Irving,+Washington

=The Devil and Tom Walker =

====**Summary: ** The story starts out with the narrator telling the legend of Kidd the pirate, Kidd has burried money under a tree on an inlet. However, Kidd was hanged for being a pirate and therefore was never able to recover his wealth. According to the old stories, the devil took the money under his guardianship. The legend of Tom Walker and the devil is not known to be true, but is popular and believed by many throughout New England. ==== ====In The Devil and Tom Walker, the infamous "family" of Tom, his wife, and malnutritioned horse live in New England. Both Tom and his wife are very stingy and fight with each other physically all the time. One day while Tom is taking a shortcut home through a murky swamp, he reaches an old cursed Indian fort. There while he is observing a skull he has dug up, a great black man approaches him. The man was begrimed with soot, had red eyes, and carried an axe on his shoulder. Tom and the man talk about the land and trees, which represent people who are going to die. While they are talking Tom realizes the man is the devil, but he is not afraid because he has lived so long with his termagant wife. The devil offers Tom the burried money but only on certain conditions. ==== ====Tom goes back home and shares the encounter he had with the devil and his offer with his wife. She tells him to go back and accept the offer because she wants to be wealthy. Tom refuses because he does not want to please his wife. After quarreling about this topic,Tom's wife decides to procure the money herself. However, when she goes back to the fort and shouts for the black man, he does not appear. She returns home and aquires her apron and valuables. She sets off for the fort once again, but never returned home. Tom grows anxious and proceeds to find his wife. When he reaches the forest, he sees his wife's apron hanging on a tree. He opens it up hoping to find the household valuables but instead finds his wife's heart and liver. He sees evidence that his wife had put up a fight with the devil. Tom was happy he did not have to deal with his wife anymore. ==== ====Tom meets up with the devil again and accepts his offer, now that he does not need to share the wealth with his wife. The devil proposes that Tom become a slave trader in exchange for the treasure. Tom refuses and decides that he will become a userer. The devil anxiously agrees, looking upon userers as his peculiar people. Tom opens up a broker's shop in Boston and scams his customers of their money. He then uses their money to build himself a lavish unfurnished house and sets up a carriage which he does not maintain. His horses that draw the carriage are also skin and bones. ==== ====However, as Tom grows older he becomes afraid of losing his soul to the devil. In fear of this, he becomes "a violent church goer", he carries around a Bible with him in his coat pocket. He also has a Bible on his desk which he frequently read. One day during a thunderstorm, as Tom sat inside in his white linen cap and India silk morning gown working on closing a mortgage deal, he hears a knock at the door. It turns out to be the devil with a black horse. The devil whisks him away and disappears into the forest. Tom has lost his soul to the devil. ====

**Correlation: ** The theme of the story is the power of greed.
====It is stated in the story " [..] and he was not a man to stick trifles where money was in view." In the beginning when the devil offers the money to Tom, Tom declines the offer. He does not decline the money because the devil's conditions that come with the offer are unethical, but because he does not want to share the money with his wife. ====

"He leaped with joy, for he recognized his wife's apron, and supposed it to contain the household valuables."
====Instead of being concerned about his wife's safety, Tom was happy that he had found the valuable silver teapot and spoon his wife had taken. Once again, he was greedy for the value the goods had rather than whether or not his wife was alive. ==== ===="In this way he made money hand over hand; became a rich and mighty man, and exalted his cocked hat upon change. He built himself, as usual, a vast house, out of ostentation; but left the greater part of it unfinished and unfurnished out of parsimony. 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 souls of the poor debtors he was squeezing." ==== ====With the money he scammed from his customers, he builds himself a "show" house. Although he is greedy and builds a grand house, he is too stingy to furnish and decorate it. He also sets up a carriage which he does not maintain. He also does not feed the horses that are meant to pull the carriage. He procures all the items out of pure greediness. In the end though, he is punished for his wrong doings. He loses his soul to the devil and is taken to hell. ====  ====**Reflection: **<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> I thought the way the story was told through a legend was interesting. The narrator went back and forth from Tom's actions to the way the legend portrayed the story. I think Tom was a very stingy man as described many times in the story. For example, when Tom sees his wife's apron all he is worried about is retrieving the valuable household items. He even feels that the devil had done him a kindness by getting rid of his wife. The reason he did not accept the offer at first was because he did not want to share it with his wife. I know that Tom and his wife fought a lot, but I think it was too much for him to be happy after finding out about his wife's death. I thought it was funny that Tom burried his horse with its feet uppermost, so he could be ready to escape the devil. He must have been extremely afraid of going to hell. I also thought that Tom would have given up being a userer after going to church regularly, but he was still scamming people of their money. It was ironic how Tom tells his customer, "The devil take me, if I have made a farthing!" Because in the end, Tom actually ends up being taken by the devil. ==== ====<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">I think this story can be related to the world, in the sense that many people face the challenge of greed everyday. I think everybody at some point in their life comes face to face with greedy. People always seem to be hungry for more. It is not a bad thing to be ambitious, but committing unethical deeds just to have a superfluous amount of money or any other one of the many alluring items people want is wrong. This story reminded me of the movie Envy. The movie is about two best friends who are money hungry co-workers. When one's get-rich-quick schemes succeeds, the other one gets jealous. Their greed for money and the envy that follows tears apart their amicable friendship. ====