The Devil and Tom Walker

Amanda Onalaja

October 15, 2009

Pd. 2 – Ms. Brown

Washington Irving was a Gothic writer who wrote short stories such as “The Devil and Tom Walker”. The narrative is about a man so caught up in riches and wealth he sells his soul to the devil only to be condemned in the end. The protagonist, Tom Walker, is first described as, “a meagre miserly fellow”, one who is so poor and unhappy. Miserable to the point were he and his wife conspire against each other, each pining for avarice, “they were so miserly that they even conspired to cheat each other…and many and fierce were the conflicts that took place about what ought to have been common property”. The status of the couple’s marriage is seemingly important since it takes on a connection with their surroundings, “They lived in a forlorn looking house, that stood alone and had an air of starvation. A few straggling savin trees, emblems of sterility, grew near it…The house and its inmates had altogether a bad name”. True to the Gothic style, the entire setting of the story is depressing and gloomy, a direct appeal to pathos.

Aside from the eerie setting, our Tom Walker is also a shifty character himself. He and his wife often don’t get along, however when he has news of the immense wealth he could possibly earn from dealing with Old Scratch, the “black” man who symbolizes the “devil”, he tells her, “He was not prone to let his wife into his confidence; but as this was an uneasy secret, he willingly shared it with her”. This is an example of pettiness on Tom’s part. He tells his wife only to reassure himself he has gotten the better of her, but when she realizes she too will gain wealth Tom pulls back, “However Tom might have felt disposed to sell himself to the devil, he was determined not to do so to oblige his wife; so he flatly refused out of the mere spirit of contradiction”; thus driving her to see Old Scratch herself, never to return.

The death of Tom Walker’s wife was but short-lived as readers didn’t get much depth or information as to the events or reason why she dies, just a justification, “it was said a great black man with an axe on his shoulder was seen late that very evening coming out of the swamp, carrying a bundle tied in a check apron, with an air of surly triumph…for he recognized his wife's apron, and supposed it to contain the household valuables…Tom seized the check apron, but, woful sight! Found nothing but a heart and liver tied up in it”. The entire passage is ironic and cynical. It’s the greed and self-indulgence Tom constantly exhibits that leads him to suffer his ultimate fate in the story’s end, “The black man whisked him like a child astride the horse and away he galloped in the midst of a thunder storm…On searching his coffers all his bonds and mortgages were found reduced to cinders. In place of gold and silver his iron chest was filled with chips and shavings; two skeletons lay in his stable instead of his half starved horses, and the very next day his great house took fire and was burnt to the ground”. The story holds a satirical message to those who withhold greed.