devil and Tom Walker” and “The Devil and Daniel Webster”-- these Faust legends tell stories of ordinary men with thirsts for wealth and luck only in exchange for their very souls. Both were written in different time periods, where certain events and happenings influenced each of the stories and their conflicts. Washington Irving wrote “The Devil and Tom Walker” during a time of economic boom (1824). Stephen Vincent Benet wrote “The Devil and Daniel Webster” during a time of economic depression (1937). Despite the stories’ titles, both have different resolutions, depictions of the devil, and saving graces in the end.
He steals his experience through bribes and reconstructs it.” (John le Carre) In relation to the author of The Devil Take Tomorrow, this quote proves to be exceptionally prevalent. One of the key aspects that I enjoyed about this novel was Jeannette’s writing style. She constructed the syntax and concepts in such a way that it felt as if the book was written in the 1700’s, with long, complex sentences teeming with imagery and pre-industrial diction.
I danced for the Devil; I saw him; I wrote in his book; I go back to Jesus; I kiss His hand. I saw Sarah Good with the Devil! I saw Goody Osburn with the Devil! I saw Bridget Bishop with the Devil!” Betty: “I saw George Jacobs with the Devil!
In the story, “The Devil and Daniel Webster” the main character is Daniel Webster, and he is a lawyer who helped Jabez Stone from the hands of the devil. He and the devil held the trial in Stone’s kitchen with dead jury and judge. At the end of the story, Daniel appealed to jury and the judge as men who contributed to mankind, and he saved Jabez Stone from the devil. At the same time, he saved himself from the devil. On the contrary, “The Devil and Tom Walker”, the main character, realized that his deal with the devil was bad for him, he tried to deceive the devil.
Satire is used by many famous writers to create humor and to criticize people’s unwise, and senseless actions. As George Orwell once said, "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." (Orwell, 1945). People will always be greedy and think they are smarter than others but this is untrue. The one who thinks he is smarter or better than the other will always end up losing in life.