The Legend Of Sleepy Hallow Essay

The Legend of Sleepy Hallow by Washington Irving, is a gothic story because it had all but one of the story elements. It showed the dark and decaying setting from the woods that Ichabod crane had been traveling through and the town it self was old, run down, and full of mystery. The supernatural beings or monsters was the headless horseman, the character in distress was Katrina Van Tassel, the hero was Ichabod Crane, the romance part was what was going on between Ichabod and Katrina, and the intense emotions was the love Ichabod felt for Katrina but also the Terror he felt for his situation between the headless horseman and himself.

It grabs your attention with the very first sentence as it says “In the bosom of one of those spacious coves which indent the eastern shore of the Hudson, at that broad expansion of the river denominated by the ancient Dutch navigators the Tappan Zee, and where they always prudently shortened sail and implored the protection of Saint Nicholas, there lies a

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, and who is ever seen by the countryfolk, hurrying along in the gloom of the night as if on the wings of the wind. Historians of those parts allege that the body of the trooper having been buried in the yard of a church at no great distance, the ghost rides forth to the scene of battle in nightly quest of his head; and that the rushing speed with which he sometimes passes along the Hollow is owing to his being in a hurry to get back to the churchyard before daybreak. The specter is known, at all the country firesides, by the name of the Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow.” This is the first introduction to the Supernatural being or monster, in which that paragraph is talking about the ghost of the headless