What is the setting in Tom Walker?

What is the setting in Tom Walker?

The setting in “The Devil and Tom Walker” is very important to the story. The story is set in Boston in 1727, which is important to the theme of the story because it is a place originally settled by Quakers and Puritans. These people were very religious, almost to the point of fanaticism.

What is the setting in The Devil and Tom Walker?

The short story “The Devil and Tom Walker” by Washington Irving takes place near Boston in 1727. It features a miserly man named Tom Walker and his wife who was equally selfish. They would hide food and money from one another. One day Tom took a shortcut home through the woods.

What takes place in a dark or gloomy environment The Devil and Tom Walker?

The swamp is described as an “ill-chosen route,” where gloomy hemlocks and pine trees stand tall in the dimly lit wilderness. When Tom Walker takes a short cut home, his trek leads him through the swamp and he encounters a number of obstacles and frightening sights and sounds.

How is Tom’s house described in the beginning?

At the beginning of the story, Tom’s house is described as a “forlorn looking house that stood alone and had the look of starvation”. Because of the stinginess and mistrust of both Tom and his wife, the house was as bad inside as it was out.

How would you describe Tom Walker?

A “meagre miserly fellow,” Tom Walker is first and foremost outrageously, self-destructively greedy. He despises his miserly, abusive wife and has nothing to live for but the satisfaction of his desire for owning things.

What city was The Devil and Tom Walker published?

A short story set around the colonial Boston area in 1727; published in 1824. A man sells his soul to the Devil for pirate treasure. He becomes a moneylender in Boston and, despite his efforts to avoid his bargain with the Devil, is eventually snatched away.

Where does The Devil and Tom Walker take place?

Massachusetts
The Devil and Tom Walker, short story by Washington Irving, published as part of the collection Tales of a Traveller in 1824. This all-but-forgotten tall tale is considered by some to be one of Irving’s finest short stories. Set in Massachusetts, the plot is a retelling of the Faust legend, with a Yankee twist.

What was Tom Walker’s house like?

Tom’s house is described as “forlorn”, meaning abandoned or sad, and surrounded by “savin trees” – which is another name for junipers, which have a habit of growing in twisted, wind-shaped ways, and are here called “emblems of sterility”, perhaps also a metaphor for why Tom and his wife have no children.

What is Tom and Daisy’s mansion like?

Tom’s and Daisy’s home is on the East Egg. Their house, a “red and white Georgian Colonial mansion overlooking the bay” with its “wine-colored rug[s]” is just as impressive as Gatsby’s house but much more low-key (Fitzgerald 11)(13). The House also has a cold sense to it according to Nick.

Where does Tom Walker meet the Devil in the Devil and Tom Walker?

Tom meets the devil, Old Scratch, at an abandoned Indian fort hidden away in the swamplands. Old Scratch offers Tom Walker great sums of money in exchange for “certain conditions.”. The conditions are, of course, that Walker gives his soul in his deal with the devil.

What does the earthquake mean in the Devil and Tom Walker?

The earthquakes suggest how shaky a life of worldliness really is, and we might regard the story itself as a metaphorical earthquake that brings proud Tom to his knees.

What was the futility of greed in the Devil and Tom Walker?

The futility of greed is witnessed by the air of starvation that hangs about Tom and his wife’s estate, as well as by how greed motivates the two to quarrel with and deceive one another. Their miserliness causes misery in both this life and the next.

What does the black man say to Tom Walker?

The black man says that the Deacon will be damned if he doesn’t look more to his own sins and less to his neighbor’s, and he then instructs Tom to see just how the Deacon is faring, pointing to a great tree which is flourishing on the outside but rotten on the inside. On the tree is carved the Deacon’s name.