The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
By: Gabriela Juarez & Janiel Romer
Summary
Is a story about a Hessian Trooper who got his head blown off by a cannon in a nearby battle of Sleep Hollow. Ichabod the teacher and choir master a pretty important person realizes the daughter of the richest guy in town who is also beautiful is single and wants her to fall in love with him to gain the riches. There's a problem Brom who loves the lady wants to kill Ichabod for messing with his lady. So Ichabod lays low for a while then out of luck is invited to the lady place for a party. But when the party was over the lady dumps him and on his way home weeping he crosses paths with the headless horseman when he thought he was safe the headless horseman throws his head at him ANC knocks him off the horse and he was never to be seen again. But Ichabod laughs at the mystery of his presence gone.
The Headless Horseman
What is the meaning behind the Headless Horseman?
Irving did not come up with the headless horseman legend but this is how he made it his own. What exactly is a Hessian? They were German soldiers who were hired to work for the British during the American Revolution. There were a lot of them and these guys were trained to fight while the Americans rebels were not. Put together their numbers and training they had a good reason to be scared of ― even alive. What's the perfect symbol to embody their trauma? The headless horseman. Hessians were kind of like mercenaries and were thought to be very greedy people. The greediest guy in sleepy hollow is attacked by greed itself. Ichabod was like the cookie monster no matter how many cookies he ate he still wanted more cookies. No matter if Ichabod got Baltus's wealth he still wouldn't have been satisfied. Ichabod was a teacher a smartypants, parents find it hard to see why people they should pay a hefty fee for schooling. Hans van ripper burned Ichabod books and takes his kids out of school because he thinks it causes trouble. The reaction that sleepy hollow residents have to Ichabod and his books is the same reaction they have to any science or any other "facts" that come into town. Ichabod and his books might be symbols for truth and reason. So they reject the man who says Ichabod was alive and ignore Brom's laughterand assume the headless horseman took him away. The people of sleepy hollow believe in the supernatural and are stubborn about it to boot. America was still new so people were still moving westward to settle. Only in the U.S could Baltud live so richly off the land.
MLA Citations
"Analyzing Ichabod. " Ichabod Crane The True of Sleepy Hollow. N.p., 19 Mar. 2013. Web. 19 May 2016.
Brown, Patrick. "The Story Behind “Sleepy Hollow”." Historical Digression. N.p., 31 Oct. 2011. Web. 20 May 2016.
Irving, Washington, and Arthur Rackham. The legend of Sleepy Hollow. New York: of wonder, 1990. Print
Jones, Deanna. "The Truth behind the Legend of Sleepy Hollow." The Line up. N.p., Sept.-Oct. 2015. Web. 19 May 2016.
Steiner, Henry John. "The Headless Horsemans Headlessness." Headless Horseman Blog. N.p., 20 Apr. 2012. Web. 11 May 2016.