“The Devil and Tom Walker” Allegory Throughout the history of literature there have been many prominent and robust allegories published. “The Devil and Tom Walker” is a short story written by Washington Irving.
An allegory can be represented as a story, poem, or essay that can be picked apart to reveal a hidden meaning, usually a moral or political one. Many renowned allegories written throughout time contain an essential ingredient, symbolism. Symbolism uses images and indirect suggestions to express mystical ideas, emotions, and states of mind. In an allegory like “The Devil and Tom Walker” the fantastic elements are “real” in the sense that they represent something else (Piedmont-Marton 55). The story of “The Devil and Tom Walker” is
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The intelligence and precision of Irving’s writing helps convey a greater and more meaningful moral message to the audience. Ultimately, the symbols and characters comply with the imagery and imagination used to reveal the theme of self greed. Irving uses Old Scratch, Tom Walker, and the swamp to help exemplify the symbols of greed, moral corruption, and temptation in the story of “The Devil and Tom Walker”. Greed is portrayed in many different interesting ways in works of literature written throughout the ages. In “The Devil and Tom Walker”, greed is represented in a multitude of characters and items. From Tom Walker’s wife to the swamp, greed is represented immensely throughout the story. The most notable representation of greed is Tom Walker himself. Tom Walker is a stingy man who wants the world for himself. Tom, a poor business man, will do anything for wealth. He does not want to share anything with anyone, even his own wife, let alone witness her take pleasure in anything that Tom does not get to enjoy first. One day as Tom is walking through the woods, he meets a dark man who is chopping down trees. The man, named Old Scratch, informs Tom that he is the devil and offers him a wish of …show more content…
Many of the everyday and small temptations we face entail minimum consequences. In the case of Tom Walker, he meets the devil known as “Old Scratch”. In Many stories that contain the devil, the devil represents temptation; the story of Tom Walker is no different. Tom's interactions with Old Scratch illustrate just how disastrous greed and temptation can be. The devil identifies Tom’s weakness of greed and tempts him with the thing Walker craves most in life, wealth. It is the Devil’s usual place in literature to tempt other characters, often by providing some hapless character a deal “too good to refuse”(Wilson 50). Old Scratch uses Kidd the pirate’s treasure as bait to reel Tom in, and once he got him hooked, there was no return for Tom. Old Scratch exploits Tom’s weakness to the point of complete devotion of Tom’s soul to him. Temptation is usually fueled by an accomplice, and in The Devil and Tom Walker it is greed and the desire for power. The devil also uses the death of Tom’s wife to anchor Tom into finalizing the deal. Ultimately, temptation is what gets Tom Walker killed at the end of the story. If Tom were to put down his urges for mass amounts of wealth in the “wrong” way, his wife would have lived and he would also not have had his soul taken away from him in the end. With that being said, Old Scratch is the symbolic representation of temptation in the story of “The Devil and Tom
In conclusion, Tom Walker is a man known as miserly, brave, parsimony. Tom Walker character describes him as a hypocrite man with a clapper clawing wife. He shows his actual personality by following the footsteps of the devil. Furthermore, Tom is a man who greed for something that is not great. ‘’ The Devil and Tom Walker’’ by Washington Irving proves what kind of unfaithful man he is from the challenges and obstacles that was face. This story mainly tells about many actions that brought forces upon
Throughout “The Scarlet Letter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne and “The Devil and Tom Walker” by Washington Irving, the topics of sin and religion are addressed. Both stories share the similar idea of how sin and religion are present in their Puritan societies. Throughout The Scarlet Letter we interpret the ideas of sin and how it relates to to the concept of religion surrounding the community. In The Devil and Tom Walker we are left to analyze the actions and beliefs of a complex character, and how it relates to sin and religion. Overall, both stories are comprable because of their topics of sin and religion and how they relate to specific characters beliefs, actions, and behavior.
A Faustian legend is a story in which a character trades something of great personal value to the devil in order to receive personal gain. Since this type of literature originated in the Fourth Century it has spread throughout the world. Two relatively recent versions of this legend are “The Devil and Tom Walker” by Washington Irving and “The Devil and Daniel Webster” by Vincent Benét. These stories show many similarities as well as a few differences. While both Benét and Irving present similar themes in setting of the tales and motivation in the Faustian character, they do differ in the nature of that character and their visual presentation of the Devil.
In the story, “The Devil and Tom Walker,” there is a humorous way of looking at serious topics. Washington Irving shows his thoughts on these topics through the characters in this story. He attacks ways of living and social ideas that he thinks people should live without. In this story, Irving criticizes violence, greed, and false piety.
As people grow up, it is made apparent to them that the Devil is an evil and rather a clever person. The greatest example of the devil in action is when the devil tempts Jesus. As most know, the devil fails to get Jesus to do evil. Jesus is both human and divine while the main character of The Devil and Tom Walker, Tom Walker, is a “meager, miserly fellow”. Unfortunately, Tom Walker is not Jesus so the reader must focus in on Washington Irving’s The Devil and Tom Walker to see just exactly how and when the Devil won his game. Irving portrays to the reader that the devil cannot be beaten at his own game through setting, characters, and plot. As people have seen in sports, the setting of a game (where, when, weather, etc.) can have a big impact on the game. The same goes for The Devil and Tom Walker.
Washington Irving, in writing "The Devil and Tom Walker", and Stephen Vincent Benet, in writing "The Devil and Daniel Webster" illustrate to the reader the consequences of man's desire for material wealth and how a person's motivation for a relationship with the devil affects the outcome of the "deal". In these two different, yet surprisingly similar narratives, the authors present their beliefs about human intent and motive.
A dark forest, full of supernatural events, mystical powers that one cannot even imagine! These are just a few elements in “The Devil and Tom Walker” written by Washington Irving during the Romantic Period. During this period, authors wrote stories with similar characteristics. Irving includes the characteristics of individuality, the supernatural and love of nature in his fascinating story.
The authors of “The Devil and Tom Walker”, “The Black Cat”, and “Prey” all used grotesque or bizarre occurrences as a theme to help get their life lessons across. Moreover, in “The Devil and Tom Walker” the author used grotesqueness to scare people into learning money cannot buy you happiness. Tom Walker’s malevolent wife believed that she would find her utopia if she had money. Tom Walker realized she had never returned home; so one night Tom went out looking for her in the Devil’s woods and “found nothing but a heart and liver tied up…” in an apron perched upon the tree he was looking at (Irving 7). This unsightly scene displays that his wife - who had given up everything to have money - was killed by the Devil and the Devil took her organs and threw them in a tree. Washington Irving’s short anecdote displays the grotesque in order to punctuate his life lesson of money cannot buy you happiness into your brain. In “The Black Cat” the author
In Washington Irving's short story "The Fallen angel and Tom Walker," the hero, Tom Walker, is portrayed as a "pitiful, parsimonious" kindred who contrives to cheat his better half—who is similarly as small and tightfisted as he may be! Together, they live in a stark home, where they frequently battle about material things. Tom is likewise portrayed as not being "bothered with any feelings of dread"; his unceremonious disposition and self-importance result in him encountering the villain himself, Old Scratch, who offers him awesome riches in return for his spirit. Tom's opposite mien makes him conclude that he won't offer his spirit essentially in light of the fact that his significant other needs him to do as such. In spite of this, Tom ends
In today’s society, most individuals struggle with greed and want to have the fanciest lifestyle. Temptation plays a huge role in this context. For example, in the story entitled “The Devil and Tom Walker,” the author, Washington Irving, makes fun of the way people and greed go hand in hand, with the devil in the mix. In the story, Tom wants riches. As he is walking in the swamp, he encounters the devil twice and he falls into temptation.
To begin, in the short story “The Devil and Tom Walker”, awe of nature is used to
Tom Walker is a swarthy man, with residue on him just as he has been tending flames. He is intrepid and goes up against his termagant wife in physical fight, on occasion. In addition, he doesn't dread the fiend. Be that as it may, when he educates his wife regarding this experience with the Devil, he has a severe fight with her.
In the short story "The Devil & Tom Walker" by Washington Irving, the main character's fate is going to hell because of his wrong decisions in life when he sold his soul to the Devil for wealth. Washington Irving reinforces his message about why you shouldn’t make decisions that may damn your soul with the use of romantic literary elements and satire. Religion was widely written about during 1824, the year “The Devil and Tom Walker” was written, due to the large religious population and the fascination with the Devil as an evil wandering spirit. When writing, Irving combines characterization with mood/setting to perpetuate the theme of romanticism in the story for the reader's mind.
Washington Irving also shows the theme of greed by how Tom Walker was a very cheap and greedy moneylender. During the time of this setting in “The Devil and Tom Walker,” people tried to do anything to make money. Joyce states, “while many had a keen sense of business, pothers were unethical in their dogged pursuit of riches (102).” This statement illustrates Tom Walker very. When Tom was discussing the terms of the deal with the devil, Tom wanted to make his interest rate even higher then what the devil origianally planned. Then devil said, “ You shall
In this story we can see many interesting facts about the main character Tom Walker such as his relations with other characters and his own beliefs. In the story we can see how Tom doesn’t accept the deal with the Devil at first, but when his wife dies in hands of the Devil, Tom Walker now accepts to do the deal; however he doesn’t accept because he feels like he has lost everything but because now his wife can’t take away any part of the treasure and now he will do the things he wants for his own good and not to please