In the short story “The Devil and Tom Walker”, the author shows greed by the main character selling his soul for a large treasure, being a cheap and greedy moneylender, and the lack of the main character and his wife sharing the wealth between each other in order to show that people will do anything for money and become rich. Dimmesdale endures the harsh punishments given to him by Chillingworth due to his anger and thirst for revenge. It is a very harmful characteristic that can be the main source of self-destruction. In the short story "The Devil and Tom Walker", Tom literally sells his soul for greed. This story focuses largely on the theme of greed and its negative effects. https://maddiegwynette.weebly.com/the-devil-and-tom-walker.html Tom has paid the ultimate price for his greed–eternal suffering. The ideas that the pearl encompasses throughout John Steinbeck’s The Pearl, are acquisitiveness, optimism, and nefariousness. In the short story “The Devil and Tom Walker”, the author shows greed by the main character selling his soul for a large treasure, being a cheap and greedy moneylender, and the lack of the main character and his wife sharing the wealth between each other in order to show that people will do anything for money and become rich. Out of greed, Tom Walker compromised his soul to the devil in order to gain wealth, riches and fame. Tom Walker made a deal with the devil and spent his life ruled by greed and swindling money out of others. The Devil and Tom Walker: Mood to Theme. In the end, his greed and swearing in the devil's name allowed the devil … It brings up the weight of one’s morality, the meaning of life, it’s complexities, and gives various advice that can be applied to everyday life. Both stories present villains differently, where society is directly criticizing Meursault’s beliefs and actions in The Stranger while Meursault is indirectly hurting Harun in The Meursault Investigation. Tom Walker knows the rumors about the sacrifices made here to the devil, but he chooses not to harbor any fears about it. Tom is a man in the 18th century who was a very bad man who sold his soul to the devil for money. Hence, Tom Walker’s greediness in the story serves as an outlet for the author to indicate faults in humanity and make readers aware of their. The losing of trust, mystery, and suspicion in relationships can defeat a person to the point of death. The Antagonist can be the embodiment of evil or just a roadblock for the main character to overcome. Greed. It is a very harmful characteristic that can be the main source of self-destruction. Using Tom Walker’s life as an example of what life choices not to make, Irving warns reader to steer away from their personal greed in order to remain good people. He had a wife as miserly as himself… They lived in a forlorn-looking house, that stood alone and had an air of starvation. Tom Walker s greed, the bargain with the Devil, leads to his own demise and suffering. Struggling with distance learning? Here, the whole story focuses on the inner nature of Tom Walker. Greed is a selfish desire to obtain money, wealth, material possessions than one legitimately needs. In the short story Sweat, written by Zora Neale Hurston, features an abusive husband, Sykes, as the Antagonist. “Tom, you're come for,” said the black fellow, gruffly. A black man was holding a black horse which neighed and stamped with impatience. Read Free Essays On The Devil And Tom Walker and other exceptional papers on every subject and topic college can throw at you. All her [Tom Walker’s wife’s] avarice was awakened at the mention of hidden gold, and she urged her husband to comply with the black man's terms and secure what would make them wealthy for life. Throughout the book “The Devil & Tom Walker” and in the play Macbeth you can see the theme of greed in which was the themes that both Irving and Shakespeare betrayed in their text. My students love how organized the handouts are and enjoy tracking the themes as a class.”. As usual the fever had subsided; the dream had gone off, and the imaginary fortunes with it. Chillingworth is blinded by revenge because he only seeks to harm Dimmesdale which is a result of a sin symbolized by the scarlet letter. In the beginning of the story, Irving explains how Tom Walker would deal with his wife stating, “Her husband was continually prying about to detect her secret, Several instances in Tom Walker’s life suggest that became a corrupt and immoral human because of his overbearing trait of greed. Tom and his wife make of their domestic life a parody of hell, cheating, quarrelling, abusing and deceiving one another as they do, for no reason other than that they overvalue the external world of stuff at the expense of the inner world of the human soul. Tom consoled himself for the loss of his property, with the loss of his wife, for he was a man of fortitude. The rust on the weapon showed the time that had elapsed since this death-blow had been given. We see his struggle with his own greed and ambition, and we see the negative consequences when he loses that struggle. Tom Walker is a lonely man because he is greedy, miserly, and mean. Irving also elucidates to readers that consistent desires and the feelings of dissatisfaction towards everything will eventually lead to an undesirable ending. He even felt something like gratitude towards the black woodman, who, he considered, had done him a kindness. As a darkly comic example of Tom’s greed and the way that greed has destroyed his human relationships, Tom misses the silver more than the woman he should care for. Like most short cuts, it was an ill-chosen route… It was full of pits and quagmires, partly covered with weeds and mosses, where the green surface often betrayed the traveller into a gulf of black, smothering mud…. The Devil and Tom Walker Analysis. Which of the following phrases from "The Devil and Tom Walker" is an example of Irving's use of humor? While in The Meursault Investigation, Merault is the antagonist of the story because he kills Musa, Harun’s brother. I am the great patron and prompter of slave-dealers, and the grand-master of the Salem witches.”. Teach your students to analyze literature like LitCharts does. "He now looked around, and found most of the tall trees marked with the name of some great man of the colony, and all more or less scored by the ax." Detailed explanations, analysis, and citation info for every important quote on LitCharts. Such was the end of Tom Walker and his ill-gotten wealth.