The Devil And Tom Walker And Greed Analysis

Greed, Stinginess and Foolishness: An Ultimate Path to Demise
As said by the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates “He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have” (http://www.goodreads.com /quotes/tag /greed) Socrates aimed this quote to show that greed cannot be quenched, which is one of the many traits portrayed by the main character in “The Devil and Tom Walker”, written by Romantic writer Washington Irving. This trait, among other, can characterize Tom Walker. Therefore, Tom walker can be characterized as Greedy, stingy and foolish.
First Tom walker is a very greedy man. In the beginning, after his wife goes missing, he tries to find the silverware that his wife took to give to the devil.

He does not want to share anything with his wife at all. This is shown by his actions about the chicken. Whenever the chicken lays an egg, he and his wife race to the chicken to get the egg first. This stinginess shows that he does not want any of his possessions to be taken from him and that he will not share with his wife. Tom Walker is also shown to be stingy by the way he treats his horse. He leaves his horse starved because he does not want to spend any money on the horse. The state of the horse, which is so starved that its ribcage is showing, shows that tom walker is not a very generous person. Therefore, due to his lack of generosity, Tom is a very stingy person. Tom’s house shows the stinginess as well. Irving writes “They lived in a forlorn-looking house that stood alone and had an air of starvation…no smoke ever curled from its chimneys; no traveler stopped at its door” (314), The setting of his house was extremely gloomy and poor, which led to travelers walking past the house without looking at it. This is because Tom is preoccupied with keeping his possessions to himself that he keeps his house very ugly. In these times, people were welcome into a stranger’s house, but because Tom refused to share his goods with anyone, nobody bothered to come to his house. As a result of the decrepit nature of his house and the lack of sharing with other visitors, tom is shown to be a very stingy man. TO sum up, Tom Walker is a stingy man because he competes with his wife for all of their possessions, he does not take care of his horse because he doesn’t want to spend any money on it, and he keeps his house gloomy to ward of any