The Devil And Tom Walker Archetype

551 Words3 Pages
“The Devil and Tom Walker” Michael Nwaogu English 11 Mr. Ortiz Period 2 February 1, 2013 A story of tragedy in both religion and business. In the story “The Devil and Tom Walker” by Washington Irving, Tom is egotistic and has an impatient approach towards everything, Tom doubts the decisions he make with the devil due to the exchange of his soul to the devil to become an usurer. Washington Irving’s story relates to the “Faustian” archetype because Tom Walker also sales his soul to the devil but, somewhat there’s differences between eachother Faust an old German character who sold his soul to the devil exchange for knowledge as for Tom Walker he exchange it for money; as for the third-person omniscient shows how people felt towards moneylenders throughout the story, this is how we can infer about cultural attitudes about the people. Washington Irving’s story relates to the Faustian archetype because Tom Walker similar to Faust, the character Faust in the German…show more content…
“He prayed loudly and strenuously, as if heaven were to be taken by force of lungs”. (Irving 250) This also shows that Tom Walker regretted his bargain with the “black man”. The third-person omniscient narrator provides the people’s thoughts and feelings of all the characters in the story showing us how they felt towards moneylenders and giving us a better understanding towards them. The poor land jobber asked Tom for a few months’ indulgence, not giving the poor man any sympathy. “I must take care of myself in these hard times.” said Tom “You have made so much money out of me,” said the speculator.(Irving 251) Therefore this shows how the people felt towards the usurers, feeling they were greedy and
Open Document