Reflection- Washington Irving

For tonight's reflection, I read the story The Devil and Tom Walker by Washington Iriving.  I knew from the very start of reading this that I would find some enjoyment out of it for one specific reason.  Not even a full page into the story, Washington Iriving told the tale of Kidd the pirate.  What is more interesting than a pirate?  I can tell you that the answer is almost nothing.  Pirates are full of excitement and adventure!  I sound like a little Kidd again....get it?  Okay, back to the point of this reflection.  I really liked how Washington Iriving started out his story with a story in itself.  Especially one about pirates.  Oh my gosh, light bulb!  I bet that's why Mr. Langley is making us read this!!!!!  As I am reading this story, I am feeling worse and worse for Tom Walker.  His wife sounds absolutely horrible!  It says that she is "fierce of temper, loud of tongue, and strong of arm" (Irving 245).  Tom Walker must have been miserable all the time for being married to a woman like that.  I am sure that his wife was not a happy person either, and maybe she just had an aggressive personality that could not be helped.  Although, the story did say that you could tell by Tom Walker's face that she took her aggression out on him physically.  Poor little guy.  Later in the story, I found a sentence to back up my thoughts about his horrid wife quite accurately.

"...but 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." (Irving 246)

Honestly, how bad of a person do you have to be to someone for them not to be afraid of the devil?  His wife seriously gets worse and worse as the story goes on, because later she is pushing Tom Walker to make a deal with the devil for the only one reason: so they can get Kidd the pirate's gold and be rich forever.  She is a very selfish person.

There are many ways that I can see this story relating to the Romanticism period.  The one that stuck out to me at first was the description of nature.  We learned that during the Romanticism period, nature was very important.  From the very beginning, when he was telling about where Kidd the pirate hid his treasure, to when Tom Walker was taking the short cut through the swamp and met the stranger, the scenery and nature was almost lifelike from all of the description.  The imagery really helped me understand and picture the story more.  Another way that I think this story could be related to the Romanticism period is the true meaning of the story.  It definitely involves a lot of emotion, whether it be the greed of wanting the treasure or the relief of no longer being abused by your crazy wife.  I think that emotion drove this entire plot.

Washington Irving.  "The Devil and Tom Walker." Glencoe Literature. By Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Douglas Fisher, Beverly Ann. Chin, and Jacqueline Jones. Royster. New York, NY: Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, 2009. 114-18. Print.