Answer the following questions:
- Fill out a chart to show the elements of the plot. Add as many key events as you think are necessary. Include at least the basic situation (conflict), complications, climax, and resolution.
- Irving's characters in this story are one-dimensional people who represent one or two character traits. In fact, Mrs. Tom Walker is a stereotype of the nagging wife, still a source of comedy today. What character traits are represented by Tom Walker? Why do you think Mrs. Walker met with such a nasty end?
- This story opens in Puritan New England in 1727. The Salem witch trials had taken place in 1692, only thirty-five years earlier. Identify five details describing the setting that suggest something sinister and supernatural.
- How does the physical setting of the story reflect the moral decay of the characters and, indeed, of the whole society presented in this story?
- How would you describe the mood or atmosphere created in the story? What details help to create the mood?
- As the narrator tells the story--which certainly has its gruesome and fearful aspects--what tone prevails? Is it comic, frightening, bitter, romantic, or something else? Find details from the story that support your response.
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