The story under consideration “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” is written by Washington Irving. The author is a famous American writer who achieved international fame for his fictional works, including the stories Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, as well as for his biographies and historical writings. Although he became a best-selling author, he never really fully developed as a literary talent, he has retained his reputation as the first American man of letters. Irving also advocated for writing as a legitimate career, and argued for stronger laws to protect writers from copyright infringement.
“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” is the story of Ichabod Crane, a sycophantic, lean, lanky, and extremely superstitious schoolmaster from Connecticut, who competes with Abraham "Brom Bones" Van Brunt, the town rowdy, for the hand of 18-year-old Katrina Van Tassel, the daughter and sole child of a wealthy farmer, Baltus Van Tassel. As Crane leaves a party he attended at the Van Tassel home on an autumn night, he is pursued by the Headless Horseman, who is supposedly the ghost of a Hessian trooper who had his head shot off by a stray cannonball during "some nameless battle" of the American Revolutionary War, and who "rides forth to the scene of battle in nightly quest of his head". Ichabod mysteriously disappears from town, leaving Katrina to marry Brom Bones, who was "to look exceedingly knowing whenever the story of Ichabod was related". Although the nature of the Headless Horseman is left open to interpretation, the story implies that the Horseman was really Brom Bones in disguise.
The story is set in the small Dutch village, untouched by the outside world, in 1790. It was a …” small market town or rural port, which by some is called Greensburgh, but which is more generally and properly known by the name of Tarry Town. This name was given, we are told, in former days, by the good housewives of the adjacent country, from the inveterate propensity of their husbands to linger about the village tavern on market days…” The setting of the story is realistic. It is presented in detailed way. It provides the background for action and contributes to our understanding of characters :“…from the listless repose of the place, and the peculiar character of its inhabitants, who are descendants from the original Dutch settlers, this sequestered glen has long been known by the name of Sleepy Hollow, and its rustic lads are called the Sleepy Hollow Boys throughout all the neighboring country. A drowsy, dreamy influence seems to hang over the land, and to pervade the very atmosphere…”
From the point of view of presentation, the story is the 3rd person narrative.
The characters we meet in the story under analysis are Ichabod Crane, Brom Bones, Katrina Van Tassel, The Headless Horseman and other citizens of the Sleepy Hollow. The writer reveals Ichabod Crane through his appearance, actions and preferences. He was a "... native of Connecticut, a State which supplies the Union with pioneers for the mind as well as for the forest, and sends forth yearly its legions of frontier woodmen and country schoolmasters. The cognomen of Crane was not inapplicable to his person. He was tall, but exceedingly lank, with narrow shoulders, long arms and legs, hands that dangled a mile out of his sleeves, feet that might have served for shovels, and his whole frame most loosely hung together. 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..."
Ichabod Crane is an anti-hero in that he is the tale’s protagonist and has some good qualities, but his serious character flaws make him not admirable—and these flaws will doom him. He is a schoolmaster, but he does not seem particularly interested in his students, and he is only well-educated relative to the others in the town, having finished a few books. The only one he seems to focus on is Cotton Mather’s History of New England Witchcraft. He is obsessed with the supernatural apart from religious faith, despite his learning. This in itself is not enough to make him foolish, but he fails to realize that he is the agent of his own undoing in that he makes himself scared just to walk home at night. One of his sources of pleasure was "...to pass the long winter evenings with the old Dutch wives… listening to their marvelous tales of ghosts and goblins…"
He was a huge feeder, and according to country custom… boarded and lodged at the houses of farmers whose children he instructed. Ichabod had a soft and foolish heart, and it was not a wonder that such a tempting woman soon found favor in his eyes. When it came to his rival, Brom Bones, Ichabod had a happy mixture of pliability and perseverance in his nature, yet still became the object of whimsical persecution to Bones and his gang of rough riders.
Brom Bones was introduced as was a burly, roaring, roistering blade of the name of Abraham. He was broad shouldered and double-jointed, with short, curly black hair and a bluff but not unpleasant countenance, having a mingled air of fun and arrogance. From his Herculean frame and great powers of limb, he received the nickname Brom Bones, by which he was universally known. He was foremost at all races. He was always ready for either a fight or a frolic, but had more mischief than ill will in his composition; and with all his overbearing roughness, there was a strong dash of waggish good humor at bottom. He had three or four boon companions who regarded him as their model and at the head of whom he scoured the country, attending every scene of feud or merriment for miles around.
This reckless hero had for some time singled out the blooming Katrina for the object of his gallantries.
Katrina Van Tassel was a daughter and only child of a prosperous Dutch farmer. She was a blooming lass of fresh eighteen; plump as a partridge; ripe an melting and rosy cheeked as one of her father’s peaches; and universally famed, not merely as a beauty, but as an heiress. She was a little of a coquette, as might be perceived even in her dress, which was a mixture of ancient and modern fashions,as most suited to set off her charms. She wore the ornaments of pure yellow gold, which her great-great-grandmother had brought over from Saardam; the tempting stomacher of the olden time, and withal a provokingly short petticoat, to display the prettiest foot and ankle in the country round.
The Headless Horseman was depicted by Irving as “…the dominant spirit, however, that haunts this enchanted region, and seems to be commander-in-chief of all the powers of the air, is the apparition of a figure on horseback, without a head. It is said by some to be the ghost of a Hessian trooper, whose head had been carried away by a cannon-ball, in some nameless battle during the Revolutionary War, and who is ever and anon seen by the country folk hurrying along in the gloom of night, as if on the wings of the wind. His haunts are not confined to the valley, but extend at times to the adjacent roads, and especially to the vicinity of a church at no great distance. Indeed, certain of the most authentic historians of those parts, who have been careful in collecting and collating the floating facts concerning this spectre, allege that the body of the trooper having been buried in the churchyard, 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, like a midnight blast, is owing to his being belated, and in a hurry to get back to the churchyard before daybreak. Such is the general purport of this legendary superstition, which has furnished materials for many a wild story in that region of shadows; and the spectre is known at all the country firesides, by the name of the Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow…”
The plot of the story runs as follows: 1) exposition (description of Sleepy Hollow, introduction of main and additional characters, presenting myths and beliefs of the citizens); 2) rising action (the author tells about Ichabod’s dreams about rich life what could be granted after the marriage with Katrina Van Tassel, but his rival Brom Bones has also chosen the young lady for his gallantries, here comes the romantic conflict); 3) climax (Ichabod gets rejected by Katrina and while riding home is pursued by the Headless Horseman); 4) anticlimax ( after Ichabod disappears, no one makes fuss about it; Brom Bones and Katrina Van Tassel are getting married and the town gets back to its ordinary rural life).
In order to portray the characters and to portray the setting vividly and convincingly the author of the story resorts to the following stylistic devices:
I. Irony Irving made fun of Ichabod’s way of living, ridiculed his passion for scary stories, his “animal appetite”, even his school, where our hero felt as a king: …”Ichabod, in pensive mood, sat enthroned on the lofty stool from whence he usually watched all the concerns of his little literary realm. In his hand he swayed a ferule, that sceptre of despotic power; the birch of justice reposed on three nails behind the throne, a constant terror to evil doers, while on the desk before him might be seen sundry contraband articles and prohibited weapons, detected upon the persons of idle urchins, such as half-munched apples, popguns, whirligigs, fly-cages, and whole legions of rampant little paper gamecocks…” In addition, the author ironically described women : “All these, however, were mere terrors of the night, phantoms of the mind that walk in darkness; and though he had seen many spectres in his time, and been more than once beset by Satan in divers shapes, in his lonely perambulations, yet daylight put an end to all these evils; and he would have passed a pleasant life of it, in despite of the Devil and all his works, if his path had not been crossed by a being that causes more perplexity to mortal man than ghosts, goblins, and the whole race of witches put together, and that was—a woman”.
Furthermore, Irving mocks at the rural life of that time: ” …the most enviable and admirable house in the village appears to be festooned with dried apples, peaches and red peppers and decorated with shining conch-shells, colored bird's eggs and a great ostrich egg …hung from the center of the room”.
As a vivid example of irony I would like to mention the Ichabod’s dance at Van Tassel’s house: “he was clattering about the room in such a way that you would have thought Saint Vitus himself… was figuring before you…”
II. Metaphors “As Ichabod approached this fearful tree, he began to whistle; he thought his whistle was answered; it was but a blast sweeping sharply through the dry branches”. ("sweeping" is a metaphor; it compares the sound of the wind to the sound of a broom)
“His terror rose to desperation; he rained a shower of kicks and blows upon Gunpowder, hoping by a sudden movement to give his companion the slip; but the spectre started full jump with him”. (Ichabod's kicking of the horse is compared to a violent raindstorm.)
III. Similies 1. “The hour was as dismal as himself”. (the hour is personified or compared to a person as "dismal" as Ichabod Crane after he leaves the party, having been bested by Bram Bones)
2. “Now and then, too, the long-drawn crowing of a cock, accidentally awakened, would sound far, far off, from some farmhouse away among the hills—but it was like a dreaming sound in his ear”. (the unreality of the sound is compared to a dream)
3. “Icabod had a long snipe nose, so that it looked like a weather-cock perched upon his spindle neck”.
4. "The guttural twang of a bull frog, from a neighbouring marsh, as if sleeping uncomfortably, and turning suddenly in his bed".
IV. Personification Describing a cock, as “a husband, a warrior, and a fine gentleman”.
"And how often was he thrown into complete dismay by some rushing blast, howling among the trees..."
V. Allusions “From his Herculean frame and great powers of limb he had received the nickname of BROM BONES”; “To have taken the field openly against his rival would have been madness; for he was not a man to be thwarted in his amours, any more than that stormy lover, Achilles”; It was suddenly interrupted by the appearance of a negro in tow-cloth jacket and trowsers, a round-crowned fragment of a hat, like the cap of Mercury, and mounted on the back of a ragged, wild, half-broken colt, which he managed with a rope by way of halter”; and haunted bridges, and haunted houses, and particularly of the headless horseman, or Galloping Hessian(historic reference) of the Hollow, as they sometimes called him”.
Summing up the analysis of the given extract one should say that the writer Washington Irving brilliantly uses irony and humor to create graceful, light and natural prose. Irony is a recurring feature in Washington Irving's writings, but maybe never so noticeably as in pseudo-supernatural stories. The author appears to be not only a keen word-lover but also a gifted ironist, who uses all the possible literature devices to create the atmosphere full of action in his witty and light romantic stories.
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