Use Of Satire In The Devil And Tom Walker

Some aspects in the New England life in the 18th century were terrifying and wrong. In order to help enhance society, Washington Irving published a satire on religious hypocrisy and on society itself. A satire is a literary technique in which certain ideas or customs are exaggerated in order to tell readers what to improve on. Some of Irving’s ideas are based on greed for wealth, religious hypocrisy, and manipulation. These satires are embedded in the short story, The Devil and Tom Walker, to let society know where people are sinful. The first thing that society needs to improve on is people’s greediness. Money talks, but it often blabbers, way too much. Tom Walker, the main character, showed his greediness by requiring time to think about the devil’s conditions for the hidden treasure and “he was not a man to stick at trifles when money was in view” (Irving 318). Tom went home to tell his wife about the gleaming gold and her desire for it quickly emerged. She urged Tom to accept the deal or she would go accept it herself. Then, Tom decided to become a usurer who charges four percent rather than what the devil suggested his two percent! That is even worse than the black demon itself! This satire of greediness was used to create an example of what people should not do.

As Tom started to regret his bargain with Old Scratch, the devil in other words, he became an ostentatious churchgoer to cheat him out of the conditions. He spoke his clamor of Sunday devotions so lurid that anyone could tell when he had sinned the most. Why was he a religious hypocrite? Because Tom was still a cruel supervisor and a harsh “censurer” to the people next to him; those were some things that the Christian bible clearly said they were sins. After all, it is ironic as well as “Tom’s zeal became as notorious as his riches” (Irving