Guided Reading Questions: "the Devil and Tom Walker"
| The Devil and Tom Walker | |
|---|---|
| by Washington Irving | |
 | |
| State | U.s.a./England |
| Published in | Tales of a Traveller |
| Publisher | John Murray (UK) Carey & Lea (United states) |
| Media type | |
| Publication date | 1824 |
"The Devil and Tom Walker" is a short story by Washington Irving that offset appeared in his 1824 collection Tales of a Traveller,[1] in "The Money-Diggers" function of volume 2. The story is very similar to the High german fable of Faust.
Stephen Vincent Benét drew much of his inspiration for "The Devil and Daniel Webster" from this tale.
Summary [edit]
The story commencement recounts the legend of the pirate William Kidd, who is rumored to accept buried a large treasure in a forest in colonial Massachusetts. Kidd fabricated a deal with the devil to protect his money. The devil'south weather are unknown. Kidd died never able to repossess his coin, simply the devil has protected it ever since.
The story continues around 1727. Tom Walker, a greedy, selfish miser of a homo, cherishes money along with his shrewish and as greedy wife. They lived in a tarnished-looking house that had stood alone and had an air of starvation. This is until he takes a walk in the swamp at an old Indian fortress (a relic of King Philip's War of 1675–1678), and starts upwards a conversation with the devil incarnate (referred to equally "Erstwhile Scratch" and "the Black Human" in the story). Old Scratch appears as a lumberjack or a woodsman chopping copse, each with a prominent and wealthy colonialist's proper noun branded on the trunk. Ane rotted and presently-to-fall tree has the name of a deacon who grew wealthy "trading" with the Indians. Another fallen torso has that of a wealthy seaman rumored to be a pirate. Old Scratch strikes a bargain with Tom Walker, offering the riches hidden in the swamp by Captain Kidd in exchange for a great cost, which is often idea to be his soul. Tom agrees to think about it and returns home.
While Tom is perfectly willing to sell himself to Erstwhile Scratch for the treasure, he does not do then at first, as it would mean having to share the treasure with his married woman. Later on he tells her of his meeting, she meets with Sometime Scratch herself, but tells her hubby that Old Scratch requires an offering. When Tom is away, she takes all their valuables in and goes to make a deal with Old Scratch. When Tom searches for his married woman and property, all he finds is her apron holding her heart and liver, tied to a tree.
Tom Walker agrees to One-time Scratch's deal, every bit he considered his calumniating wife's expiry a good thing. Because he can only use the treasure in Sometime Scratch'south service, Tom agrees to go a usurer (today normally called a loan shark), after refusing to become a slave trader.
During the governorship of Jonathan Belcher (1730–1741), speculation runs rampant and Walker's concern flourishes. Becoming a member of the local stock exchange, Tom buys a big business firm and a bus but furnishes neither, even though he has the money (he is and so miserly that he even one-half-starves his horses). Tom never tires of swindling people until he suddenly becomes fearful about the afterlife. He then becomes an obsessive church-goer, singing hymns in church building in a much louder voice than all of the other parishioners, and e'er keeping two Bibles at hand—thinking that any sin on his neighbour's "business relationship" is a "credit" to his ain. He is said to accept even had his best riding equus caballus saddled and buried upside downward in the conventionalities that in the last days the world volition be turned upside downward and he will then try to "outride" Old Scratch (although the narrator adds that this is "probably a mere one-time wives' fable").
One day a ruined stock jobber (speculator) who had borrowed money from him asks for clemency and annoys Tom who says, "The Devil take me if I take made a farthing!" (the smallest currency of the fourth dimension, i/4 of a penny). At that place are 3 loud knocks at the door. Tom is drawn towards a black-cloaked effigy and realizes, in horror, that he has left his Bibles at his desk.
Old Scratch tosses Tom Walker on the back of a blackness equus caballus which rides toward the erstwhile fortress and disappears in lightning. Tom is never seen again. All his avails become worthless—his jitney horses go skeletons, the gilded and silver Tom hoarded turns into wood chips and shavings, his mortgages and deeds go cinders, and his great house burns to the ground. Since that day, his ghost haunts the site of the old fortress. His only legacy is a New England saying, "The Devil and Tom Walker".
Adaptations [edit]
Flier for The Devil and Tom Walker, 1913
In 2019, the story was adapted into audio drama every bit part of the debut flavor of Shadows at the Door: The Podcast.
Editions [edit]
- Washington Irving, Rip Van Winkle; Fable of Sleepy Hollow; The Devil and Tom Walker; The Voyage; Westminster Abbey; Stratford-on-Avon; The Stout Admirer, Doubleday & McClure Company, 1902, pp. 93-113: "The Devil and Tom Walker".
References [edit]
- ^ Irving, Washington (1824). "The Devil and Tom Walker". Tales of a Traveller. ISBN9780805785159.
External links [edit]
- The Devil and Tom Walker at Project Gutenberg
-
The Devil and Tom Walker public domain audiobook at LibriVox
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Devil_and_Tom_Walker
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