the devil of tom walker summary

'The Devil and Tom Walker' Study Guide

A Summary of Washington Irving's Faustian Tale

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Plot summary, main characters, major events and setting, study guide questions.

• M.A., English Literature, California State University - Sacramento
• B.A., English, California State University - Sacramento

Washington Irving, one of early America's greatest storytellers, was the author of such beloved works as " Rip Van Winkle " (1819) and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow " (1820). Another of his short stories, "The Devil and Tom Walker," is not as well known, but it is definitely worth seeking out. "The Devil and Tom Walker" was first published in 1824 among a collection of short stories called "Tales of a Traveller," which Irving wrote under pseudonym Geoffrey Crayon. The story appropriately appeared in a section called "Money-Diggers," as the tale chronicles the selfish choices of an exceptionally stingy and greedy man.

Irving's piece is a relatively early entry into the many literary works considered Faustian tales—stories depicting greed, a thirst for instant gratification, and, ultimately, a deal with the devil as the means to such selfish ends. The original legend of Faust dates to 16th-century Germany; Christopher Marlowe then dramatized (and popularized) it in his play "The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus," which was first performed sometime around 1588. Faustian tales have been a hallmark of Western culture ever since, inspiring the major themes of plays, poems, operas, classical music, and even film and television productions.

Given its dark subject matter, it is unsurprising that "The Devil and Tom Walker" sparked a fair amount of controversy, particularly among the religious population. Still, many consider it an exemplary piece of narrative writing and one of Irving's finest stories. In fact, Irving's piece triggered a rebirth of sorts for the Faustian tale. It is widely reported to have inspired Stephen Vincent Benet's "The Devil and Daniel Webster," which appeared in The Saturday Evening Post in 1936—more than a century after Irving's story came out.

The story opens with the tale of how  Captain Kidd , a pirate, buried some treasure in a swamp just outside Boston. It then jumps to the year 1727, when New Englander Tom Walker happened to find himself walking through this swamp. Walker, explains the narrator, was just the kind of man to jump at the prospect of a buried treasure, as he, along with his wife, was selfish to the point of destruction.

While walking through the swamp, Walker comes upon the devil, a great "black" man carrying an ax, whom Irving calls Old Scratch. The devil in disguise tells Walker about the treasure, saying that he controls it but will give it to Tom for a price. Walker agrees readily, without really considering what he is expected to pay in return—his soul. The rest of the tale follows the twists and turns one might expect as a result of greed-driven decisions and deal-making with the devil.

Tom Walker is the protagonist of the story. He is described as "a meager miserly fellow" and is probably Irving's least likable character. However, despite his many unsavory characteristics, he is memorable. Walker is often compared to Faust/Faustus, the protagonist of the legend that has inspired countless works throughout literary history, including Marlowe, Goethe, and more.

Walker's wife

Walker's wife is such a minor character that her name is never given, but she can be likened to her husband in her miserly nature and volatile temper. Irving describes: "Tom's wife was a tall termagant, fierce of temper, loud of tongue, and strong of arm. 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."

Old Scratch

Old Scratch is another name for the devil. Irving describes: "It is true, he was dressed in a rude, half Indian garb, and had a red belt or sash swathed round his body, but his face was neither black nor copper color, but swarthy and dingy and begrimed with soot, as if he had been accustomed to toil among fires and forges."

The actions of Old Scratch are similar to other Faustian tales in that he is the tempter who offers the protagonist riches or other gains in exchange for their soul.

"The Devil and Tom Walker" may be a short story , but quite a bit takes place in its few pages. The events—and the locations in which they take place—really drive the overarching theme of the story: avarice and its consequences. The events of the story can be divided into two locations:

Old Indian Fort

• Tom Walker takes a shortcut through tangled, dark, and dingy swamplands, which are so dark and uninviting that they represent hell in the story. Tom meets the devil, Old Scratch, at an abandoned Indian fort hidden away in the swamplands.
• Old Scratch offers Tom riches hidden by Captain Kidd in exchange for "certain conditions." The conditions are, of course, that Walker sells his soul to him. Tom initially rejects the offer, but ultimately agrees.
• Tom's wife confronts Old Scratch. She goes into the swamplands twice, hoping that Old Scratch would make a deal with her instead of her husband. Tom's wife absconds with all of the couple's valuables for the second meeting, but she disappears into the swamplands and is never heard from again.
• Bolstered by the ill-gotten riches offered by Old Scratch, Walker opens a broker's office in Boston. Walker lends money freely, but he is merciless in his dealings and ruins the lives of many borrowers, often repossessing their property.
• A ruined speculator asks for a debt he owes to Tom to be forgiven. Walker refuses, but the devil rides in on a horse, easily sweeps Tom up, and gallops away. Tom is never seen again. After that, all the deeds and notes in Walker's safe turn to ash, and his house mysteriously burns down.

The legend of a man who sells his soul to the devil and its devious consequences has been retold many times, but Irving's original words truly reveal the story.

Setting the scene:

"About the year 1727, just at the time when earthquakes were prevalent in New England and shook many tall sinners down upon their knees, there lived near this place a meager miserly fellow of the name of Tom Walker."

Describing the protagonist:

"Tom was a hard-minded fellow, not easily daunted, and he had lived so long with a termagant wife, that he did not even fear the devil."

Describing the protagonist and his wife:

"...they were so miserly that they even conspired to cheat each other. Whatever the woman could lay hands on she hid away: a hen could not cackle but she was on the alert to secure the new-laid egg. Her husband was continually prying about to detect her secret hoards, and many and fierce were the conflicts that took place about what ought to have been common property."

Laying out the potential moral consequences of greed:

"As Tom waxed old, however, he grew thoughtful. Having secured the good things of this world, he began to feel anxious about those of the next."

The community's state of mind regarding the death of Walker and his wife:

"The good people of Boston shook their heads and shrugged their shoulders, but had been so much accustomed to witches and goblins and tricks of the devil in all kinds of shapes from the first settlement of the colony, that they were not so much horror struck as might have been expected."

Once students have had a chance to read this classic tale, test their knowledge with these study questions:

• What is important about the title? Had you ever heard a similar phrase before reading the story? 
• What are the conflicts in "The Devil and Tom Walker?" What types of conflict (physical, moral, intellectual, or emotional) do you see?
• Who was Faust (in literary history)? How could Tom Walker be said to have made a Faustian bargain?
• How does greed factor into this story? Do you think the Walker family's financial situation plays a factor in their choices?  
• What are some themes in the story? How do they relate to the plot and characters? 
• Compare and contrast Tom Walker with Scrooge in " A Christmas Carol " by  Charles Dickens .
• Is Tom Walker consistent in his actions? Is he a fully developed character ? How? Why? 
• Do you find the characters likable? Are the characters persons you would want to meet? Why or why not?
• Discuss some of the symbols in "The Devil and Tom Walker." 
• How are women portrayed in this story? Is the portrayal positive or negative?  
• Does the story end the way you expected? How did you feel about the ending? Was it fair? Why or why not? 
• What is the central or primary purpose of the story? Is the purpose important or meaningful? 
• How essential is the setting to the story? Could the story have taken place anywhere else? 
• What supernatural or surprising events are employed by Washington Irving? Are these happenings believable? 
• How do you think Irving's Christian beliefs impacted his writing?  
• What would you trade your soul for? 
• Do you think Tom and his wife made the right choice?
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The Devil and Tom Walker Summary

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. He came upon a skull, which he kicked to get the dirt off it. Then a large black man, who was neither African American nor Indian, appeared from nowhere and told him to leave the skull alone. He wanted to know what Tom was doing on his land. Tom proclaimed that this land belonged to Deacon Peabody. The strange man pointed to a dilapidated tree that had Deacon Peabody's name on it then noticed that many of the trees held names of men from town. The man insisted that the land belonged to him long before it went to Deacon Peabody. He said he was "the wild huntsman," "the black miner," and "the black woodsman." Tom said he thought he knew him as "Old Scratch," which the man, who seemed to be the devil, agreed was another one of his nicknames. After a long conversation with the devil, Tom returned home.

Their conversation involved the mention of buried treasure which the devil could reveal the location of to Tom in exchange for some conditions, which Tom needed to think about. The devil touched Tom's head to bind the deal before seemingly disappearing down into the earth. When Tom reached home, he found that no amount of washing could take away the fingerprint on his forehead.

His wife told him news of the death of Absalom Crowninshield, whose name Tom had seen on a tree in the forest. Tom decided to tell his wife about what he had seen, and her greedy nature urged him to accept the deal. Tom did consider selling himself to the devil, but he didn't want to do it because his wife told him to. Finally, the wife decided she would find the devil herself and make a deal, so she set off. When she came back she said that she found him, but he wanted an offering from her, which she would not reveal. The next evening she went out again with her apron full of something. Tom waited for her to return, but she was never seen again. Rumors circulated about a black man with an ax who was carrying around a bundle tied up in a checkered apron. Tom eventually found that apron tied up in a tree, but when he opened it, he found only a liver and heart inside. He figured the devil must have had a difficult time in ending her life because he knew how stubborn she was and saw signs of an altercation, such as footprints and hair about the woods. He almost felt as though the devil had done him a favor.

Later he met the devil again, and they began to haggle about the terms of their deal. The devil wanted Tom to become a slave trader, which he refused to do. Instead he agreed to become a money lender along with another condition that went without saying. They shook hands on it.

Tom opened a countinghouse in Boston. As hard times came, Tom appeared to be a friend to the needy, lending a seemingly endless supply of money to those who needed it. As the years went by, he became nervous about what awaited him after death, so he became a devoted churchgoer and always carried a Bible with him.

One day a man came in asking for money, but Tom grew annoyed and refused. The man complained that Tom had made a great deal of money off of this man over the years, and Tom replied that the devil could take him if he'd made a farthing. At that point a knock came at the door, and the black man declared that Tom's time had come. He put Tom on a horse saddle and galloped away with him. Tom was never seen again. When men went into his shop to settle his affairs, they found that all his documents had burned to ashes and all his gold turned to wood chips. His horses were mere skeletons, and his home burned to the ground. The story became a proverb to griping money lenders about what happened between the devil and Tom Walker.

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The Devil And Tom Walker

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Analysis: “The Devil and Tom Walker”

Washington Irving was born and raised in New York City in the years following the American Revolution. With his writing, Irving bridged influences from the Old and New Worlds, as well as those of the Enlightenment and Romanticism . Irving lived in Europe (mostly England) from 1815 to 1832, and both Europeans and Americans welcomed him as America’s first professional man of letters. Many of his stories blend European and American influences in plot, setting , or characters. “Rip Van Winkle,” for instance, dramatizes the enormous social shift that took place as the American colonies, previously part of Great Britain, gained independence. Through this and other stories Irving tried to show Americans that, although a young nation, they already had a history and a distinctive folklore. In turn, European readers were impressed by Irving’s command of language and intrigued by the American scenes and characters he portrayed.

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The Devil and Tom Walker

By washington irving, the devil and tom walker summary and analysis of "the devil and tom walker," part 1.

The story takes place a few miles from Boston, Massachusetts, inland from the Charles Bay. A fictional narrator of Irving's creation, his persona named Geoffrey Crayon, tells us the story of Kidd the Pirate, who brought a large sum of money ashore here to bury in a swamp. According to these old stories, the devil presided at the burial of the treasure, and took it under his protection until Kidd returned someday to reclaim it. But Kidd never returned; soon after he was seized in Boston and sent to England to be hanged for a pirate.

Fast forward to the year 1727: now a man named Tom Walker lives in a small house near the Charles Bay. He is stingy, greedy, and miserly, as is his wife , and the two often fight. They keep secret hoards of wealth from each other, and they own one miserable horse with its ribs showing. Their antics have given them and their house a bad name.

One day when Tom had ventured to a far part of his neighborhood, he decides to take a shortcut back through a nearby swamp. It was a dark and gloomy route, somewhat treacherous, and the swamp only had one piece of firm land. This piece of land was once a stronghold for Indians during their war with the local colonists, but nothing remains of their former fort except a few embankments. Tom stops at the old fort site to rest for a while, and while leisurely turning up some soil, digs up a cloven skull with an Indian tomahawk buried in it.

When he kicks the skull, a voice tells him to leave the skull alone. It's a tall black man dressed in Indian garb, covered in soot and carrying an axe. He asks what Tom is doing on his grounds; Tom sneers at him that this land belongs to Deacon Peabody , not to him. The man tells him to "look yonder, and see how Deacon Peabody is faring," pointing to a rotting tree that has Deacon Peabody's name scored into it. Another bares the name " Crowninshield ." Both of these are men who acquired wealth through dishonest means.

The man says this land belonged to him long before any of Tom's people claimed it. Tom asks who he is, and he says he goes by various names; he is the wild huntsman in some countries, the black miner in others, but here he is known as the black woodsman. He says that Indians consecrated this land in his name, and since "white savages" exterminated the Indians, he is their great patron. He also says he presides at the persecutions of Quakers and Anabaptists. Tom realizes that this is the man commonly called " Old Scratch ."

After this introduction, Tom and Old Scratch have a long conversation as Tom walks back to his home. Old Scratch tells Tom of a large sum of money buried here by a pirate, and since he has control over the treasure, no one can find it unless he gives them permission. He offers to place this treasure within Tom's reach, as he has taken a liking to him, but there are certain conditions Tom must follow to receive it.

Tom thinks on this for a while, and demands some kind of proof or promise that this is all true; in answer, Old Scratch presses his finger into Tom's forehead and disappears, leaving a burned black mark where it was.

The first part of this story establishes the setting, introduces us to our main characters, and provides the inciting incident that will lead into the rest of the story. The initial description of Tom Walker focuses heavily on his miserly tendencies, which indicates right off the bat that these are what will cause trouble for him. The negative relationship between he and his wife is an important factor of their characterization as well, as it shows that Tom is not satisfied with his current life situation and, naturally, will seek something greater when the opportunity arises.

In contrast to protagonists of many other short stories, Tom Walker is not a likable character. Readers are not meant to sympathize with him, nor are they supposed to root for him as the story progresses. In fact, the author intends for readers to feel quite the opposite; they are meant to be repulsed by him and hope that he gets his comeuppance. If Tom Walker were likable, readers would not come away from this story having learned the intended lesson.

The story also characterizes Tom Walker through imagery, describing the setting around him using unpleasant diction, suggesting that even the atmosphere surrounding him is undesirable. That this story takes place in a forlorn forest and swamp is reflective of the moral decay Tom undergoes through the course of it. He calls the trees in the woods "emblems of sterility," which is symbolic of the lack of love between Tom and his wife. The house has "an air of starvation," and the horse they keep has "ribs as articulate as the bar of a gridiron." All of these descriptions evoke powerful images in a reader's mind, images that go to characterize the protagonist of this story as someone readers do  not  want to be.

" The Devil and Tom Walker " is based on the traditional Faustian bargain myth, in which a character is tempted into making a deal with the devil or a devil-like figure. This stems from the classic German tale of Faust, a scholar who makes a pact with the devil to exchange his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures.

In this story Old Scratch is not merely  representative  of the devil; he is the devil incarnate, the devil in the form of a dark man who roams dismal places such as this swamp near the Charles Bay and seeks to punish those who acquire wealth dishonestly and oppress and persecute other groups.

In the first part of this story, Tom makes his deal with the devil, or Old Scratch, though readers don't yet learn the terms of this deal. As is typical of Faustian bargain tales, Tom has his reservations; the text stresses that Tom, a man who is never hesitant to seek out wealth, is unsure whether or not to take the deal. Eventually, though, as his prior characterization predicted, he accepts, and readers can expect to soon learn what, exactly, he agrees to.

You may have noticed that the devil is portrayed as a dark-skinned man, while Tom, whom he corrupts, is a white-skinned colonist. As established before, Tom is by no means a  likable  white man, but he is white all the same, and pure evil is portrayed as black. This is highly reflective of racial perceptions during the time period in which this story was published. Author Washington Irving wrote "The Devil and Tom Walker" in the early 1800s, and race relations in America were worse than ever at this time. Irving is remembered today as a somewhat racist author, which is reflected in his portrayal of the devil as a black man. Blacks were considered inferior to whites in all ways during this era, and were still being traded as slaves at the time of this work's publication.

There is a reference to Irving's attitude towards Puritans, the primary settlers of the Charles Bay during this time period, hidden in Old Scratch's introduction as well. Irving clearly condemns their intolerance, as evidenced by Old Scratch, the devil, announcing that he presides at the persecutions of Quakers and Anabaptists and is the patron of the Indians who were once persecuted by the Puritans as well. Much of Irving's work reflects a similar attitude toward this religious group, and this text is one of his most prominent satires of their viewpoints.

The Devil and Tom Walker Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for The Devil and Tom Walker is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Which of the elements of gothic fiction does the following passage from Irving’s the devil and Tom Walker contain

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Why does the narrator describe the string in such detail

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who is the devil?

Old Scratch is the devil incarnate, manifested in the form of a tall black man who guards the old Indian fort. Old Scratch is extremely manipulative and cunning. He was hired to watch over Kidd's treasure, but he sneakily offers it up to Tom --...

Study Guide for The Devil and Tom Walker

The Devil and Tom Walker study guide contains a biography of Washington Irving, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About The Devil and Tom Walker
• The Devil and Tom Walker Summary
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Essays for The Devil and Tom Walker

The Devil and Tom Walker essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of The Devil and Tom Walker by Washington Irving.

• Washington Irving
• Puritans, the Devil, and American Literature
• The Use of Nature and Emotion in Romantic Literature: Readings from Lowell, Holmes, and Irving

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Washington Irving's The Devil and Tom Walker: A Detailed Summary and a Literary Analysis

Irving’s most famous horror story – one which makes no excuses for its supernaturalism – comes, as most of his masterpieces do, from a German tradition. In this case it is the story of Doctor Faust. Desperately greedy for knowledge, this pseudo-historical alchemist was said to have sold his soul to the Dark One in exchange for wisdom, knowledge, and magical abilities. According to the traditions printed in German black-letter during the 16th century, the libidinous scholar enjoyed a middle age filled with debauchery, but it all came to an end one night when screams and scuffles drew a crowd to his laboratory. Upon entering, the curious onlookers found his corpse shredded viciously, blood splattered on the walls and soaking into the floor.

It is speculated that the historical Johann Faustus may have been killed in a chemical explosion, but the legends quickly sprang up that he had sold himself to the Enemy. Chrisopher Marlowe, J. W. von Goethe, Hector Berlioz, Thomas Mann, and Mikhail Bulgakov are among those who adapted his story – with varying emphasizes, morals, and implications. Irving’s tale would famously inspire the period writings – or “romances” as he called them – of Nathaniel Hawthorne: “Young Goodman Brown” most of all, but to lesser extents “The Birthmark,” “The Minister’s Black Veil,” “The Burial of Roger Malvin,” “The Scarlet Letter,” “The House of the Seven Gables,” and others. The story also lent something – along with “Rip Van Winkle,” the “Old Christmas” series, and “Sleepy Hollow” – to Dickens’ “Christmas Carol” (Tom Walker – a miserly moneylender living parsimoniously in an empty mansion before being dragged off in his robe and night cap by supernatural forces – is a clear prototype of Scrooge). The story is flooded with historical allusions and genuine bits of local folklore.

This tale takes place in the Hockomock Swamp (aka, the Devil’s Swamp), whose name in Algonquin means “Place Where the Spirits Dwell.” The Wampanoag Indians believed that the marshes were a breeding ground of occult forces, and that the Spirit of Death – composed of the collected souls of the dead – held court there. Used as a tribal fortress and cemetery, the wetlands maintained their unlucky name after the Wampanoag – under the leadership of Metacomet (aka, King Philip) were massacred there. Even today, as part of the so-called “Bridgewater Triangle,” the swamp is infamous for its uncannily high rate of murders, Satanist activity, and freak disappearances (not to mention sightings of ghosts, UFOs, ape-men, and thunderbirds). Hounded by its role in the Indian genocide, the area has remained a local legend – and Irving employs this in his sinister indictment of America’s colonial crimes.

Unusual for Irving, it is set in New England – a region so frequently made the butt of his jokes. While he lampooned the Dutch New Yorkers as indolent, dreamy, arrogant, and self-important, New Englanders were often portrayed as downright villainous: lacking in a sense of humor, pathetically greedy, devilishly untrustworthy, and hopelessly hypocritical, they served as the perfect foil to the easy-going Dutchmen. Ichabod Crane, Dame Van Winkle’s stroke-inducing peddler, and Knickerbocker’s scheming Puritans are among Irving’s most notorious Yankee villains. To Irving, it was acceptable to be a lazy, conceited egotist – as long as one held onto the twin virtues of contentment and a sense of humor. But nothing was as unforgivable in his fiction as being ambitious AND humorless – a mortal sin.

To have these two attributes is to be paranoid, asocial, and disengaged from humanity (if not downright misanthropic). This is why the aloof, plotting Ichabod is such a good counterpoint to the raucous, lovable Brom Bones. No one – other than the dreaded politicians – epitomized this mortal sin to Irving so perfectly as a loan shark. Having watched his brother Peter lose his business, happiness, and self-esteem during his humiliating bankruptcy (an event he spent four years trying to prevent), he had little patience with moneylenders and usurers. The character of Tom Walker, like his descendent Ebenezer Scrooge, is the polar opposite of the open-handed, openhearted Baltus Van Tassel (though they are probably equally rich), and serves as a fittingly Faustian descendent of Marlowe’s scheming “Doctor Faustus” while presaging Hawthorne’s paranoid Goodman Brown.

The difference between these various manifestations, however, is the character’s abject shallowness: unlike Marlowe’s knowledge-hungry German or Hawthorne’s morally-ambiguous Puritan, Walker is blatantly cheap. He cares nothing for fellowship, community, or friendship, and has the temerity to sell his soul for money but spend his precious lifetime in miserly poverty, refusing to spend his wealth. Irving compares him to the three most miserable, amoral characters he can imagine: pirates, slave-traders, and Indian-killers. While Irving’s political activism would disappoint a modern social justice warrior, he wasn’t shy about his thoughts on slavery or Indian affairs: he considered both populations to be shamefully mistreated.

While he carried with him the casual racism of the 19th century, he equated all four professions – human trafficker, genocidal land thief, buccaneer, and loan shark – for their utter lack of empathy or mercy. Like his German predecessor, Tom Walker trades his soul for a fleeting grasp at self-importance – the alchemist hopes to heal his spiritual loneliness with knowledge while the ego-bruised moneylender enjoys the fact that he can spread fear by brandishing mortgages at pleading families. Regardless of the fact that both men meet the same fiery fate, Irving seems to hint that one of the two has made a worse bargain – he might as well have traded his life for a bucket of ashes…

Irving begins his story with the pirate legend of Captain Kidd, the Scottish privateer who was said to have hidden a cache of his ill-gotten treasure deep in the forested swamps of the sinister Hockomock Swamp, outside of colonial Boston. After burying the chests, he made a bargain with the Devil to protect the gold from searchers. Kidd didn’t live to enjoy his wealth – he was hanged in 1701 – but the Devil kept his side of the bargain, and has been guarding the hoard ever since…

Twenty-six years later, the story picks up with a bitter old miser named Tom Walker who lives in a miserable, lonely shack on the marshy outskirts of Boston with his equally greedy wife. One date he wanders through the dark swamplands and finds himself standing on the deserted ruins of the Indian fortress – a shadowy, earthen mound leftover from King Philip’s War. King Philip – one of Irving’s personal heroes, whom he viewed as an honorable and tragic individualist – was an Indian chief who was defeated in 1678 by the Puritan colonials in a conflict noted for its treachery as one of the darkest moments of American history. While wandering in the gloomy twilight of the fort, Walker encounters the Devil himself: a shaggy-haired, soot-blackened woodsman chopping down trees (sinisterly marked by the names of prominent Bostonians, including a deacon rumored to be involved in the slave trade and a rich sea captain said to have been a pirate. Walker quickly realizes who his companion is and jumps at the coal-colored man’s offer to trade Kidd’s hidden treasure for an unspecified valuable, implied to be his soul.

Tom returns to his home where his only hesitation at accepting the offer is his displeasure at the idea of sharing the windfall with his wicked wife. Eventually he mentions the encounter to her, and she heads to the Indian fort by herself to make her own deal, and later returns with the intelligence that Satan is willing strike a bargain so long as she returns with an offering. In the middle of the night, she absconds with their meagre household goods of silver and the like, and is never seen again (all Walker can find is her heart and liver tied up in her apron and hanging from a tree).

With his wife out of the way, Walker decides to accept the deal, but learns that he can only spend the money in the Devil’s name, so he briefly ponders becoming a slave trader, but this is too evil for even Tom, so he decides on becoming a predatory lender. He is given the hidden gold and becomes an extravagantly rich with the rise of financial speculation in Boston’s growing merchant class. But Tom’s miserliness has not been cured by his wealth: he has a coach, but the horses are fed so little that they are emaciated, and his big house is cold, drafty, and unfurnished. Each year he grows richer, but he continues to suffer in self-imposed penury.

As Walker ages, he begins to feel the weight of his mortality and begins to dread the end-result of his bargain with Satan. Terrified of an eternity in hell, he begins attending church religiously, singing passionately in the choir, and never going anywhere without a pair of Bibles that he takes everywhere. The treasure has only made him more miserable: not only is he living in poverty, but now his waggish cynicism has been smothered by soul-crushing guilt and angst.

None of this, however, has stopped his business dealing or his thirst for wealth. One day he is bothered by a desperate real estate speculator who owes him money and is pleading him for mercy: “My family will be ruined and brought upon [welfare],” he moans, and besides which, “You have made so much money out of me.” Walker is absolutely unmoved and barks out, “The Devil take me if I have made a farthing!” Immediately, the oath is followed by three thundering knocks on the door. Startled, he opens the door to find a large black man holding a black horse by the bridle. “Tom, you’re come for!” he barks, and Walker realizes, too late, that not only is this his saddled, one-way ticket to hell, but that he has forgotten his two Bibles at his money-counting desk.

The Devil hurls him on top of the horse, which thunders out of town, into the Swamp, and towards the Indian fortress before is vanishes entirely with a dazzle of lightning. Afterwards, all his wealth is found to be worthless: the hoarded coins are nothing but wood shavings, the mortgages are just charred cinders, his horses are dry skeletons, and his house burns down in the night. All that is left of him is the legend that his melancholy ghost prowls the dark glen of the Indian fort.

Though Irving has rarely been labelled a progressive – and never an activist – his most famous straight-forward horror story uses the Puritan myth of the Black Man in the Woods (interspersed with German legends of Faust) takes a notably political tack. As noted in the introduction, the primary villains of this piece are human traffickers, pirates, loan sharks, and genocidal land grabbers: those who took advantage of and dehumanized innocent people. I remember thinking about this story during the aftermath of the massive housing crisis during the Great Recession of 2008: people like Walker encouraged desperate borrowers to take out risky loans, well knowing that they wouldn’t be able to repay them, but eager to profit off of the interest. Because of this irresponsibility, tens of thousands of families went through tremendously dark times, often ending in foreclosure, bankruptcy, and even suicide. In Irving’s day, recessions were horrifically common (it seems as if they sprang up each decade – sometimes twice), and predatory lenders feasted while struggling small businessmen suffered famine.

Irving rhetorically compares loan sharks and speculative bankers to slave traders, buccaneers, and Indian killers, and while your typical victims of slavery, murder, and genocide probably wouldn’t see much of a comparison, it is interesting that at least two of those crimes – respectable means of earning a living at the time – would make the blacklist of one of America’s most politically cautious writers. During his lifetime Irving never attended abolitionist rallies, decried the Trail of Tears, or marched on Washington with Frederick Douglass, he did seem to sense – much to his chagrin, as an easygoing moderate – the cosmic hypocrisy of several American “institutions.” He deeply resented slave-holders, regularly lionized the plight of American Indians like Metacomet (whose marshland fort Walker visits), and drew comparisons between the ill treatment of African Americans, American Indians, and the Yankee colonists who so decried “taxation without representation.” It seemed to Irving – apolitical as he tried to be – that a person who proudly waved a flag and championed the struggles of Bunker Hill, Valley Forge, and Trenton but turned a blind eye to the horrors of chattel slavery and Indian relocation must have made a deal with the Devil.

In a curiously un-nationalistic display of self-awareness, Irving portrays the Devil as indelible to the American way of life. Without being explicit or melodramatic he implies that the very structure of American culture, government, and economy has been built on a foundation of abuses and crimes. He dresses like an American (in political cartoons of the time, “America” was typically clothed in Indian garb), claims responsibility for the success of the American way of life (the colonies’ most successful burghers are his clients), and proudly touts his responsibility for the colonial economy (the booming slave trade, smuggling business, and selling of Indian territory fall under his provenance). Irving’s story would later – and very famously – be retooled by American writer Stephen Vincent Benet in “The Devil and Daniel Webster.” In this patriotic reimagining of Irving’s plot, an American citizen employs the eponymous American lawyer to defend him against damnation.

While Benet’s story is far more optimistic about the goodness of the American way of life, it also recognizes the more diabolical events in the national story: Satan proudly points to slavery and Indian removal as accomplishments of his. Although Benet has Webster victorious in his defense, both stories grimly acknowledge the hypocrisies, inhumanity, and deceptiveness that have played a part in crafting the American nation. Gender even enters into Irving’s story in the form of Goodie Walker, who sneaks into the swamp in hopes of bribing the Devil for power. Although notoriously greedy, she doesn’t seem to be bargaining for wealth, because she takes the family silver with her (unless she wanted to exchange it for cash, she couldn’t expect to make a profit). So what was her aim? We must imagine that – especially as a woman living in Calvinist Massachusetts – she had hoped to grab a piece of the power away from the men.

Characterized as argumentative, feisty, bullying, and proud, the only obstacle to her career as a formidable public figure is her gender – and Satan’s response to her appeal is predictably misogynistic. Found disembodied, with only her indomitable heart and liver tied up in her apron, she has been spirited away to hell, but not before being symbolically lobotomized and emotionally castrated. Without her heart (her will and personality) or her liver (her passions and temper), she is symbolically defanged, and her body has been dragged to hell for the Devil’s use. Although few critics read Irving’s characterization of Goodie Walker as sympathetic – and indeed, she is cast out of the same fearsome mold as Dame Van Winkle – her sad fate at the Devil’s hands closely resembles that of the African slaves and Indian wanderers whom Satan robbed of their liberty, property, and spirit. If God is in the business of making things whole – of reunion, restoration, and recovery – then Satan is in the business of making things broken – shattering wills, cleaving families, and crushing hopes.

Irving wrote this, of course, largely from his personal experience of having watched his brother Peter suffer from predatory lenders – his British-based firm eventually going belly up and being dissolved into a bankruptcy – and while his personal connection causes him to lament the fate of Walker’s victims, small business owners, he surprisingly – for both his time, his privileged background, and his political abstinence – sees fit to recognize the parallel abuses of his own class against marginalized groups. And the boogey man is not Satan himself, but Satan-in-Us: Old Scratch doesn’t possess his clients and force them to sell slaves, burn ships, or massacre tribes; he uses preexisting attitudes of entitlement and misanthropy to encourage his work on Earth. Manipulating slavers’ desire for wealth and status, he helps them profit from human trafficking; encouraging Indian killers’ lack of empathy or justice, he goads them into stealing lands and selling them at high profits; using loan sharks’ inborn disinterest in mercy or sympathy, he promotes their predatory lending.

And Irving doesn’t end his story by pointing – as Benet does in his – to the wonderful and meritable elements of American culture (although much exists). He ends by having his moneylender dragged off to the swamp where corruption, misery, and hopelessness are born – unrescued by his feeble attempts to mime righteousness, and doomed by his own greed (having piled mortgages on top of his folio Bible). Irving’s story ends without hope or condition – just as he wanted it. Like “Sleepy Hollow,” it is a warning – against hypocrites, against phonies, against greed. And the lesson is as ancient as Faust but as relevant as Dodd-Franks: be careful of how you build your life; notice whom your actions affect; care about who suffers from your victories; pay attention to the effects of your choices; and know whom it is that you are getting into bed with in order to prosper. After all, you may turn over one night to find that it has been the Devil.

You can read the original story HERE!

And you can find our annotated and illustrated collection of Irving's best supernatural fiction HERE!

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The Devil and Tom Walker

Washington irving, everything you need for every book you read., old scratch, tom walker’s wife, captain kidd, deacon peabody.

Absalom Crowninshield

The land jobber.

Jotted Lines

A Collection Of Essays

The Devil and Tom Walker: Summary

In Washington Irving’s “The Devil and Tom Walker,” set in New England in the early 1700s, a narrator relates a story he has heard about a local man’s dealings with the devil. The narrator never claims that the stories are true, only that they are widely believed. 

According to local legend, a treasure is buried in a dark grove on an inlet outside of Boston. It is said that Kidd the Pirate left it there under a gigantic tree and that the devil himself “presided at the hiding of the money, and took it under his guardianship. ” Since the pirate Kidd was hanged, no one has disturbed the treasure or challenged the devil’s right to it. 

In the year 1727 a local man, the notorious miser Tom Walker, finds himself in the dark grove alone at dusk while taking a shortcut back to his house. Tom is well known among the townspeople for his pitiful horse, his loud wife, and the couple’s miserly habits in which they “conspired to cheat each other.” Unaware that treasure lay nearby, Tom stops to rest against a tree outside the remains of an Indian fort. Despite local legends of the evil goings-on at the site, Tom ‘ ‘was not a man to be troubled with any fears of the kind.” 

After absentmindedly digging up an old skull, Tom is suddenly reprimanded by a gruff voice. The voice belongs to a man who is blackened by soot and grime and who introduces himself as the black woodman. Soon enough, Tom realizes that he is in the company of the devil himself. After a brief conversation, “Old Scratch,” as Tom calls him, offers Tom the treasure in exchange for a few conditions. He declines. Back home, he tells his wife what transpired in the woods, and she is outraged that he passed up the opportunity for them to gain great wealth in exchange for his soul. She takes it upon herself to seek out the devil and strike a bargain on her own. After several trips to the fort in the woods, she becomes frustrated by the devil’s unwillingness to appear to her. One day, she gathers the couple’s few possessions of value in her apron and heads off for the woods. She never returns. Eventually, Tom wanders to the woods to find out what happened to her and discovers her apron hanging from a tree. It contains her heart and liver. Hoof-prints and clumps of hair at the base of the tree hint at a fierce struggle. “Old Scratch must have had a tough time of it!” he remarks. Nevertheless, the next time the devil appears to Tom, he is eager to strike a deal now that he will not have to share anything with his wife. 

Balking at the devil’s suggestion of becoming a slave-trader, Tom decides that he will become a usurer, or a moneylender, since gaining the treasure is contingent upon being employed in the devil’s service. Tom immediately sets up shop in a “counting house” in Boston and attains great wealth by cheating people out of their money and charging them outrageous interest. He builds a luxurious house but refuses to spend money to furnish it properly. He buys an expensive carriage but fails to maintain it, and his horses he only begrudgingly feeds. 

When Tom grows old, he begins to worry about the terms of his deal with the devil and suddenly becomes a “violent church-goer” in an effort to cheat the devil out of receiving his soul. He reads the bible obsessively and prays loudly and long in church each week. Among the townspeople, “Tom’s zeal became as notorious as his riches.” Nevertheless, one morning the devil comes calling and instantly whisks Tom away on a black horse in the midst of a thunderstorm to the Indian fort in the woods, never to be seen again. Town officials charged with settling Tom’s estate discover his bonds and money reduced to cinders, and soon enough his house burns to the ground as well.

Source Credits:

Kathleen Wilson (Editor), Short Stories for Students: Presenting Analysis, Context & Criticism on Commonly Studied Short Stories, Volume 1, Washington Irving, Published by Gale, 1997.

Related Posts:

• The Devil and Tom Walker: Literary Devices
• The Devil and Tom Walker: Themes
• The Devil and Tom Walker: Analysis
• The Devil and Tom Walker: Characters
• The Devil and Tom Walker: Setting
• How Much Land Does A Man Need? - Themes