I am pretty sure that themes on which William Folkner focuses and takes as a basis of his masterpieces are definitely : love, honor, compassion, and sacrifice. First of all, there is a prompt in question that is put in quotation marks. Love and compassion are the points which always were in need for people's relationships and honor with sacrifice, as told by Folkner in many of his works, are connected to more global sphere of demand - they are universal issues.
Your brother and I are going fishing Saturday
In “The Devil and Tom Walker” Irving is saying that the values in American society lie in the wrong place chosing wealth and financial prosperity over the well-being of others.
Irving sees America becoming greedy and warns the reader not to follow Tom Walkers ´s path that led him to exchange his soul to the devil blinded by his ambition for money.
This statement reflects the popular themes of individualism in the romantic era. The American romantics believed that a man's choices decided his fate. Washington Irving shows how Tom chooses the wrong direction that led him astray from the true values of humanity.
