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The Romantic Period in American literature seems to be anything but romantic. That is, unless you love death and the devil. Edgar Allen Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Washington Irving wrote short stories about the devil and dying during this time. These writers do write about them in slightly different ways. Edgar Allen Poe's famous short story, "The Pit and the Pendulum," is about a man and "the dread sentence of death." As he is before the judges, the "thought of what sweet rest there must be in the grave" comes to his mind. The man passes out and then wakes up in a dungeon. He tries to figure out how large the dungeon is and finally gets brave enough to try to go across the room, but in the middle of the dungeon, he finds a well. At the well, …show more content…
he resolves "to perish rather than risk the terrors of the wells." Poe sees the well as the afterlife and is afraid of what it might have in store for him.
Soon he falls asleep and when he wakes up, he finds that he is on a table and a scythe is being lowered from the ceiling. The scythe is another symbol of death. As the scythe is coming down, he tries to find a way to get away from it. At the end of the story, he is saved at the last moment by " an outstretched arm caught my own as I fell, fainting, into the abyss." Washington Irving also talks about death and the devil in his short story "The Devil and Tom Walker." He writes more about the devil than he does death and he does not put himself in the place of the main character like Poe did. Tom, the main character, is a greedy person along with his wife. As he comes home one night, he goes through some woods and meets the devil. "Tom might have felt disposed to sell himself to the devil," but he was afraid to. On the other hand, his wife was not afraid and she disappears. Then Tom makes a deal with the devil, but soon "he thought with regret of the bargain he had made with his black friend, and set his wits to work to cheat him out of the conditions." He turns to religion and carries Bibles with him to keep the devil away, but it does
not. He gets mad at someone that owes him money and states "The devil take me, if I have made a farthing!" The devil then catches him without his Bibles and takes him away. In Washington's story, the character is not saved from the devil. "Dr. Heidegger's Experiment" by Nathaniel Hawthorne takes a different look at death than Poe did, but he also talks about people and their greed like Irving did. In this story, a doctor has four friends come and help him with an experiment. The doctor explains to them what the Fountain of Youth is and tells them they "are welcome to so much of this admirable fluid as may restore to you the bloom of youth." They drink of the water and turn young. They keep drinking until "they were a group of merry youngsters, almost maddened with the exuberant frolicsomeness of their years." They become greedy for their youth back. Soon they return to their old age. Because of what they missed, they travelled to Florida to find the Fountain of Youth and get back what they felt they had lost. The Romantic Period sounds like it should be about love and happiness. Poe, Irving, and Hawthorne did not write about love and happiness. They wrote of death and the devil and the darker side of life. They also experimented with what greed does to people and to what lengths they will go to so they can have what they want.
Tom Walker’s devil is a dark-skinned man with red eyes, red sash, and an axe. Tom was a malicious, greedy person who dealt with the devil in order to gain some wealth. He and his wife would fight constantly day after day. Tom was not a wealthy person
Washington Irving displays a sense of humor throughout “The Devil and Tom Walker” about greed, marriage and religion to help the reader, become a better person. Tom Walker makes a Faustian Bargain, also known as a deal with the devil. Tom has a lot of problems with his abusive wife, his desire for riches and getting into the afterlife. Washington Irving tells us the story of Tom Walker in a humorous way. Irving does this to display a message to his readers.
In America, the period of Romanticism brought up many depictions of society that held their place in America many decades ago. This society was made up of Puritans who held a strong belief system and was even their form of governing. Romantic authors like Washington Irving, who wrote “The Devil and Tom Walker”, and Nathaniel Hawthorne, who wrote The Scarlet Letter included Puritans in their stories to convey a message. In both works, the authors focus on Puritans in their stories to convey an image of who Puritans were and what they did, though not in a positive light through the use of the devil and the setting of a forest. This is because of how Romanticism generally satirized Puritans and tried to portray them as completely contradictory
In Washington Irving’s story, The Devil and Tom Walker, Irving uses his imagination to convey his thoughts about the truth of life through symbols and characterization. In one specific instance in the story, the main character, Tom Walker, is walking home and “he took what he considered a shortcut homeward, through the swamp. Like most shortcuts, it was an ill-chosen route.” The path being “thickly grown with great gloomy pines” symbolizes the path of wrongdoings, bad decisions, and darkness. By taking this path, one then strays off the path of
In the short story The Devil and Tom Walker, written by Washington Irving, the protagonist Tom Walker, is characterized as being a negative man. This is demonstrated through Tom Walker being characterized as being meager, outspoken, fearless, greedy, stubborn, and unloving.
During the American Renaissance, writers were put into one of two categories. The categories were the Dark Romantics and the Transcendentalists. Some Dark Romantics include Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Washington Irving. The Dark Romantics stories included creepy symbols, horrific themes, and psychological effects of guilt and sin. The Devil and Tom Walker by Washington Irving gives a few examples as to why life is meaningless to some people.Humans are not all good, there are some cruel people in this world. The Pit and the Pendulum tells you exactly why.
The Devil is explaining to Tom who he is and he also describes himself. The Devil is often described as a man is disguises and here it is the same way. He describes himself as a woodsman, a black miner and a huntsman and all of these disguises can be related to dark and scary people, which is exactly what the devil is. “The devil” said he guards, Captain Kidd’s treasure, he said he guards all treasure. “The devil presided at the hiding of Captain Kidd’s money, and took it under his guardianship; but this, it is well known, he always does with buried treasure, particularly when it has been ill-gotten”. (Irving). He claims to own the swamp near Tom Walker and his wife’s home, where Tom met him during his first encounter where they were surrounded by trees with carved names of the living but soon to die and be fuel for hell’s fire. Old Scratch is the devil who knows when he’s got people right where he wants them, and tries to offer the deal of a lifetime. After Toms encounter with the devil he went to tell his wife about the
"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." (Irving) “The Devil and Tom Walker” is a short story written by Washington Irving in about 1824. The story is about a man who sells his soul to the devil in exchange for Pirate Kidd’s hidden treasure. The man, named Tom Walker, is a greedy, selfish man who thinks money is more important than his wife. “The Devil and Tom Walker” is the best short story example of Romanticism. The story uses escapism, nature as a form of spirituality, and imagination, which are all tenets of Romanticism.
We see that good vs. evil has been a theme that is ubiquitous in many writings. The story "The Devil and Tom Walker" is a story about a man who lives an immoral life of greed. Walker lives in a wooded area, where it is solemn, and quiet area of New England. Walker runs into the devil and sees that the devil is cutting down someone else's timber.
Washington Irving’s “The Devil and Tom Walker” includes great examples of Romanticism, such as symbols in nature having links to the supernatural, the importance of the inner nature, and the emphasis of the individual. In the story, Tom Walker is a selfish man who cares more about money than he does about anyone else, including his wife. One day, while he is walking through the woods, Tom Walker comes across the Devil, who makes a deal with him to exchange his soul for the treasure that is buried in those woods. Tom declines and returns back to his wife and tells her that he has passed on an opportunity that could bring them lots of money. Tom’s wife, outraged by his actions, decides to strike a deal of her own with the Devil and after several attempts, she never returns from the woods. The next time Tom goes to the woods he finds that his wife had been killed by the Devil. He finally agrees to make the deal with him, now that Tom doesn’t have to share anything with his wife. Tom ignores the Devil’s suggestion of becoming a slave-trader and becomes a moneylender instead. He gets wea...
Can you imagine yourself locked up in a room with no doors? Similar to a room with no doors, there is no way out of hell if it was one's destiny. In the short story "The Devil & Tom Walker" by Washington Irving, the main character's fate is hell because of his wrong decisions in life, accepting a deal with the devil for earthly benefits. Irving reinforces his message about not making decisions that may damn your soul with the use of literary elements and figurative language. Wisely, Irving combines characterization, mood and point of view to perpetuate the theme of the story in the reader's mind.
The Romantic Era was a time when writers wrote with passion in relation to elements of writing such as the fantastic or supernatural, the improbable, the sentimental, and the horrifying. Edgar Allan Poe was one of the many writers who used elements such as these in his writings. Poe was famous for reflecting the dark aspects of his mind in a story, creating detailed imagery intriguing the reader. The fantastic and supernatural elements are expressed in The Premature Burial as impossible and in a sense, horrifying. The idea of people walking after their believed death is very extreme thinking in a world that seems normal.
Nazlee Hasan Creekmore PAP English 1 (A4) 30 October 2017 Symbolism and Imagery in “The Pit and the Pendulum” In “The Pit and the Pendulum” by Edgar Allan Poe, a man is being persecuted during the Spanish Inquisition for an unknown reason and is deposited in a cell with walls with disturbing pictures engraved on them. He frequently falls in and out of consciousness as he attempts to escape. “The Pit and the Pendulum” by Anton Chekhov employs imagery and symbolism to emphasize that psychological torment is the worst form of torture. Imagery is used to help build suspense when the judges condemn the prisoner. “I saw the lips of the black-robed judge.
Irving, Washington. “The Devil and Tom Walker”. Elements of Literature: Fifth Course. Austin: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 2008. 175-185. Print.
A time in literary history, where one writes with the mindset that consists of augmenting the truth and creating an ideal world through literature, is known as the Romantic period. The Romantic period started in the early 1800s and continued throughout the 1860s. Throughout this era, the efforts of great writers are seen and admired. Nathaniel Hawthorne is a well known writer during the period. He is an example of a writer who understood the idea of Romanticism and incorporated it in his works of literature. Through his writing he embodies romanticism by putting an emphasis on the sinful nature of humans and how it affects the sinner and the people around them, and this is done through symbolism. Symbolism is an important element in the writing