Never Bet The Devil Your Head Analysis

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This story starts with the the reader talking about Toby Dammit. Toby Dammit was the main character in “Never Bet the Devil Your Head.” Right off the back the reader speaks of Toby’s mother being left handed. When this story was written, people were convinced that if you were left handed, then you had a defect. “The world revolves right to left,” so if you’re “flogged” from left to right, there was a certainty of wicked being knocked into you. Since Toby’s mother was left-handed, and he got flogged left to right, there was a “wickedness” in him and the reader explained he could see it more and more as he grew. People already knew he was getting bad, in the story it explains that by just a year he was swearing. But as he got older he became more and more confident in himself and his abilities that he started gambling and betting. Instead of just betting a simple thing as in what the other person desired, he went on an extreme. He bet the Devil his head. No matter if it were guessing if a quarter were going to land on heads or tails, he would bet the devil his head. Once Toby was boasting about how fhe could lead over a stile, and cut a pigeon wing over it. But the reader knew someone that would be much better than toby at doing so, and then they met the man. His name was Mr. Carlyle, and carlyle gave toby a challenge. But of course Toby did not think much of it. They went to a bridge to leap over the stile, to see who was better. They soon lined up …show more content…

Literally, moral is the lesson sought to be teached. To me the moral is the message that the author is trying to get across to the audience. In “Never bet the Devil your head”, Edgar Allen Poe shows that the main character Toby Dammit grows up, and as he grows up he builds the habit of being over confident, even cocky. I feel that in “Never bet the Devil your head”, Edgar Allan Poe is trying to express that you should never be over confident with your tongue and what you

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