Legend of Sleepy Hollow

Sleepy Hollow

Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" begins as a lot of stories do from the 1800s. There is a quiet and peaceful small town with a wealthy family and all the activities of the townsfolk surround them. The town, according to the narrator is noted for being calm and serene, that is how the little village got the name Sleepy Hollow. The only thing that upsets this personality of the town is the local poltergeist, the Headless Horseman. The local schoolteacher Ichabod Crane is familiar with the stories of the Headless Horseman and how it takes the heads of those who pass his bridge, but he does not believe them to be true. Schoolteacher Crane comes face-to-face with the Headless Horseman. Given what is told about Ichabod Crane's character, it is easy to see that though he claims to be smarter than the other villagers who believe in the folktales, he is really far more foolish than the people he belittles and demeans with his attitude.

As a schoolteacher, Ichabod Crane believes in corporal punishment, whipping students for misbehaving and promising them that the boy or girl "would remember it and thank him for it the longest day he had to live" (15). He uses the hospitality of his students' parents by staying in their homes instead of living in his own rooms. Ichabod Crane "lorded it in his little empire" (16). In addition to teaching and singing, Crane spends much of his time telling scary stories to the townsfolk and impressing them with his knowledge of such folk stories as witches and warlocks. Beyond this bravado of bravery, he is actually a very cowardly man. "What fearful shapes and shadows beset his path, amidst the dim and ghastly glare of a snowy night!...How often was he appalled by some shrub covered with snow, which, like a sheeted spectre, beset his very path!" (19-20). Ichabod Crane is a fraud who is so self-deluded that he believes he can marry Katrina Van Tussel, the daughter of the wealthiest land owner around simply because he desires it. At a feast at the Van Tussel mansion, Washington writes, "He rolled his great eyes over the fat meadow lands, the rich fields of wheat, of rye, of buckwheat, and Indian corn, and the orchards burthened with ruddy fruity, which surrounded the warm tenement of Van Tussel, his heart yearned after the damsel who was to inherit these domains, and his imagination expanded with the idea how they might be readily turned into cash" (21-22). This did not come to pass and on the night he met the horseman, Ichabod Crane was forced into the knowledge that this goals of his was not to be. He is a man controlled by impulse and delusion and having to face his failings is a very difficult thing.