Setting and Symbolism in 'The Devil and Tom Walker'

Washington Irving wrote a short story “The Devil and Tom Walker”. Showing the way people may be on the outside but how they truly are on the inside. An example being Tom Walker he’s a quiet guy but on the inside he is a greedy and selfish man. Like the trees the leaves are beautiful but the trunks are rotten. In “The Devil and Tom Walker,” Irving shows the human comparison through the use of the woods as setting and symbolism.

Hollowed trees represents the natural consequence of Tom’s bad actions. When Tom encounters with the devil, he notices the trunks are dead. In the book the tree’s are a symbolized as “fair and flourishing without, but rotten to the core” (Irving 205). The trees are flourish looking from the outside but dead to the core on the inside of the trunk. It is a symbol of greed and how it can tend to become Toms priority like his broker shop. The swamp was not a bright place to be in, it was dark during the day and especially at night. “The swamp was thickly grown with great gloomy pines and hemlocks, some of them ninety feet high, which made it look like noonday, a retreat for owls of the neighborhood”. The trees show the dark vibe of the place but also keeping their appearance with there beautiful leaves. They also show the rottenness of the trunks. In the story the trees are examples of the people who are viewed in a good and positive way in the community.

One important person that Tom Walker mentioned was Deacon Peabody from the town. The devil’s statement about Deacon Peabody that basically said that his sins are more than his neighbors “look more to his own sins and less to those of his neighbor”. This means that Deacon Peabody is a man in the priestly community but he still has bad interactions with the Native Americans that looks bad on him from the community. Tom Walker knows that Deacon Peabody is already corrupt. A stranger from town approaches Deacon Peabody’s said , “be d—d as I flatter myself he will be if he does not look to his own sins and lessor those of his neighbors. Look yonder, and see how Devon Peabody is fairing”. Where Tom Walker meets the owner of the swamp, he seems Deacons Peabody’s name carved into one of the trees. This means that Deacon Peabody is thriving on the outside but rotting in the inside.

The trees are a big symbol of the people of the town. Trees are the people of the town and they symbolize how greed is rotting them from the inside just like the trees are rotting from the inside. Deacon Peabody’s name was carved on the tree to show that he was greedy on the inside but flourish looking on the outside. Old scratch see the tree in the swamp, “This tree here has Deacon Peabody’s name carved in it”(Irving 206).The people of the town are greddy in their ways of money and foolish they can be. John Walker was greedy and rotting from the inside by his greedy of money. “a vast house, out of unfinished and unfurnished, out of parsimony”.

In the story “The Devil and Tom Walker,” the trees and woods are the symbol of the people and how they are rotting for the inside. It is a mortal not to fall at the feet of the devil. As the story progresses the reader can see that greed and darknesses calls the devil to be near. Tom Walker can be seen as an example of this in this story.

Work cited

1. Irving,William. “ The Sticky Trap”. The Devil and Tom Walker, Bervely Ann Chin, Denny, McGraw Hill. 2002 202-213.