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Analytical essay on legend of sleepy hollow
Analytical essay on legend of sleepy hollow
Analytical essay on legend of sleepy hollow
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The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is a fiction story by American author Washington Irving. Many readers believe that Irving Washington shows in his book, aspects of the main character, Ichabod, by using his eyes. In fact, Irving Washington qualifies Ichabod's eyes to green to reveal aspects of his character. The author draws readers attention by the way in which he speaks about Ichabod. He describes Ichabod's physique, his thoughts, and his acts. In fact, Ichabod, the man who loves scary stories, is scared of everything especially the supernatural. In addition, to being a coward, he is ridiculous and greedy. Therefore, Ichabod has eyes qualified as being green because he is a ridiculouspauper, greedy, and scared.Irving Washington qualify Ichabod's …show more content…
For example, Ichabod is describe by Irving Washington as "striding along the profile of a hill on a windy day, with his clothes bagging and fluttering about him, one might have mistaken him for the genius of famine descending upon the earth, or some scarecrow eloped from a corn-field" (9). This clearly shows how ridiculous Ichabod is. Ichabod is also describe by Irving Washington as "His head was small, and flat at top, with huge ears, large green glassy eyes, and a long snipe nose, so that it looked like a weather-cock, perched upon his spindle neck, to tell which way the wind blew" (9). This show his negative particularity. Further, Ichabod wretchedness. He is lodged in the houses of the farmers, whose students he …show more content…
For instance, Ichabod is describe by Irving Washington as “he is exceedingly lank which leaves all readers note that he does not have enough to eat” (9).This is due to the fact that Ichabod don't make much money from school.On this, seeking to achieve his objective, Ichabod finds fear on his way.Ichabod’s eyes shows how many times he is scared. In fact, since the beginning of the story, Washington showsfear of Ichabod. Even if the schoolteacher (Ichabod) likes scary stories, he does not wish being in the story. After being invite by Katrina's father to an event, Ichabod meets on his way Abraham Van Brunt called Brom Bones, a strong man who will give him the fear of his life. Indeed, Brunt is another character also wanting to marry Katrina.After finding an obstacle in its path, Brunt use the weakness of Ichabod against of him, the fear. Brunt uses theHeadless Horseman, the spirit of a Hessian soldier to scare Ichabod. Ichabod is frightened by Brunt who practices the story of the Headless Horseman. Ichabod has the biggest scare of his life after believing to the fiction did by Brunt and he disappears the same night from the village.Finally, Readers can see that Irving Washington uses Ichabod's eyes color to reveal aspects of his
The story, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, was written by Washington Irving, and the story is about a man name Ichabod Crane who was trying to win Katherina Van Tassel’s hand in marriage, but he is failing. The small town named Sleepy Hollow has a folklore about the Headless Horseman, who rides through the town at night to find his head. Irving explains that Sleepy Hollow has many ghost stories, but the Headless Horseman is the most popular in the town. Ichabod Crane was a school master, and he was killed by the town’s ghost. The townspeople believed Crane was taken by the Galloping Hessian, so the story of the Headless Horseman would not be associated with Crane’s disappearance. As the news about Ichabod’s disappearance rummage through the town, the Brom Bones’ reaction to the news made people question the Galloping Hessian’s part
The readings “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” by Washington Irving and The Monster by Stephen Crane are to amazing readings. However, these two texts represent violence and conflicts in different ways, which shows that although they have the same concept their tactic for this same concept is used in a different approach.
There are many conclusions we can draw from the characters as well the storylines from the book and movie. It is up to each of us to decide what kind of characters we want to see; just as it is our own choice in deciding how the story ends. Katrina Van Tassel, Brom Bones, and Ichabod Crane will always be central to the story of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, just as they are important to the nuances of the story, but it is up to us, the readers and viewers, to draw our own conclusions about the headless horseman.
During the play there were a lot of differences and similarities compared to the stories. I will list some differences and then I will list the similarities. There were a lot of changes in the play’s than the stories such as the setting, characters, props, and how they act or their emotions.
Instead, he made Ichabod Crane a detective who had his own vision on how to solve crimes. In the movie Ichabod is sent to the small village of Sleepy Hollow where a murder of three town’s people has occurred and they want him to solve it. Soon enough, he meets Katrina, whom Ichabod falls in love with, similar to Irving’s original story. Brom once again becomes jealous of this situation. The beginning of the story is very much similar to Washington Irving’s original. However, the main difference is that Ichabod is a detective; he is attempting to resolve a murder mystery. The murder consists of three people who had their heads cut off yet the heads are not being found anywhere. Even though Tim Burton did incorporate Washington Irving’s original story, he chose to include his own version of what happened. Only in the beginning does he chose to show Brom pretending to the cloaked horseman. Burton does include a sudden alteration; he decided to introduce magic and witchcraft. A witch controls an actual demon who was behind the killing who is the horseman. Katrina’s stepmother, who is the true witch, now possesses greed and
The original story by Washington Irving starts out in a small town of Sleepy Hollow. Irving paints an image of bountiful crops, beautiful scenery, and prosperous landowners. Ichabod Crane was a local pedagogue, who taught at the local schoolhouse. He was known for his strict ways and yet he was very popular amongst the families of his students- especially the ones who had ?pretty sisters.? Ichabod enjoyed spending fall evenings with the old widows as they sat by a fire and told stories of ghosts and demons and other supernatural beings. One story that was always told was one of the legendary Headless Horsemen. The tale tells of a soldier who had his head shot off with a cannon ball. His ghost now roamed Sleepy Hollow on his horse, looking for his lost head. In place of his head, sits a jack-o-lantern, which had a fiery glow.
Over time the language of the original text of "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" by Irving has been reworked to accommodate the change in audience. The Heath Anthology of American Literature has an unabridged version of the original wording (1354-1373). A complete copy of the original text of "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" can be found in the young adolescent classic section of a bookstore or the juvenile section in the library. A juvenile edition of the text adapted by Arthur Rackham from 1928 was a replicate of the original it is filled with seven colored illustrations and numerous sketching. A young adolescent version adapted by Bryan Brown from 2001 has been abridged to accommodate the current young reader. The format is changed in Brownâs edition. The yo...
During the story the author often uses foreshadowing to give hints to the reader of things that will happen in the future. When the story starts, a storm is coming on a late October night. The storm symbolizes the evil approaching the town. Usually it seems a storm would resemble something dark and evil, because a stormy night is always a classic setting for something evil. At the climax of the story, Charles Halloway reads a passage ...
Irving's main character, Icabod Crane, causes a stir and disrupts the female order in the Hollow when he arrives from Connecticut. Crane is not only a representative of bustling, practical New England who threatens rural America with his many talents and fortune of knowledge; he is also an intrusive male who threatens the stability of a decidedly female place. By taking a closer look at the stories that circulate though Sleepy Hollow, one can see that Crane's expulsion follows directly from women's cultivation of local folklore. Female-centered Sleepy Hollow, by means of tales revolving around the emasculated, headless "dominant spirit" of region, figuratively neuters threatening masculine invaders like Crane to restore order and ensure the continuance of the old Dutch domesticity and their old wives' tales.
Washington Irving’s short story, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” was adapted into a movie titled “Sleepy Hollow” directed by Tim Burton nearly two centuries after the original publication. When the story was adapted as a film, several extensive changes were made. A short story easily read in one sitting was turned into a nearly two-hour thriller, mystery, and horror movie by incorporating new details and modifying the original version of the story. The short story relates the failed courtship of Katrina Van Tassel by Ichabod Crane. His courtship is cut short by the classic romance antagonist-the bigger, stronger, and better looking Broom Bones. Ichabod wishes to marry Katrina because of her beauty but also because of the wealthy inheritance she will receive when her father, Baltus Van Tassel and stepmother, Lady Van Tassel die. However, the film tells the story of Ichabod Crane as an investigator who is sent to Sleepy Hollow to investigate the recent decapitations that are occurring. These modifications alter the original story entirely, thus failing to capture the Irving’s true interpretation of “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” The film and the original story have similarities and differences in the plot, characters, and setting.
An author can reveal characteristics of characters in literature through several different methods. Some common methods of characterization include one’s appearance, speech, thoughts, name, actions, and emotions. However, unconventional means can also be used, such as imagery, which is visually descriptive or figurative language. In Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, imagery is used to characterize central characters to the play. Firstly, Hamlet’s characteristics are revealed through the imagery of death in his speech. Secondly, Claudius’ characteristics are revealed through the imagery in the Ghost and Hamlet’s descriptions of him, as well as his own thoughts. It is through this visually descriptive and figurative language, that readers can identify characteristics of these central characters.
The improbable plots and unlikely characterization showed how much they used creativity. According to a Romanticism article, “The Romantics tended to define and to present the imagination as our ultimate ‘shaping’ or creative power, the approximate human equivalent of the creative powers of nature or even deity” (“Romanticism”). They believe that imagination is an essential and amazing ability that humans possess. Romantic authors often included examples of imagination and creativity within their works. In the short story “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” the supernatural plot and improbable characters illustrate the imagination of Romanticism writers (Irving). Washington Irving must have used a significant amount of creativity to come up with a story that involves a headless ghost riding a horse. He thought outside of his reality and environment in order to create an impossible and fascinating character. The Romantics favored imagination and creativity because they realized how invaluable it truly
Irving does this to help readers realize how caught up the society of Sleepy Hollow is with their past. Irving frequently brings up the Revolutionary war and how the headless horseman was a Hessian soldier from the war. When he writes, “The dominant spirit that haunts this enchanted region is the apparition of a figure on horseback without a head. It is said to be the ghost of a Hessian trooper, whose head had been carried away by a cannonball in some nameless battle during the Revolutionary War… The specter is known, at all the country firesides, by the name of the Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow” (Irving 2). This is an allusion to the Revolutionary war because the headless horseman was a hessian soldier. This explains the theme of supernatural because the Headless Horseman haunts their town and the main character, Ichabod Crane, comes across the ghost of him. Another major allusion in “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” is Ichabod's belief in witches. The author supports this when saying, “He was, moreover, esteemed by the women as a man of great erudition, for he had read several books quite through, and was a perfect master of Cotton Mather's 'History of New England Witchcraft” (Irving 4). Ichabod also believes in the supernatural past. His belief in witches supports the theme of supernatural within the book. Referring to the past using allusion develops different themes within the
...ad more deeply it shows enlightenment thinking and a tale of great romanticism. While "Sleepy Hallow" could be considered part of the enlightenment era, it still holds to those Puritan roots. It is a Puritan story of good over evil, with the kind schoolteacher, evil undead mercenary, and a town bewitched by a German doctor. It holds many Puritan ideals. Both Ichabod Cane and Abraham are both hardworking and educated gentleman. Ichabod is held in great respect for his faith, singing in the church, and always lending a helping hand to those in town. It is a classic tale of brains against brawn, David and Goliath. I thoroughly enjoyed this story and was quite surprised I didn't' encounter it earlier in my English classes. Also, having read some other stories of this era (most of which very dry with congested storytelling) makes you appreciate this classic that much more.
Authors use gothic elements, metaphors and the imagination of narrators to shed light on issues they cannot regularly explain. Irving created the town of Sleepy Hollow for the purpose of his story. He names this town to mean a lethargic pit of emptiness to comment on the state of America at this time, following the Revolution. Sleepy Hollow is a town that possesses “a drowsy, dreamy influence seems to hang over the land, and to pervade the very atmosphere” (294). The metaphor of the town is Irving’s literal wake up call to Americans to take action. The gloomy setting and ancient prophesy concerning the apparition of a Hessian trooper, surrounds the town and provides a gothic element, which are enhanced by the imagery illustrated by the narrator. This mysterious atmosphere is able to “lull one to repose” (29...