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The Devil and Tom Walker

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Title: The Devil and Tom Walker


1
The Devil and Tom Walker
  • By Washington Irving

2
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.

3
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.

4
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.

5
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.

6
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.

7
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.

8
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.

9
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.

10
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.

11
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.

12
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

13
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.

14
Vocabulary
  • prevalent adj. widely existing frequent
  • stagnant adj. not flowing or moving
  • precarious adj. uncertain insecure risky
  • impregnable adj. impossible to capture or
    enter by force.
  • melancholy adj. sad gloomy
  • obliterate v. erase or destroy
  • avarice n. greed
  • resolute adj. determined resolved
    unwavering
  • parsimony n. stinginess
  • superfluous adj. more than is needed or
    wanted useless

15
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?

16
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.

17
Reading Skill Making Predictions
  • When you make an inference about a text, you make
    an educated guess based on clues in the text and
    on your own background knowledge and experience.
  • A prediction is a special type of inference an
    educated guess about what will happen later.
  • Not all predictions will turn out to be accurate,
    and adjusting them is an essential part of active
    reading.

18
Reading Skill Making Predictions
  • As you read, take notes to identify a clue that
    suggests or foreshadows what may happen further
    along in the story.
  • Then make a prediction based on the clue.
  • Later, note what actually happens.
  • How often did the writer surprise you?
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