Similarities Between The Devil And Tom Walker

Before the days of Halloween and Nightmare on Elm Street, lovers of the horrifying and the macabre found themselves indulging in the works of gothic authors such as Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, and Edgar Allen Poe. Emerging in the nineteenth century, gothic stories focused on the dark aspects of human imagination, and were often tales of sinister plots and evil wrongdoings. Within the setting of gothic novels, the natural world was commonly portrayed as overgrown and dilapidated. The atmosphere developed in these stories through the setting helped to create a sense of mystery, suspense, and fear. Gothic stories also dealt with the supernatural and mysterious, including archetypes such as demons, ghosts, and the dead. In 1824, Washington Irving

The setting of “The Devil and Tom Walker” illustrates these qualities .The description of Tom’s house as a sullen, forlorn structure on page one establishes the melancholy mood from the initial onset of the story. From there, the setting transitions into the dismal mire in which Tom finds himself on his way home. The swamp is described as “partly covered with weeds and mosses, where the green surface often betrayed the traveler into a gulf of black … where the trunks of pines and hemlocks lay half drowned, half rotting, looking like alligators sleeping in the mire” (Irving 1). The diction used to describe this bog creates the dark mood prevalent in gothic literature. Words such as “black,” “betrayed,” and “rotting” contribute to this feeling of dread and doom. In addition, the skull in front of the demolished fortress described on page two is characteristic of settings found in gothic literature. Not only does it create an eerie mood, but it also illustrates that evil and pain exist in the world, another recurring theme found in gothicism. Furthermore, the skull references the gruesome and untimely death of its owner. This both indicates a

Themes such as sin, pain, and death are often included in gothic stories. In “Tom Walker,” these themes are clearly evident. Once again, the gothic nature of the story and death as a theme is introduced from the initial onset of the story with the description of Kidd’s execution. The story also references multiple impending deaths, which also helps to create a sense of tension and suspense for the reader. This is noted when Tom is in the swamp with the Devil, who sits atop a tree that represents the fate of the prominent citizen inscribed upon it. It is stated on page