The Devil and Daniel Webster

“The Devil and Daniel Webster” draws on a long tradition of “deal with the devil’ stories—in particular, the Faust myth. While most additions to the canon of Faust myths originated in Europe, like Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus (1592) and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Faust (1808), the direct predecessor of Benét’s is American: Washington Irving’s “The Devil and Tom Walker.” Unlike the protagonists of the European tales, Irving’s “Faust” character is not aristocratic or well-educated; rather, he is poor and sells his soul to become rich, becoming a cautionary tale about the dangers of avarice. Benét takes this one step further. Where Tom Walker is a miser even before he is wealthy, Stone is not especially greedy at the story’s outset; he simply wants to provide a comfortable life for his family, and Scratch provides him with a way of doing so.

This rags-to-riches story is at the heart of the American mythos, though those who aspire to the American Dream are of course meant to better their position through their own hard work rather than collusion with evil forces. Benét’s story plays on these parallels to suggest that for those who succeed in American society, the line between hard work and moral corruption may be a distinction without a difference.