snowbound/the devil and tom walker

Sadie Ries
Period 6
9-30-07
The Devil and Tom Walker/Snowbound
When reading these two stores, The Devil and Tom Walker and Snowbound, I was fascinated by the use of imagery and the characteristics of the “Black Man”. In Snowbound, John Greenleaf Whittier does an exceptional job at setting the scene and creating the mode through the use of imagery.
The use of imagery is first seen in the begging of the story when the narrator describes the storms approach. The narrator uses words like “Rose cheerless over hills of gray”(267), “Its mute and ominous prophecy”(267), and finally “The hard, dull bitterness of the cold”(268), to show how the arrival of the storm already has a sad effect on the environment around it. Also, how the foretelling of the storm is that its going to be cold, dreary, and depressing. Again imagery is used to show the effect of the storm “With dazzling crystals: we had read are rare Aladdin‘s wondrous cave”(269). This shows the beauty that was left behind from the dark storm, relating to some good can come from the bad.
In The Devil and Tom Walker, Washington Irving uses the characteristics of the “Black Man” to relate to the characteristics of the Devil. At first the “Black Man”, although he seems mysterious and eerie, shows a friendly fun characteristic to Tom Walker drawling him in. This resembles the Devil, who pretends to be something it’s not to drawl us in. Then again the “Black Man” resembles the devil when he tells Tom that he will become extremely wealthy if he does something for him. The Devil finds our weaknesses, Toms was money and values, are uses it to his advantage. Finally, in the end when Tom tries to escape the sin in fear of his fate in the afterlife, he is incapable to do so. These Events all show how the Devil finds are weaknesses and drawls us in, eventually getting us hooked and allows us no escape.