Washington Irving's "The Devil and Tom Walker" is based on a Germanic story of Johann Faust who was a magician and alchemist who sold his soul to the Devil and in exchange received great powers and wealth. Irving takes on the story of Johann Faust and adapts it to the Puritan society of the 1800"s. Tom Walker, the protagonist of the story, dwells near woods of Charles Bay a few miles from Boston, Massachusetts. Washington Irving"s writing is one with great distinct description. Irving gives the reader an image the brings to life specific scenes with vast clarity. Irving"s vivid description of the settings, shape and foreshadow the up and coming events in the short story of The Devil and Tom Walker.

             Irving uses his distinct description to describe the swamp area of Charles Bay. "The swamp was thickly grown with great gloomy pines and hemlocks, some of them ninety feet high.It was full of pits and quagmires, partly covered with weeds and mosses, where the green surface often betrayed the traveler into a gulf of black, smothering mud, where the trunks of pines and hemlocks lay half drowned, half rotting, looking like alligators sleeping in the mire." Irvings description of the swamp leaves the reader without a doubt that evil is present in Charles Bay. Irving uses the dark color black, and great word choice to better visualize the evilness within. Evil was definitely lurking around the corner, for when Tom Walker had taken what he considered a shortcut through the swamp, Irving described this route as being "an ill-chosen route." Irving is trying to express that evil is near and if Tom Walker isn"t careful he may encounter this evilness. The reader receives a helpful hint that the destiny of this route is doomed from the description of Irving. Irving creates suspense by leaving Tom all alone by himself in the Old Indian Fort. "Anyone but he would have felt unwilling to linger in this lonely, melancholy place, for the common person had a bad opinion about it.