Journal 22: The Devil and Tom Walker

The Devil and Tom Walker by Edgar Allen Poe is a work of the dark romanticism and is by the anti-transcendentalist, or dark romanticist, author. It is considered a work of the dark romanticism because it portrays the vice of the main character, in this case, greediness. In the traditional romanticism work, the hero is portrayed with virtue and will overcome the villain, or antagonist in the story. It also is very close to nature. However, in the story, the nature was a swamp, usually seen as a dark side of the naturalistic world.  Not only does the author portrays such a dark setting for the story, he also expressed the dark side of human. Tom Walker became an usurer, a person who loans with abnormally high interest rate, usually to people that owes a lot of debts and can't get a loan from a normal bank. He took this job because the Devil at first asked him if he wants to use the treasure of the pirate to become a slave trader. He is not a very evil man so he turned down this request resolutely. However, being a usurer is not so bad, or so he thought, because he thinks that people who borrow money from him agreed to pay the hight interest rate so there's no felony or criminal activities involved. However, he wasn't able to redeem himself and he was taken by the devil.