Allegory in "The Devil and Tom Walker"

In the story, "The Devil and Tom Walker," Washington Irving uses allegory to warn readers against the perils of sin and temptation. Irving believed that, ultimately, a man's fate was decided by his deeds, and that all measures should be taken to guard against Satan and his tricks. He uses his characters and certain story elements to represent sin and temptation.
Irving starts the story with a legend about a pirate treasure. This legend introduces the underlying concept of the story: greed. This connection is the easiest to make. Irving uses an international symbol, money, to establish the core of the story. He also builds upon the original legend of Captain Kidd to gently warn his audience before jumping into the heart of the matter.
Tom Walker and his wife are also representative of the deadly sin of greed. Their constant hoarding and plotting to gain one another's possessions and wealth are major clues. When Tom tells his wife about his encounter with the devil, "all her avarice [is] awakened at the mention of hidden gold" (Irving 131). The wife is willing to sacrifice her eternal, irreplaceable soul for money; an asset easily acquired through honest labor. Neither of them have the time, energy or inclination to perform honest work because they devote all of their time to scheming against one another.
Irving uses this aspect of the characters' personalities to warn readers against the sin of sloth, or laziness. He shows the audience that true happiness cannot be achieved if one refuses to work. The pitiful state of affairs at the Walker household serves as an effective deterrent against this sin. The house is described as derelict, having "an air of starvation" (Irving 128). The horse the couple owns is described in much the same manner. Tom Walker and his wife have let the sin of laziness affect them so much that neither of them bother to keep up with simple housework. Living in squalor puts even more stress on the marriage, bolstering the sin of greed.
The wife takes her greed to another level by deciding to deal with the Devil on her own terms. She is willing to sacrifice her marriage, her life, and the life of her husband for money that may or may not exist. Neither Tom nor his wife takes the time to consider this possibility at all. The Devil, with all of his tricks and temptations, could very well have made up the legend himself as a tool to gain followers and rob men and women of their souls. This is a distinct possibility since Tom never actually receives the treasure. Instead, the Devil tricks Tom into opening a money lending business. By the end of the story, Tom has become so absorbed by his work that he forgets about the treasure of Captain Kidd.
Another deadly sin Washington Irving presents in this story is envy. Using the relationship Tom and his wife have with one another, he presents readers with a prime example of out of control envy. Neither character can stand the idea that the other may have something he or she does not. Neither can stand the idea that the other may have just a little more. Irving tells his audience that the couple had "fierce...conflicts...about what ought to have been common property" (Irving 128). The utter lack of the willingness to share anything shows just how much the couple mistrusts one another.
The sin of envy is reinforced by Tom's search for his wife after she leaves to deal with the Devil herself. It was neither compassion for his wife nor fear for her safety or wellbeing that drove him to search for her, it was his deep-seated envy. On some level, probably not a very deep one, he was afraid that she had been successful. If she had outsmarted the Devil, she would not only have gotten the treasure, but she would have made off with all of their fine silver and accomplished something that he could not. With this, Irving hints at the sin of vanity, or pride. Tom would have been embarrassed and ashamed if word had gotten out about his wife obtaining a vast sum of money and leaving him. That information would have given a serious blow to his ego and sense of manhood. Tom was afraid that the neighbors and other townsfolk would think him less of a man for not being able to hold on to his wife. The search for his wife, and the subsequent story of her demise, was most likely nothing more than Tom Walker scheming to save face with the neighbors.
Tom's wife is also used as an allegory for the sin of anger. Irving gives a rather nasty description of her and her personality, and tells readers that she is often engaged in "wordy warfare with her husband" (Irving 128). It can also be assumed that she often beats her husband as well. Anger could very well be the root of the Walker's problems. The wife's outbursts of temper instill resentment in her husband, causing mistrust and allowing the seeds of envy to sprout. The envy grew in Tom and crept into his wife, spawning greed. Irving also uses the wife's anger to sprinkle a little comic relief into the story.
One can sense Tom's relief when he discovers the evidence of the desperate fight she put up against the Devil. One can't help but smile when Tom exclaims, "Old Scratch must have had a tough time of it!" (Irving 132). It is obvious that Tom takes immense pleasure in seeing that someone else had to suffer the wrath of his wife. And what a wrath it must have been because Tom found clumps of the Devil's hair on the ground, pulled out by his wife, and many of the Devil's footprints. Irving does not give details about the demise of Tom's wife, but one can assume that her anger was her ultimate downfall. Had she not fought with the Devil, she may have lived and returned home. The author uses this facet of the story to remind the audience as a whole to control their tempers, and to warn wives against treating their husbands poorly.
There is no obvious allegorical character or story element Irving uses to allude to the deadly sins of lust or gluttony, but they seem to not be needed. He chose the five sins of greed, envy, anger, vanity and sloth to lay the foundation of the story and build complex characters and morals. In the end, Irving has the Devil collect his due from Tom Walker, destroying the life the man built for himself in the process. With this, the author drives home the point he had been trying to make throughout the story; the deeds of men dictate not only the life they live, but the live that awaits them after death.

Works Cited
Irving, Washington. The Devil and Tom Walker. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Nina Baym. Shorter 6th ed. New York: Norton, 2003. 128-135.