Hypocrisy In The Devil And Tom Walke

When one conceals their real character with a false appearance of virtue or goodness, they are exemplifying the characteristics of a hypocrite. Hypocrisy, particularly religious hypocrisy, is present in Washington Irving’s short story “The Devil and Tom Walker” and is weaved throughout Nathaniel Hawthorne’s respective short stories “Young Goodman Brown” and “The Minister’s Black Veil.” In these stories, both authors illustrate how the perceived religious attitudes and actions of different characters are merely superficial, and that beneath the surface lies their true, often wicked, nature. Irving’s source of religious hypocrisy in “The Devil and Tom Walker” is in Tom Walker himself. After selling his soul to the devil in order to obtain vast

Hooper delivers his sermon, which is about how everyone has a secret sin that acts as a barrier between themselves and the others around them, with a black veil covering his face, “each member of the congregation, the most innocent girl, and the man of hardened breast, felt as if the preacher had crept upon them, behind his awful veil, and discovered their hoarded iniquity of deed or thought.” (106). The message of his sermon, paired with the veil, causes the townspeople to feel as if Mr. Hooper can see their individual secret sins and expose them to the public, which, in a Puritanical society, makes one vulnerable to public punishment or ostracism by the community. Due to their fears of having their Christian facades shattered and their subsequent sinful natures revealed, the townspeople alienate the minister. This reflects hypocrisy in the sense that their fears come from knowing they are essentially living double lives, which causes more hypocritical behavior to arise in the form of treating their minister in quite the opposite way one should treat a human being, especially one who serves the church in such a high position. Furthermore, on his deathbed, Mr. Hooper points out the townspeople’s hypocrisy when he exclaims, “Why do you tremble at me alone? Tremble also at each other. . . .I look around me, and, lo! on every visage a Black Veil!” (118). Through this exclamation, he is trying to urge the townspeople to reveal their secret sins and stop hiding under a