The Devil and Tom Walker

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The Devil and Tom Walker

• By Washington Irving

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Washington Irving

• The youngest and not too well educated son of a
  pious hardware importer and his amiable wife from
  New York City.
• He had a genius for inventing comic fictional
  narrators.
• In 1815, he was sent off by his father to
  Liverpool, England, to look after a failing
  overseas branch of the family business.

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Washington Irving

• He found the business beyond repair, but loved
  the British literary scene and stayed abroad for
  seventeen years.
• He was particularly attracted to the works of
  Romantic novelist, Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832),
  who gave Irving advice that was to make his
  reputation.
• Scott told the younger writer to read the German
  Romantics and find inspiration in folklore and
  legends.

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Washington Irving

• In 1817, Irving began to write the first drafts
  of stories based on German folk tales.
• These were narrated by one of Irvings comic
  voices, a character he created called Geoffry
  Crayon.
• Irving gave his country its first international
  literary celebrity.
• Today we remember Irving for Rip van Winkle, who
  slept through the American Revolution, and the
  Headless Horseman, who plagued the lovelorn
  Yankee schoolteacher, Ichabod Crane in the dreamy
  glen of Sleepy Hollow, in New Yorks lush Hudson
  Valley.

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The Devil and Tom Walker

• Setting New England in the early 1700s
• A narrator relates a story he has heard about a
  local mans dealings with the devil.
• The narrator never claims that the stories are
  true, only that they are widely believed.
• According to local legend, a treasure is buried
  in dark grove on an inlet outside of Boston.

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The Devil and Tom Walker

• It is said that Kidd the Pirate left the treasure
  there under a gigantic tree and the devil himself
  presided at the hiding of the money, and took it
  under his guardianship.
• Since the pirate Kidd was hanged, no one has
  disturbed the treasure or challenged the devils
  right to it.

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Historical context

• At the time Washington Irving wrote The Devil
  and Tom Walker, in 1824, the US was a new and
  growing country.
• As the land was populated by various groups of
  European immigrants, a uniquely American culture
  slowly formed as the traditions of many different
  groups merged and new traditions, brought on by
  circumstances emerged.

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Historical Context

• In literature, writers such as Washington Irving,
  Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allen Poe, James
  Fennimore Cooper, and Ralph Waldo Emerson
  published works that embodied concepts of
  freedom, religious piety, and independence that
  characterized the country.

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Historical Context

• By 1800, NYC was the largest city in the US, but
  most of the west remained wild and unexplored.
• In 1826, the American Temperance Society was
  founded, giving a voice to those who were
  intolerant of alcohol consumption of any sort.
• In 1828, Andrew Jackson, a man known for his
  efforts to displace many native American tribes,
  causing their widespread starvation and death,
  was elected president.

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Historical Context

• New arrivals to the country, however, were
  uplifted by Americas perceived spirit of
  Romanticism and humanitarianism.
• Irving embraced this feeling of Romanticism in
  fiction, writing long, descriptive passages about
  landscapes and relating the stories of
  hardworking immigrants who carved out a good
  living for their families.

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Historical Context

• In the North, these ideas came to include the
  belief that slavery was immoral, and tension
  between the North and South over this and other
  issues began to rise.
• Much of the literature of this period, like the
  novels of James Fennimore Cooper, were romantic
  tales of adventures of common men, often
  concluding with strong morals outlining Puritan
  ideals of good and evil.
• The Devil and Tom Walker, in which Tom Walker,
  a corrupt individual who gets his come-uppance at
  the hands of the devil, typifies the literature
  of this era.

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The Devil and Tom Walker - Style

• Point of View
• Narrated by Geoffrey Crayon, a fictional
  character created by Irving.
• The first person narration adds to the feeling
  the reader has of being told a story in the oral
  tradition.
• Allegory
• Many folktales are allegories
• In allegories, characters and actions are
  symbolic of larger conditions of human nature.
• The character of Old Scratch personifies evil or
  temptation.
• Tom Walker, an unscrupulous money-lender, makes a
  pact with the devil and only later professes
  religious beliefs.
• Through these actions, Tom represents hypocrisy,
  which Irving shows will be punished.
• Setting
• Set in New England area near Boston in the early
  eighteenth century

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The Devil and Tom Walker Themes

• Greed
• Greed is one of the most important themes of The
  Devil and Tom Walker.
• Hypocrisy is evident throughout.
• Moral Corruption Though Tom Walker is presented
  as an individual who has always been morally
  corrupt, the action of The Devil and Tom Walker
  presents how moral corruption breeds more moral
  corruption, escalating to the greatest corruption
  of all, a pact with the devil.

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The Devil and Tom Walker

• Mood
• The overall feeling or atmosphere of a story,
  play or poem.
• Mood is intangible.
• To identify the mood, focus on the setting,
  paying close attention to the details of time and
  place.
• How does the setting make you feel?
• Look carefully at writers word choice Is a
  tree budding or rotting?
• Consider the plot Does it end happily, or does
  it present a bitter or tragic outlook on life?

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Mood

• The mood of most stories can be identifies with
  one or two adjectives gloomy, romantic,
  threatening, etc.
• Even though you may sense several moods in some
  stories, one dominant feeling (humor in the midst
  of horror, for example) will usually prevail.