Washington Irving's Use Of Satire In The Devil And Tom Walker

In the short story “The devil and Tom Walker”, Washington Irving uses satire to ironically criticize the institution of marriage, avariciousness and the consequences of greed at this time period, which is shown and represented by the protagonist’s marriage and his selfish desire for wealth in the story. Irving Washington was born in 1783 and died in 1859. In 1815, Irving began travelling through Europe, remaining there for 17 years. With the encouragement of Sir Walter Scott the author of Ivanhoe and a fan of Irving’s history, he began writing a series of stories that blended the legends of Europe with the tales he had heard while wandering in New York. The collection was widely successful. Washington Irving spent most of his life

This shows the author as a very honest, genuine and open minded person especially when it came to religious problems. The setting of the story also really contributes to its past event, by setting the event in New England, Irving is invoking the countries colonial past, Irving uses the setting of the play to properly convey and establish a well situated and true story by connecting the setting to the events that took place in the story. In the short story “The devil and tom walker”, Tom walker was a very miserly man living a very miserly life, one evening he set out to go to his house through a shorter path, through the swamp. On his way he ended up meeting a black man who was later on revealed as the devil, the black man decided to make a deal with tom walker by granting him wealth and money for his soul, tom agreed to the term and later on tried to deceive the devil but he was later taken to hell on the devils horse. Washington Irving use the setting of tom walker going through the swamp as a foreshadow of his descend to darkness and his lust for greed,