The Devil and Tom Walker

       In class I had to read the story The Devil and Tom Walker. In the story there were a couple of indirect characterizations about Tom Walker. For one it said "a meager misery fellow" which means he didn't like his life so much. Then it says about his wife "whatever the woman could lay hands on she hid." In other words she was a very greedy wife. The author also said Tom Walker "was continually prying about to detect her secret hoards" which I inferred to mean that Tom Walker was a nosy man. The author makes another indirect inference about Tom and his wife it was "he had a wife as miserly as himself." You can in infer that he had a characteristic the same as his wife. It so happens they're both miserly which can mean stingy and what they were miserly over was money. One direct characterization about Tom's wife was "a tall termagant, fierce of temper, loud of tongue, and strong of arm." One direct characterization about Tom was "a hard-minded fellow, not easily daunted, and he had lived so long with a termagant wife, that he did not even fear the devil." As you can see the author used a lot more indirect characterizations than direct characterizations.

       One theme I found out to be was Karma. The reason why that is a theme is because just as Tom started he had ended up but 10 times worse. Another theme of this story is greed. This story shows that greed isn't the way to go. Tom, his wife, and The Devil were all greedy but in the end The Devil's greed won out of all theirs. The next theme to me was to expect the unexpected. Tom had tried to change his life and get forgiveness for his sins he had kept the bible at his chest and the whole nine. As soon as he sat that bible down the Devil had come to take him with him before he could get back to the bible. A strong theme of this story is selfishness. Half this story wouldn't have taken place if Tom Walker and his wife wouldn't have tried to be selfish, and they learned that there are repercussions to trying to be selfish. Then a theme is trust. Tom trusted the bible and church to keep him from having his soul from being stolen, Tom trusted the Devil wouldn't take it, Tom trusted that the money would make him happy. As we read we realized that dealing with the wrong people, and money are two things that will not make you happy and you shouldn't trust either. My last theme is loyalty. If Tom and his wife would have been loyal to each other then the Devil, money, and greed wouldn't have even been able to get between them.