In The Devil and Tom Walker, how does the physical setting of the story reflect the moral decay of the characters?

You might want to respond to this question by refering to
the description we are given of the residence where Tom and his stingy wife live. It is
a key feature of this description that the setting parallels the kind of characters that
dwell there. Consider the following description:

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They lived in a forlorn-looking house that stood
alone, and had an air of starvation. A few straggling savin trees, emblems of sterility,
grew near to it; no smoke ever curled from its chimney; no traveler stopped at its
door.

Of course, the hardship
and misery evoked by this description tells us a lot about the characters of Tom and his
wife, in particular focusing on their sterility and their lack of ability to produce any
children, which hints at some kind of rottenness at the core of both their marriage and
themselves as individuals.

The way in which the setting
mirrors the characters in this story is also noted explicitly when the figure of the
devil explains the way in which trees are related to characters in their various stages
of moral decay. Consider the following description:

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He now looked around, and found most of the tall
trees marked with the name of some great man of the colony, and all more or less scored
by the ax.

Setting is
therefore shown to be a crucial part in terms of the development of character in this
excellent satire.