The Devil and Tom Walker quiz

Questions and answers

1. 1

   Question 1. Which literary movement best describes "The Devil and Tom Walker"?

   • Modernism (Lost Generation)
   • American Realism (Local Color)
   • Correct answer: American Romanticism (Gothic)
   • Transcendentalism (Nature Writing)
   • Naturalism (Protest Novel)

   American Romanticism, especially its Gothic strain, embraces the supernatural, moral allegory, and dark landscapes. This story fits perfectly: a haunted swamp, the Devil as a character, and greed leading to damnation.

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2. 2

   Question 2. How does Washington Irving describe Tom Walker's character at the start of the story?

   • Timid and superstitious, easily frightened by the old legends of the swamp
   • Ambitious and charismatic, eager to improve his social standing
   • Pious and God-fearing, with a generous spirit toward his neighbors
   • Correct answer: Mean, miserly, and locked in a bitter ongoing quarrel with his wife

   Irving establishes Tom as a mean, miserly man who lives in wretched poverty with a wife "as miserly as himself." Their perpetual quarreling is their defining trait — they even cheat each other.

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3. 3

   Question 3. What makes the swamp where Tom meets the Devil significant?

   • It was a sacred Native American burial ground that settlers had desecrated
   • Correct answer: It lies near where Captain Kidd is said to have buried treasure, now under the Devil's protection
   • It was the site of a Puritan witch trial that left the land forever cursed
   • It was where Absalom Crowninshield hid the riches he took as a buccaneer

   The swamp lies near the high ridge where, according to old stories, the pirate Captain Kidd buried his treasure, now guarded by the Devil. This connects the story's themes of ill-gotten wealth to both piracy and diabolism.

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4. 4

   Question 4. What has Old Scratch been doing in the swamp when Tom comes upon him?

   • Correct answer: Hewing down trees marked with the names of great men of the colony
   • Digging up Captain Kidd's buried treasure beneath the oaks on the ridge
   • Poking with his staff at an old skull buried in a mound of black earth
   • Leading an Indian ceremony of incantations and sacrifices at the old fort

   Tom finds Old Scratch seated on a fresh stump, and sees that most of the tall trees are marked with the name of some great man of the colony and scored by the axe. Each tree stands for a soul he controls — when the tree is ready to burn, that person dies. The tree just hewn down bears the name of the wealthy buccaneer Absalom Crowninshield.

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5. 5

   Question 5. What nickname does the Devil go by in this story?

   • The Swamp Master
   • The Black Stranger
   • The Dark Huntsman
   • Correct answer: Old Scratch

   The Devil is called "Old Scratch" throughout the story — a colloquial American name for the Devil, likely derived from an Old Norse word for a monster.

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6. 6

   Question 6. What does the Devil offer Tom in exchange for his soul?

   • Correct answer: Access to Captain Kidd's buried treasure, provided the money is used in the Devil's service
   • Absalom Crowninshield's fortune, provided Tom spends it on a grand house and a fine carriage
   • Political power and influence over the colonial government of Massachusetts
   • Freedom from his quarrelsome wife, provided he leads her to the old fort in the swamp

   Old Scratch offers Tom the pirate treasure, but with a condition: the wealth must be used in the Devil's service. The deal's specific terms are then negotiated — Tom refuses the first proposed use but eagerly accepts the second.

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7. 7

   Question 7. What does Old Scratch first propose Tom do with the treasure — and why does Tom refuse?

   • Tom refuses to murder a rival merchant, saying he will not shed innocent blood
   • Tom refuses to become a pirate captain because he fears the sea and storms
   • Correct answer: Tom resolutely refuses to become a slave trader, the one line he will not cross — though he has no objection to usury
   • Tom refuses to burn down Boston's churches because he fears public punishment

   Old Scratch proposes that Tom become a slave trader to put the money to work. Despite his own wickedness, Tom flatly refuses — though Irving pointedly notes he had "no objections" to the alternative of predatory lending. The hypocrisy is deliberate satire.

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8. 8

   Question 8. What happens when Tom's wife tries to make her own deal with the Devil?

   • Old Scratch rejects her immediately and sends her home unharmed both times
   • Correct answer: On her second visit she disappears — Tom later finds only her organs and signs of a violent struggle
   • She returns badly frightened and warns Tom never to go near the swamp again
   • She successfully negotiates a separate deal and becomes wealthier than Tom

   On her first visit she returns sullen and empty-handed. On her second, she brings the household silver as an offering and vanishes. Tom finds her heart and liver tied in her apron hanging from a tree, with cloven-hoof prints and black hair nearby. Irving darkly notes Tom grieved only for the lost silverware.

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9. 9

   Question 9. What does Tom Walker do for a living after accepting the Devil's deal?

   • Correct answer: He becomes a usurer — a money-lender who charges crushing interest rates
   • He becomes a land speculator who sells maps of new townships in the wilderness
   • He becomes a tax collector who extorts money from local farmers
   • He becomes a pirate who raids ships along the Massachusetts coast

   Tom sets up a counting-house in Boston and becomes a usurer (predatory lender), charging extortionate interest — he even boasts he will charge four percent monthly rather than the two percent Old Scratch suggested.

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10. 10

    Question 10. Which theme does Irving most strongly develop through Tom's late-life religious behavior?

    • The power of sincere faith to redeem even a man who has sold his soul to the Devil
    • The inevitability of death and the importance of preparing for judgment
    • The conflict between Puritan religious values and commercial ambition
    • Correct answer: The danger of religious hypocrisy — performing piety without genuine moral reform

    As old age nears, Tom becomes an ostentatious churchgoer and Bible-carrier, a stern censurer of his neighbors who even talks of reviving the persecution of Quakers and Anabaptists — but his devotion is a calculated scheme to cheat the Devil, not genuine faith. Irving treats this as transparent hypocrisy and uses it to show that sin cannot be erased by performance.

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11. 11

    Question 11. What does "Usurer" mean in this story?

    • A merchant who buys and resells goods at inflated prices
    • Correct answer: A money-lender who charges excessively high interest rates
    • A forger who produces counterfeit currency or documents
    • A government tax official who collects duties on trade goods

    A usurer lends money at illegal or unconscionable interest rates, exploiting people in financial desperation. Tom becomes one in Boston, growing rich by preying on struggling colonists — exactly the kind of immoral enterprise the Devil sanctions.

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12. 12

    Question 12. What does "Termagant" mean in this story?

    • A cunning schemer who manipulates others for personal gain
    • A melancholy, grief-stricken woman worn down by hardship
    • Correct answer: A quarrelsome, overbearing, and violent-tempered woman
    • A deeply religious woman devoted to prayer and scripture

    Irving calls Mrs. Walker "a tall termagant, fierce of temper, loud of tongue, and strong of arm." Termagant is an archaic word for a shrewish, violent woman — emphasizing that she is Tom's equal in nastiness and greed.

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13. 13

    Question 13. What do the trees in the Devil's swamp — each carved with the name of a powerful colonist — symbolize?

    • Correct answer: The souls of the greedy and corrupt — outwardly prosperous but inwardly rotten and doomed
    • The Indian warriors who died defending the old fort, each honored by a name cut into the bark
    • The Devil's claim over all of North America since before European settlement
    • The permanence of colonial wealth that will outlast any individual person's life

    The trees are a powerful symbol: they appear flourishing on the outside but are rotten at the core — just like the wealthy, corrupt colonists whose names they bear. When a tree is ready to fall, the person dies. Irving uses this to indict colonial society's moral decay beneath its prosperous surface.

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14. 14

    Question 14. Irving presents the story as a piece of local legend handed down over generations. What literary technique is this?

    • In medias res — opening the story in the middle of the action and filling in the background later
    • Epistolary form — a story told entirely through letters, diary entries, or other documents
    • Correct answer: Oral tradition — a storytelling device that presents the tale as hearsay and old legend
    • Stream of consciousness — a technique that reproduces a character's unfiltered thoughts

    Irving draws on oral tradition: the narrator presents the story as local legend, repeating what "it is said" and citing "the authentic old legend," giving it the quality of an American folk tale or cautionary parable. This technique distances the author from the supernatural events while lending them an air of folk authenticity.

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15. 15

    Question 15. Irving's story is widely recognized as an American retelling of which ancient European literary tradition?

    • The Canterbury Tales — a group of pilgrims each telling morally instructive stories
    • Correct answer: The Faust legend — a man who sells his soul to the Devil for worldly gain
    • The Arthurian legend — a noble hero brought low by pride and betrayal
    • The Odyssey — a hero's long journey home full of supernatural trials

    Irving consciously retells the Faust legend in an American setting: Tom Walker is a colonial Everyman whose greed leads to a soul-selling bargain and ultimate damnation. Irving gives it American flavor — colonial New England, pirate treasure, and capitalist greed instead of medieval Europe and intellectual ambition.

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16. 16

    Question 16. In what year and book was "The Devil and Tom Walker" first published?

    • 1819, in The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.
    • 1809, in A History of New York
    • 1832, in The Alhambra
    • Correct answer: 1824, in Tales of a Traveller

    Irving published "The Devil and Tom Walker" in 1824 as part of Tales of a Traveller, in the section called "The Money-Diggers." Unlike the earlier Sketch Book (1819–1820), which contained Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, this collection received mixed reviews but the story is now considered one of Irving's finest.

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17. 17

    Question 17. What is the central moral that Irving states explicitly at the story's close?

    • The supernatural should be feared above all else in the American wilderness
    • Those who gamble on land schemes and paper credit will lose everything when hard times come
    • Correct answer: Greed and exploitation of the desperate will ultimately destroy those who practice them
    • Religious faith, even if adopted late in life, can redeem even the worst sinner

    Irving closes with a direct address to "all gripping money-brokers" to "lay this story to heart." Every ill-gotten fortune in the story is destroyed: Kidd's treasure remains cursed, Tom's bonds turn to cinders, his gold to wood chips, and his mansion burns. The moral is unmistakable.

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18. 18

    Question 18. What triggers the Devil's final arrival to collect Tom's soul?

    • Correct answer: Tom impulsively invokes the Devil's name while refusing mercy to a desperate borrower
    • Tom's counting-house burns down, destroying the Bible he kept as a talisman
    • Midnight strikes on the anniversary of the day Tom signed the Devil's compact
    • Tom has his horse shod, saddled, and buried feet uppermost in a scheme to outrun the Devil

    When a land speculator begs for mercy, Tom snaps: "The devil take me if I have made a farthing!" Immediately three loud knocks sound at the door. A black man and black horse appear. Tom reaches for his small Bible — buried in his coat — but the large one is under the very mortgage he was foreclosing. Unprotected, he is swept away.

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19. 19

    Question 19. What is the central irony in Tom's refusal to become a slave trader but his eagerness to become a usurer?

    • Tom's refusal to trade slaves proves he is less evil than the Devil expects, giving him a bargaining advantage
    • Correct answer: Tom's moral selectivity exposes hypocrisy: he rejects one form of exploitation while eagerly embracing another equally destructive one
    • Tom fears slave-trading only because it would attract government scrutiny and threaten his anonymity
    • Tom draws a principled moral line, showing he has genuine ethical limits that will ultimately save him

    Irving's satire is sharpest here. Tom refuses slave-trading as too immoral yet has zero hesitation about crushing desperate borrowers with predatory interest. He draws a self-serving moral line that exempts his own preferred form of exploitation — a perfect portrait of the hypocrite who condemns others' sins while indulging his own.

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20. 20

    Question 20. True or false: did this happen in the story?

    • Tom Walker encounters the Devil in a swamp near Boston.

      Happened

      Tom takes a shortcut through the swamp and there meets Old Scratch, a swarthy, soot-covered woodsman, sitting among the ruins of an old fort.

    • Tom immediately agrees to the Devil's first offer without negotiation.

      Didn't happen

      Tom goes home to think it over, and only after his wife's disappearance does he return to accept the deal. He also refuses the Devil's first proposed use for the money (slave trading).

    • Tom's wife takes the household silverware to the swamp as an offering to the Devil.

      Happened

      Determined to make her own deal, she bundles up the silver and other valuables as a "propitiatory offering" and sets off for the swamp on her second visit — from which she never returns.

    • The day Tom meets the Devil, the tree bearing Absalom Crowninshield's name falls, and the buccaneer soon dies.

      Happened

      Old Scratch hacks down that very tree during Tom's visit. Not long after, the news arrives that Crowninshield, the wealthy buccaneer, has died — confirming the Devil's power over those whose names mark the trees.

    • Tom Walker opens an investment bank and makes his fortune through honest commerce.

      Didn't happen

      Tom becomes a usurer — a predatory money-lender who charges crushing interest rates and exploits desperate borrowers during a financial panic, not an honest banker.

    • Tom becomes an outwardly devout churchgoer in his old age, hoping to escape damnation.

      Happened

      As he grows older and aware of his mortality, Tom attends church loudly, carries a Bible everywhere, and sets himself up as a stern censurer of his neighbors — but his piety is calculated self-interest, not genuine faith.

    • The Devil carries Tom away on a black horse into a thunderstorm.

      Happened

      When Tom rashly invokes the Devil's name, Old Scratch arrives with a black horse. Tom is swept onto it and gallops away into a thunderstorm toward the swamp, never to be seen again.

    • After Tom disappears, his accumulated wealth remains intact and is inherited by distant relatives.

      Didn't happen

      All of Tom's wealth is destroyed: his bonds are found as cinders, his gold as wood chips, and his mansion catches fire and burns to the ground — nothing of his ill-gotten fortune survives.

    • Old Scratch claims he has had dominion over the land since before the Europeans arrived.

      Happened

      The Devil tells Tom he was here long before the Puritans, going by different names — the wild huntsman, the black miner — and claims the land as his own.

    • Tom's wife successfully negotiates her own deal with the Devil and becomes independently wealthy.

      Didn't happen

      She never returns from her second visit to the swamp. Tom finds only her organs — her heart and liver — hanging from a tree, evidence she encountered the Devil but struck no deal; she was destroyed instead.

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