In the short story “The Devil and Tom Walker” by Washington Irving, Tom Walker lives a greedily, miserly, and meagerly unhappy life. Through the progression of the story, the consequences of greed, mean spiritedness, and selling your soul to the devil develop over time in creating the beginning, middle, and end of this story teaches a valuable lesson about life itself.
Tom Walker was a meek man who didn’t have a plan with his own life. The Walker’s lived in the swamps of Massachusetts in a “forlorn-looking house that stood alone and had an air of starvation.” Any possessions that he saw valuable he would keep them to himself because he was forced to hide them from his “tall termagant, fierce of temper, loud of tongue,