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Similarities Between The Devil And Tom Walker

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Edgar A. Poe once said, “Word has no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of reality.” This quote describes the following short stories: Edgar A Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” and Washington Irving’s “The Devil & Tom Walker.” In these gothic literature writings, the author’s style and use of figurative language emphasize the horrific effect. Both authors use mood, symbolism, and foreshadowing along with their own unique figurative language utilizations to further develop tension and suspense. Irving utilizes satire to convey religious beliefs and relationships between characters whereas Edgar A. Poe uses more personification to give the nonliving life. Edgar A. Poe and Irving employ mood and foreshadowing to enhance …show more content…

In “The Devil & Tom Walker”, Deacon Peabody guides people to stay on the right “path to heaven” turns around, and makes a deal with the devil. During their dispute, the Devil told Tom about Deacon Peabody, commenting, “As I flatter myself, [Deacon Peabody] will be, he does not look more to his own sins and less of those neighbors.” (page 4) One way Irving injects satire is through the use of Deacon Peabody, a man of god, sinning. The second way Irving injects satire is by highlighting the ironic nature of Tom’s actions towards the end of the story. Tom has “a great folio Bible on his counting-house desk” (page 9). Tom displays irony by placing a holy document on top of a tainted object; the counting house desk is tainted due to its connection with Tom’s continued sins. Tom’s reason for heading to the swamp was for his valuables instead of his wife. Lastly, Irving employs satire by pointing out the irony within Tom’s values. When Tom wife’s ventured off to the swamp in search of the Devil, Tom became increasingly concerned only when “he found she had carried off in her apron…every portable article of value” (page 6). A typical husband would be concerned about the safety of his wife heading on a dangerous journey to meet with a menacing figure. Instead, he is concerned about houseware. There were multiple instances of Irving using satire to create tension (between doing what’s right versus what’s

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The short story “The Devil and Tom Walker” by Washington Irving was a story based on Gothic Romanticism. Gothic Romanticism is a story written with horror and death with a magistical suspense. The Devil and Tom Walker has many characteristic pertaining gothic romanticism. The setting is medieval in a way that relates to gothic romanticism. The setting of the story “The Devil and Tom Walker “is described as a thick wooded swamp where there is a deep inlet that has two sides to it.

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Washington Irving, an 18th century author, wrote a short story based on the legend of Faust which he named “The Devil and Tom Walker”. In “The Devil and Tom Walker” Washington Irving uses imagery to establish mood. First, when Tom Walker takes a shortcut home through a swamp, Irving describes the swamp as follows “The swamp was was thickly grown with great gloomy pines and hemlocks, some of them ninety feet high, which made it dark at noonday, and a retreat for all the owls of the neighborhood. It was full of pits and quagmires, partly covered with weeds and mosses, where the green surface often betrayed the traveler into a gulf of black, smothering mud; there were also dark and stagnant pools, the abodes of the tadpole, the bullfrog, and the watersnake; where the trunks of pines and hemlocks lay half-drowned, half-rotting, looking like alligators sleeping in the mire.

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Use Of Satire In The Devil And Tom Walker

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“The Devil and Tom Walker”, perhaps Washington Irving’s most famous work, details a story about a man named Tom Walker and his deal with the Devil. Throughout the story, Irving makes heavy use of satire: the usage of irony or other humors with the intent to mock the vices of humanity. We first see his satirization demonstrated with matrimony, revolving around Tom’s hatred of his own wife to the extent of relishing in her death. Next, he pokes fun at the wealthy white establishment, particularly slave-owners, by portraying them as totally immoral and worse than even the Devil. The final subject of Irving’s satire, and by far his largest one, is the way in which he depicts the Christian community as fueling the Devil’s power, contrary to what they want to believe.

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In all three novels “The Feather Pillow” by Horacio Quiroga, “Prey” by Richard Matherson, and “ The Devil and Tom Walker” by Washington Irving all have an eloquent amount of elements all including Mystery/ambiguity: and a supernatural force included in their short stories. The authors purpose for these elements are to give the reader a thrill of mystery and supernatural forces that defy the nature of our world and fill the story with action, all wile keeping the reader reading to the end wile keeping them on the edge of their seat waiting to see what happens next. Each novel has supernatural forces teeming inside it ,effecting the novel and also adding -a so called- villain for the novel. First the short story “prey” by Matherson, has a supernatural

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In the short story “The Devil and Tom Walker” by Washington Irving, satire is incorporated in a perfect way. This story is about Tom Walker, who makes a pact with the devil, and ends up lending money at high interest rates. When Tom Walker thinks he is smarter than his customers and does not give more time to one of his customers to pay him back, Tom’s life ends in an instant. Through the use of satire Irving criticizes the institution of marriage and the folly of human nature. Irving criticizes the institution of marriage in many ways throughout the story.

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