The Devil & Tom Walker

In this story, the values of thankfulness and trustworthiness are reflected upon by presenting the opposite idea of them. To give the story a moral value, the author applies the misuse of this characteristics in characters, who like Tom Walker, in the end, are found with a miserable and “unexpected” ending. He also uses this values in an ironic way. The devil, who is known to be a mischievous trickster, puts his trust and friendship into Tom Walker, a mere mortal, and Tom, who used to be poor and miserable, cheats people into becoming the same, poor and miserable, like he once was. We can't imply that the story doesn't present this values, or even that it does not focus on them, but rather that it warns of the lack thereof. 

For example, Tom's wife's desire for money and ungratefulness for her life lead her to annoy the devil into making a treaty with her, but she ends up disappearing. We can also talk about Tom, who at the start of the story, is presented to us as being miserable, he was not thankful for his life or his relationship with his wife, so he decided to throw all that away and give his soul to the devil in exchange of the possibility to make his life different. He wasn't trustworthy at all, faking friendships with people so that they’d owe them, deceiving them and lying to them, but knowing at the same time that it was wrong. He started going to church because he was so afraid of the devil and the bond it held with him, not being able to even keep his loyalty to the devil. In my opinion, Irving's way of conveying his message is very efficient, it is able to create a sense of fright towards greed and ungratefulness, the opposite of the two main values. To conclude, perhaps the most vivid example of what the author uses to impose this moral message is that at the end, Tom was left with absolutely nothing.