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Mood And Symbolism In Washington Irving's The Devil And Tom Walker

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“Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm” (Churchill). Irving was a very successful writer in his time and still well known today. Washington Irving is firmly planted into the tapestry of American literature because of his use of mood and symbolism in his short story, “The Devil and Tom Walker”. Washington Irving was born in New York City in 1783. Irving had a knack for making up authors for stories he created. Under his aliases he played the role of a satirist. For example, one of the authors he created was Jonathan Oldstyle, which was to imitate the British writers that could not accept the values of the United States. Even though writing was where his heart belonged, Irving’s father sent him to the failing family business overseas …show more content…

The Devil told Tom about how he could receive money that Kidd the Pirate buried in the swamp. Tom went home to discuss with his wife about the money, but he refused to bargain with the Devil just to make her happy. His wife was so greedy that she set off to deal with the Devil herself. Tom waited days, but never saw her again.This made Tom very happy and he felt that the Devil had done him a favor, so he decided that he would make the deal after all. He wanted to earn the money being employed by the Devil, so he became a broker that would charge insane amounts of money. Tom became a rich and powerful man over the years, but began to develop a different outlook on life as he became older. He suddenly became very Christian and was regretting ever making the deal with the Devil. Knowing that his time drew near, he started to read and carry a bible in his pocket anywhere he went, and left a very large bible on the desk where he makes the deals with the people he is taking money from. One day however, the Devil caught him off guard without his bible while Tom was closing a deal. He heard

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331 Words | 2 Pages

Tom Walker comes across the devil when walking through the woods on his way home. The devil reels Tom Walker in by speaking of money hidden away, the devil tells Tom Walker he can help him obtain the money on certain terms. We know Tom Walker is greedy because on page three hundred and fourteen, lines seventeen through twenty two, "...there lived near this place a meager, miserly fellow, the name of Tom Walker. He had a wife as miserly as himself: they even conspired to cheat each other. ..

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677 Words | 3 Pages

Transformation of the Tale: Washington Irving’s “Rip Van Winkle” and Robert Coover’s Rip Awake An American folklore that established Washington Irving as one of the first American authors, “Rip Van Winkle” is a short story about a local Dutch-American villager and the mysterious event that kept him away from home for twenty years. Narrated in the third person omniscient, the narrator depicts a panoramic view of the natural landscape as well as provides an objective view of the main character’s thoughts. To provide a closer view of his personal thoughts, Robert Coover reintroduces Rip Van Winkle with his own monologue in Rip Awake to give him a voice to describe the aftermath of his experience when he returns home.

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404 Words | 2 Pages

Mrs. Walker’s abuse of her husband is only one facet of her twisted psyche. Washington Irving’s tale, “The Devil and Tom Walker,” satirically criticizes the people of 1720s Boston for their greed through characters such as Mrs. Walker. Because her motivation is control, Mrs. Walker’s psychological state is abusive and her actions result in her death. Mrs. Walker’s violent tendencies often victimize Tom and expose her as an abusive character. Irving writes (2010), “Her voice was often heard in wordy warfare with her husband; and his face sometimes showed signs that their conflicts were not confined to words.”

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336 Words | 2 Pages

In the short story titled The Devil And Tom Walker,Washington Irving explains that no matter how hard life is going to never sell our soul. For instance, Tom wanted to save his wife but in ordinary to save her Tom had to sell his soul. Irving’s asserts that walker had to sell his store to save his wife from dying. The author’s purpose is to convince that the audience should should never sell their soul no matter the situation. The author writes in an serious tone for the audience to realize that selling out isn’t the right thing to do.

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1973 Words | 8 Pages

Irving views the political and social state of America to be unsatisfactory. This is proven correct in the fact that just as the character John Wheelwright did, Irving moved to Toronto, Canada. Irving often interprets the popular beliefs and views about the Reagan Administration as well and the constant death of significant people. During the 1960s to the 1980s, Marilyn Monroe dies, President Kennedy is assassinated, Bobby Kennedy is assassinated, and Martin Luther King, Jr. is assassinated. Another historical event that caused both John Wheelwright and John Irving to move to Canada was the dislike of the Reagan Administration.

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365 Words | 2 Pages

Nature was introduced in romantic novels and poems. In the poem ‘’Thanatopisis’’ by William Cullen Bryant he described death to something that was peaceful and to be embraced. He believed that you become one with nature, one with earth once you die. But in the poem ‘’Devil and Tom Walker’’ by Washington Irving he described death to be evil, sinful. He believed death to horrifying and something to not be embraced.

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794 Words | 4 Pages

“The Devil and Tom Walker” and “The Devil and Daniel Webster”-- these Faust legends tell stories of ordinary men with thirsts for wealth and luck only in exchange for their very souls. Both were written in different time periods, where certain events and happenings influenced each of the stories and their conflicts. Washington Irving wrote “The Devil and Tom Walker” during a time of economic boom (1824). Stephen Vincent Benet wrote “The Devil and Daniel Webster” during a time of economic depression (1937). Despite the stories’ titles, both have different resolutions, depictions of the devil, and saving graces in the end.

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978 Words | 4 Pages

Satire is used by many famous writers to create humor and to criticize people’s unwise, and senseless actions. As George Orwell once said, "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." (Orwell, 1945). People will always be greedy and think they are smarter than others but this is untrue. The one who thinks he is smarter or better than the other will always end up losing in life.

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681 Words | 3 Pages

Earlier when he got the idea his "smile stretched like a weary snake waking up by a fire. " The snake simile suggests the devil and evil acts, as opposed to his chance at salvation. He will choose to listen to this devil as he abandons Lucynell, an angel of Gawd, at The Hot Spot. Throughout the story Tom had showed some good in him but ultimately he was evil. He was only looking to his own advantage and did whatever he felt the need to to get there.

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493 Words | 2 Pages

Washington Irving’s, The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. is a collection of thirty-four of his essays and short stories. Attributed to the fictional Dutch historian character, Diedrich Knickerbocker, are two of Irving’s most popular stories, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle. Rip Van Winkle is the story of a Dutch villager, living at the foot of the Catskill mountains before and after the American Revolutionary War. Van Winkle is genuinely loved by the people of his village, especially by the children whom he tells ghost stories to, plays with, and gives toys. However, this simple, easy-going man has one great error in his character: he is incredibly lazy, despising work in all forms.

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712 Words | 3 Pages

People often ask what makes a book into a classic, but they hardly ever think about what makes a normal, everyday short story into a myth. It takes a very fine-tuned mingling of escapism and familiarity only achievable by the best storytellers. Washington Irving achieved that perfect mixture when he wrote “Rip Van Winkle.” He takes a location familiar to his readers, and mystifies it by transporting his readers back in time. He creates a hero with exaggerated qualities, but at the same time makes him a man every reader would want to know.

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965 Words | 4 Pages

Hugh S. Dawson also added some thoughts to the ideas of Young, Fetterley and Fiedler about Rip Van Winkle that Rip Van Winkle being Gothic story once more shows the advantage of marriage to avoid from wasting life in impenetrable forest [6, 14/08/2015]. Another bestseller work of Washington Irving is “The Spectre Bridegroom” that also included in “The Sketch Book by Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.”. If Irving in “Rip Van Winkle” headed to mix the physical and metaphorical dream reflecting the sigh of freedom in colony, in this work he brought the new American breath to the old Europe. Unlike other works, Irving described the happened events in Germany. All these hinted at that Irving wanted to ruin the old fences around Europe that formulated for many years.

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959 Words | 4 Pages

Washington Irving’s “Rip Van Winkle” enjoys the reputation of being one of the first great American short stories written by a pioneer of American fiction, and of capturing a transtemporal portrait of American life. Yet because of the ambivalence with which Irving treats the new nation in this work, scholarship has debated whether this story is simply “the first truly American folk tale, or a derivative vehicle used to undermine the young republic” (Wyman 220). I argue that this short story cannot be reduced to either an experiment in genre or a political critique. Rather, Washington Irving’s “Rip Van Winkle” depicts storytelling as the key to connecting national identity with mythology, and thus to strengthening a post-Revolutionary America.               To understand this connection, we must first discover that Rip Van Winkle himself represents storytelling and authorship.

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1226 Words | 5 Pages

Washington Irving’s Rip Van Winkle is a story with great meaning. Looking from the outside in it seems as though the story is merely for a child. Although, this can seem true, Rip Van Winkle is a story with a very credible moral and many literary techniques. Focusing on the tone is just a fraction of literary examples Irving incorporates into his short story. Irving seems to have not only one, but three different attitudes in Rip Van Winkle.

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952 Words | 4 Pages

In novels focusing on parody of European attributes of romanticism Washington Irving created the unexampled masterpieces. “Rip Van Winkle” being one of the unexampled works of Washington Irving combines gentle and perfect humor. This story is Irving’s imaginative reworking of an old German tale in which his valuable parody professionally covered. In the story Washington Irving gave the national shade to the description of events and outlandish beings for America.

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