The Devil and Daniel Webster
Stephen Vincent Benét
Initial release: October 24, 1936 (USA)
It’s
interesting to me how much of Important American Literature is short
stories and novellas. Perhaps it’s the nature of the format, allowing
for ideas and themes to be dispersed in a quicker, more readily-readable
fashion. Or maybe it’s just how we naturally tell stories. It’s worth
pointing out that a lot of 19th century writers released their work
serially, as well — it was essentially the TV serial
of yesteryear. And as can be seen with the Dracula Daily phenomenon, there’s
still a ready audience for that kind of drip-feed storytelling in this modern age of Netflix binges and instant gratification.
Whatever the case, The Devil and Daniel Webster, despite being less than a century old, certainly feels older, as if it were contemporary with The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,
or perhaps even the tale of Faust. It’s a period drama set in the early
19th century (exactly when is unknown, but probably 1819 or so,)
pitting the real-life figure, legendary New England statesman and later US Secretary of
State, Daniel Webster against the Devil himself for a man’s soul.
At the time, Webster was still a lawyer, though with the prestige of arguing before the Supreme Court. But never one to turn down a chance to help his fellow New Hampshirite, he takes on a most unusual mortgage case, one that would prove to be the toughest case he ever had. It’s the old Faustian deal; farmer Jabez Stone, sick of his rotten luck in life, winds up selling his soul to “a stranger” in exchange for seven (later ten) years of good luck, strictly because he was too proud to retract an oath he’d said in the heat of the moment. As the final year begins to wane, he goes to see Daniel Webster, who is still managing his own farm in between making speeches in Washington. Webster agrees to see the case, and they return to Stone’s farmhouse. At the appointed time, the stranger arrives. Webster talks “Scratch” (as he’s called around these parts) into convening a proper jury trial as indicated in the Constitution itself.
The
judge and jury are all men of terrible power who in one way or another
shaped American history: English loyalists, pirates, a Wampanoag chief, and so forth. The
judge himself is the infamous Hanging Judge Hathorne of Salem. Webster
knows he has a tough case, but in the end he appeals to their sense of
humanity — these men were, of course, men once, and they still remember
the fineness of life. Webster wins the case.
The story is told in a folksy, down-home manner, befitting the style of some old man who sits on a porch at the general store spinning stories. While it might be stereotypical, a lot of American folklore has been transmitted in this fashion, an oral tradition handed down through generations. The whole idea of “Americanness” is a central theme of the story; Webster cites the Constitution and appeals to patriotism; the judge and jury are declared “American” (yes, including the Loyalists) by the devil by the standards of their having shaped the nation in its infancy. Even the devil himself declares himself an American by rights, describing his presence at every wrong thing ever done in American history: the genocide of the Native populations, the evil of slavery.
Webster’s characterization is somewhat ahistorical. The real Webster was willing to compromise on slavery, and likely wouldn’t have accepted the native chief King Philip as “American.” The story is thus more a projection of modern values on a legendary figure in American history. And that’s really sort the crux of the story: it’s folklore. It borrows heavily from a much older story, Washington Irving’s “The Devil and Tom Walker,” but the whole thing comes off as affected and hokey, aping the folklore of 18th and 19th century America but without any subtlety.
But maybe the lack of subtlety is the point; on its face it’s
a good yarn for what it’s worth, but it's ultimately an update, on an update, on the tale of Faust. Its insistent patriotic and anti-slavery themes might have
been a response to European fascism, but while it pays lip service to
historical atrocities, it’s still a bit of a papering over. I feel like
that’s an issue with a lot of the American high school English canon: a
bloodless, shallow examination of how this country was built on slavery
and the specter of racism that haunted America ever after, always with
the subtle suggestion that racism ended in the 1960s. No wonder some
people refuse to see racism when it’s staring them right in the face.
It’s the same reason transphobes misappropriate high school biology.
It’s like people who peaked in high school stop learning after
graduation, as if there’s no point when high school’s so great.
As a short story about a Faustian deal, it’s an entertaining read, though its folksy charm can be irritatingly twee after a while. But as Important Literature, I think it’s another brick in the wall of bullshit we’ve built. One more exhibit in our own Faustian bargain with bigotry.