The Devil & Tom Walker

Trustworthy & thankful are usually not the words you’d use to describe such a story or its characters like the ones on “The Devil & Tom Walker”, but since this story is a satire, it actually presents this values or its anti values in an ironic way in different parts of the story.

Tom Walker seems to have a relationship with his wife that is out of the common treatment for spouses, since they dont trust each other in any way, not even with their “shared” property.

In this story we also find “The Devil”, which normally would not be a character you would label as “trustworthy”, yet Tom Walker had no problem in having an earnest conversation with him, nor he seemed very worried about making a deal with him that could probably cost him his soul.

After the whole “deal” issue, Tom Walker doesn’t show an apparent thankfulness for all the material possessions he now owns, but rather uses them as a way of showing off the riches he obtained with dirty money.

Then , Tom starts to grow old and repent about his deal with the Devil, that evidently shows us he is not longer thankful for what he did in the past, and tries to escape his promise with the Devil.

Tom Walker also did not seem to be someone very thankful with his friends, who he seemed to care about, but only left them in bankruptcy, being the usurer he was.

In my opinion, the way these values and its opposites are showcased in the story are very proper for its genre, and from a bigger perspective it seems almost comedic.

The author did a good job at portraying the issues he saw in society, including the previous values as characteristics some men lacked, and by which sometimes results in a fateful destiny.