Greed Leads to Unwanted Endings Authors of folktale should present a meaningful lesson within their stories. In the folktale, The Devil and Tom Walker by Washington Irving, the lesson is to understand the negative effects of greed. Tom Walker's major character flaw is greed. His greed leads to a series of unfortunate events, which eventually brings him to his final destination, hell with the Devil. There are more important things than money and possessions and at the end of the story this point is emphasized when his prized possessions disappear. Tom clutches his faith for safety, though loses his wife, possessions, and soul in the end. Tom Walker is pleased that his wife is gone. Tom’s original refusal to the Devil's offer evoked his wife to go and attempt her own deal with the Devil. The Devil did not want to make a deal with Tom’s wife. Tom discovers her apron, hung in a tree containing a liver and heart. He becomes upset when he realizes there are no valuable items in the apron. “ ‘Let us get hold of …show more content…
Tom makes people think he is a “universal friend of the needy.” His door is being bombarded with costumers going through the “hard times.” With every loan Tom makes, he grows richer and his self-esteem grows higher, but his ability to feel regret for his doings never changes. He only cares for his own needs and wealth. Thinking of a way out of the bargain with the Devil, Tom decides to cheat himself out of the conditions. As his security progressively grows, it makes him wearier of the consequences of the Devil. Tom begins to carry a bible with him and becomes a “violent churchgoer.” Tom is blind to his sins and thinks one good thing can make up for all the bad. Tom has a “lurking dread that the Devil, after all, would have his due.” The Devil does eventually punish Tom for all his greed and
The Devil and Tom Walker and The Minister 's Black Veil convey the Romantic quality of human nature to be innately evil and greedy. Washington Irving uses both Tom Walker and his wife to depict the greed and evilness within human nature. On Tom 's way home he meets a stranger, the Devil, in the woods who told him that if he agreed to a deal with all the conditions, then he would give him Kidd the Pirate 's treasure. After telling his wife she, "urged her husband to comply with the black mans term and secure what would make them wealthy for life" (Irving 233). After this she goes to collect the money for only herself, which shows that humans are innately greedy and are willing to comply with evil in order to become rich.
Greed can cause a person to focus on the less important things in life. This is a prominent theme in the short story “The Devil and Tom Walker” by Washington Irving. Irving illustrates how awful Tom Walker treated others when he describes how he treats his horse, “He even set up a carriage in the fullness of his vain glory, though he nearly starved the horses which drew it; and as the ungreased wheels groaned and screeched on the axle trees, you would have thought you heard the sound of the poor debtors he was squeezing.” This quote shows how poorly he treated his horse, and how he did not care for his farm. The well-being of a living creature should take precedence over money, but Tom Walker was not focused on the important things in life.
Unfortunately it was too late for Tom because the Devil takes his life before he can help his clients regain their money. Corresponding
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.
Characters in stories sometimes follow a theme when it comes to their traits. These traits are called archetypes. Archetypes can be as simple as a villain or hero. They can also be used to portray unfathomable human characteristics that exists in everyone. Characteristics such as greed, lust, envy, pride, sloth, and gluttony are examples.
Washington Irving is a famous short story author commonly known for his stories Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle. In Washington Irving’s short stories he tends to focus on one individual instead of the community. When Irving writes his, stories he takes more interest in one character over others. In all of Irving’s stories, he puts a focus on one main character. Whether it be Tom Walker in The Devil and Tom Walker, Rip in Rip Van Winkle, or Ichabod in Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
In conclusion these are the influence in the decision making process of the couple in The Box, and The Devil and Tom Walker. The conclusion of the story ‘’The Devil and Tom Walker, is that the devil wins and Tom is forced to pay his debt to the devil. He got rid out of it by becoming religious, but in the end he had to own up to what he had done. The devil rode back into the dark woods, to symbolize sending Tom to hell.
He was tormented by society because of his actions from his past, towards a child. This, as well as the death of his friend, made Tom suffer severely. Tom, had lots of faith in God, which he though should have helped save his friend. Once Tom lost faith, he agonised and was doubtful of almost everything. This torment can be seen through the simile, “Tom is like the dark interior of a house”, as Tom is looked upon by society as bad and as a madman, going crazy from his past.
He thinks about the fragility of one man versus the strength of unity and recites some of the Scripture that Jim Casy taught him. Tom is tired of seeing starving men needlessly suffer while avaricious landowners do nothing to alleviate their plight. He is angry that “people livin’ like pigs, an’ the good rich lan’ layin’ fallow, or maybe one fella with a million acres, while a hunderd thousan’ good farmers is starvin’”(Steinbeck 288) He decides he wants to fight back against the injustice and thievery. Tom changes significantly as a result of Casy’s death.
Compare and Contrast In the stories “The Devil and Tom Walker” by Washington Irving and “The Devil and Daniel Webster” by Stephen Vincent Benét there are many similarities as well as differences. Both stories are centered around a devil, in both stories the main character sells his soul, both settings were in North East. Some differences that will be pointed out are the differences in the devil's appearance, the length of the deals, the families, and the outcome of the two stories. Tom Walker and Jabez Stone were two very completely different men with the same problem, and a completely different outcome.
In both “The Devil and Daniel Webster and “The Devil and Tom Walker, they both came face to face with the devil. They had different strategies on how to confront the devil. In the two short stories, the resolution, the depictions of the devil, and the role of religion or the saving grace are the similar and different things. The main idea of both stories is the resolution of what had happened to Daniel and Tom.
The story “The Devil and Tom Walker” takes place in a stagnant, lonely and treacherous forest. The author, Washington Irving, while writing was also a satirist and a lawyer. He made short fiction popular and was a very original writer. The characters in this story include Tom Walker, Tom Walker’s wife, and the devil. The conflict in this story is when Tom Walker realizes that he does not want to go to hell, so he makes a deal with 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.
Tom thinks about how if he dies, the only thing in his pocket will be a sheet of paper with calculations and observations about a grocery story. He thinks about how to the people that find him, it will mean nothing. He thinks to himself, “Contents of the dead man’s pockets, he thought with a sudden fierce anger, a wasted life.” (p 123) He realizes that he has wasted his life focusing on things that are not important.
His mother pesters him; she claims that he compromises his job, because he goes out late every night. Tom evaluates his conditions and his desires and stands up for them. He says that he hates his job and would much rather escape. According to Miller, therefore, tragedy comes with an element of hope. The result of a character's evaluation himself, and therefore him standing up for himself, leads to the audience to believe that the character will act and change his condition.