Literature Unit 3 Enrichment & Review Activities (1850 – 1914)

1. “The Devil and Tom Walker” by Washington Irving:Questions to Think about: The Devil and Tom Walker" is the story of Tom Walker, who is tempted by the Devil, who goes by the name of Old Scratch. The story has been compared to the Faust tales by various famous authors.

A.) Take a look at these questions for study and discussion.

1. What is important about the title?

2. What are the conflicts in "The Devil and Tom Walker"? What types of conflict (physical, moral, intellectual, or emotional)?

3. How does Irving reveal character in "The Devil and Tom Walker"?

4. Who was Faust (in literary history)? How could Tom Walker be said to have made a Faustian bargain?

5. What are some themes in the story? How do they relate to the plot and characters?

6. Compare/Contrast Tom Walker with Scrooge (in A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens)

7. Is Tom Walker consistent in his actions? Is he a fully developed character? How? Why?

8. Do you find the characters likable? Are the characters persons you would want to meet?

9. Discuss some of the symbols in "The Devil and Tom Walker."

10. Compare "The Devil and Tom Walker" with "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow."

11. Does the story end the way you expected? How? Why?

12. What is the central/primary purpose of the story? Is the purpose important or meaningful?

13. How essential is the setting to the story? Could the story have taken place anywhere else?

14. What supernatural or surprising events are employed by Washington Irving? Are these happenings believable?

B.) Allegory used in the short story:

In the story, "The Devil and Tom Walker," Washington Irving uses allegory to warn readers against the perils of sin and temptation. Irving believed that, ultimately, a man's fate was decided by his deeds, and that all measures should be taken to guard against Satan and his tricks. He uses his characters and certain story elements to represent sin and temptation.

Irving starts the story with a legend about a pirate treasure. This legend introduces the underlying concept of the story: greed. This connection is the easiest to make. Irving uses an international symbol, money, to establish the core of the story. He also builds upon the original legend of Captain Kidd to gently warn his audience before jumping into the heart of the matter.

Tom Walker and his wife are also representative of the deadly sin of greed. Their constant hoarding and plotting to gain one another's possessions and wealth are major clues. When Tom tells his wife about his encounter with the devil, "all her avarice [is] awakened at the mention of hidden gold" (Irving 131). The wife is willing to sacrifice her eternal, irreplaceable soul for money; an asset easily acquired through honest labor. Neither of them have the time, energy or inclination to perform honest work because they devote all of their time to scheming against one another.

Irving uses this aspect of the characters' personalities to warn readers against the sin of sloth, or laziness. He shows the audience that true happiness cannot be achieved if one refuses to work. The pitiful state of affairs at the Walker household serves as an effective deterrent against this sin. The house is described as derelict, having "an air of starvation" (Irving 128). The horse the couple owns is described in much the same manner. Tom Walker and his wife have let the sin of laziness affect them so much that neither of them bother to keep up with simple housework. Living in squalor puts even more stress on the marriage, bolstering the sin of greed.

The wife takes her greed to another level by deciding to deal with the Devil on her own terms. She is willing to sacrifice her marriage, her life, and the life of her husband for money that may or may not exist. Neither Tom nor his wife takes the time to consider this possibility at all. The Devil, with all of his tricks and temptations, could very well have made up the legend himself as a tool to gain followers and rob men and women of their souls. This is a distinct possibility since Tom never actually receives the treasure. Instead, the Devil tricks Tom into opening a money lending business. By the end of the story, Tom has become so absorbed by his work that he forgets about the treasure of Captain Kidd.

Another deadly sin Washington Irving presents in this story is envy. Using the relationship Tom and his wife have with one another, he presents readers with a prime example of out of control envy. Neither character can stand the idea that the other may have something he or she does not. Neither can stand the idea that the other may have just a little more. Irving tells his audience that the couple had "fierce...conflicts...about what ought to have been common property" (Irving 128). The utter lack of the willingness to share anything shows just how much the couple mistrusts one another.

The sin of envy is reinforced by Tom's search for his wife after she leaves to deal with the Devil herself. It was neither compassion for his wife nor fear for her safety or wellbeing that drove him to search for her, it was his deep-seated envy. On some level, probably not a very deep one, he was afraid that she had been successful. If she had outsmarted the Devil, she would not only have gotten the treasure, but she would have made off with all of their fine silver and accomplished something that he could not. With this, Irving hints at the sin of vanity, or pride. Tom would have been embarrassed and ashamed if word had gotten out about his wife obtaining a vast sum of money and leaving him. That information would have given a serious blow to his ego and sense of manhood. Tom was afraid that the neighbors and other townsfolk would think him less of a man for not being able to hold on to his wife. The search for his wife, and the subsequent story of her demise, was most likely nothing more than Tom Walker scheming to save face with the neighbors.

Tom's wife is also used as an allegory for the sin of anger. Irving gives a rather nasty description of her and her personality, and tells readers that she is often engaged in "wordy warfare with her husband" (Irving 128). It can also be assumed that she often beats her husband as well. Anger could very well be the root of the Walker's problems. The wife's outbursts of temper instill resentment in her husband, causing mistrust and allowing the seeds of envy to sprout. The envy grew in Tom and crept into his wife, spawning greed. Irving also uses the wife's anger to sprinkle a little comic relief into the story.

One can sense Tom's relief when he discovers the evidence of the desperate fight she put up against the Devil. One can't help but smile when Tom exclaims, "Old Scratch must have had a tough time of it!" (Irving 132). It is obvious that Tom takes immense pleasure in seeing that someone else had to suffer the wrath of his wife. And what a wrath it must have been because Tom found clumps of the Devil's hair on the ground, pulled out by his wife, and many of the Devil's footprints. Irving does not give details about the demise of Tom's wife, but one can assume that her anger was her ultimate downfall. Had she not fought with the Devil, she may have lived and returned home. The author uses this facet of the story to remind the audience as a whole to control their tempers, and to warn wives against treating their husbands poorly.

There is no obvious allegorical character or story element Irving uses to allude to the deadly sins of lust or gluttony, but they seem to not be needed. He chose the five sins of greed, envy, anger, vanity and sloth to lay the foundation of the story and build complex characters and morals. In the end, Irving has the Devil collect his due from Tom Walker, destroying the life the man built for himself in the process. With this, the author drives home the point he had been trying to make throughout the story; the deeds of men dictate not only the life they live, but the live that awaits them after death.
Works Cited: Irving, Washington. The Devil and Tom Walker. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Nina Baym. Shorter 6th ed. New York: Norton, 2003. 128-135.

C. Tone and Visual:

In “The Devil and Tom Walker,” Irving explains that greed and selfish ambitions can destroy people through the use of tone. Irving uses the characteristic lighthearted, tones of a classic fireside poet in a humorous manner when he writes “ Such was the end of Tom Walker and his ill-gotten wealth. Let all the groping money brokers lay this story to heart. The truth of it is not to be doubted” (245). In this quotation, Irving is jeering at Tom Walker’s stupidity while also providing his theme concisely. The author does not bother with extravagant diction and instead puts his thoughts out clearly and to the point.
The fireside poet makes his story comprehensible for the younger ones but also shows his appeal to the rest of the family when he writes that “Tom looked in the direction that the stranger pointed, and beheld one of the great trees, fair and

flourishing without, but rotten at the core” (239). Irving uses symbolism of the trees to capture the essence of the selfish men’s sacrifices to the devil. Irving’s message that selfish thinking is iniquitous is the same as that of the younger children’s message. The author knew his audiences were families ranging in age and therefore provided something for the entire family by using tone to characterize his story of an egotistical man who took the consequences of his actions.

2. William Cullen Bryant, “Thanatopsis”

A.) What does it say?

What do people think when they read about Thanatopsis? Shall people be afraid of death? No is the best answer to respond to this question, especially, when death is predestined; therefore, people shall be ready when they are facing the actual "death". Usually, their fears of facing the actual death are caused by their own negative perspective, when they have to define and understand about death itself. Death is really connecting to the word Thanatopsis that the word itself came from the Greek word called Thanatos, which means "demise or death" and opsis means, "vision" or point of view. The new word is defined by the poem: a way of looking at and thinking about death (Element of Literature 166). Bryant used his famous Thanatopsis to show his supportive ideas of looking at the positive side of death in human beings.

In the "Thanatopsis", a sixteen-year-old Bryant had been supporting and expanding his ideas to express his positive sight on death during his introverted walks on the woods. One of his little ideas was actually offering several "voices" in a dialogue on the subject of nature and death as it says on the Exploring Poetry online edition. Bryant viewed death from a different perspective than anybody else ever did; he was the first poem writer to point out on the good points of death. He tells the reader "When thoughts/Of the last bitter hour come like a blight…Go forth, under the open sky, and list/To Nature's teachings…" He believes that nature will guide its listener to a better understanding of life cycle, death and rebirth (qtd. In Analyzing of the poem "Thanatopsis). He told us to closely paying attention to nature as it is all around us. Because of the facts he told, many people were attracted by his poem as it helped each individual to gain a better understanding of life and death

B. Background:

The title is from the Greek thanatos ("death") and the suffix -opsis (literally, "sight"); it has often been translated as "Meditation upon Death". Due to the unusual quality of the verse and Bryant's age when the poem was first published in 1817 by the North American Review, Richard Henry Dana, Sr., then associate editor at the Review, initially doubted its authenticity, saying to another editor, "No one, on this side of the Atlantic, is capable of writing such verses." Although Bryant wrote the bulk of the poem at age 17 (in 1811), he added the introductory and concluding lines 10 years later in 1821.

3. Old Ironsides by Oliver Wendell Holmes

A.) TONE words in poem: "Old Ironsides" by Oliver W. Holmes?

What are the words that show the author's tone in the poem?
What do they say about the poem?
What kind of diction does he use?

When the young Holmes read a Boston newspaper account of the proposed dismantling of the Constitution in 1830, he penned “Old Ironsides,” a sentimental poem remembered mostly for its role in saving the frigate from decommission. In the poem, Holmes offers emotional reminiscences of the ship’s past glory, of her deck “red with heroes’ blood” and of her “victor’s tread.” In the last stanza, which makes the leap to the universal theme of death, Holmes insists that the frigate’s most fitting grave is “beneath the waves,” that she should be given “to the god of storms” rather than suffer the ignoble fate of the scrapheap. Although the present-day reader might find the poem’s patriotic tone a bit maudlin, “Old Ironsides” still provides a good example of poetry’s ability to sway public sentiment: the Constitution was preserved in 1830 and again several times subsequently, and today students of poetry and history alike can find her docked just north of Boston, the U.S. Navy’s oldest commissioned vessel.

B. History:

Oliver Wendell Holmes was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1809; he graduated from Harvard in 1829. Holmes was a central figure in the New England Renaissance; he studied both medicine and law; for most of his life he served as professor of anatomy and physiology at Harvard Medical School. In addition to his active professional life, Holmes maintained an active avocation as writer of both poetry and prose. He and members of the Saturday Club founded The Atlantic Monthly in 1857, and his famous Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table appeared in that publication serially from its inception. In 1858 his Autocrat was published as a volume. In 1860 appeared The Professor at the Breakfast-Table and in 1872 The Poet at the Breakfast-Table, and in 1891 Over the Teacups. This series of works represents the best conversation mode written in the United States. The fame of Holmes' poetry mostly rested on his comic verse, except for "Old Ironsides," which exemplifies the old adage, "The pen is mightier than the sword." This poem influenced action.

On September 16, 1830, Oliver Wendell Holmes' poem, "Old Ironsides," appeared in response to a report in the Boston Daily Advertiser that the Navy was going to scrap the USS Constitution. The report was inaccurate; apparently, there were no plans to demolish the ship, but a public outcry arose as a result of that report, and Holmes fired off his poem immediately. The poem is credited with saving the ship, which has a fascinating history.

4.) Fireside Poets:

A. Background:

The group is typically thought to comprise Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, William Cullen Bryant, John Greenleaf Whittier, James Russell Lowell, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., who were the first American poets whose popularity rivaled that of British poets, both at home and abroad, nearly surpassing that of Alfred Lord Tennyson. The name "Fireside Poets" is derived from that popularity: The Fireside Poets' general adherence to poetic convention—standard forms, regular meter, and rhymedstanzas—made their body of work particularly suitable for memorization and recitation in school and also at home, where it was a source of entertainment for families gathered around the fire. The poets' primary subjects were the domestic life, mythology, and politics of America, in which several of the poets were directly involved. The Fireside Poets did not write for the sake of other poets; they wrote for the common people. They meant to have their stories told for families.