Gender Issues in Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

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Gender Issues in Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow At first glance, "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" by Washington Irving seems to be an innocent tale about a superstitious New England town threatened by a strange new comer, Icabod Crane. However, this descriptive narrative is more than just a simple tale because it addresses several gender issues that deserve attention. The pervasiveness of female influence in Sleepy Hollow and the conflict between male and female storytelling in this Dutch community are two pertinent gender issues that complicate Irving's work and ultimately enable the women of Sleepy Hollow to control the men and maintain order. 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. Even though Crane threatens the women of Sleepy Hollow with his intrusiveness and vast knowledge of things beyond the Hollow, he surprisingly associates with them more and with greater ease that with the men of Sleepy Hollow. The "feminine" in Crane is ... ... middle of paper ... ...ferent gender-based means for telling these stories, and the lack of female voice. These gender issues make it impossible for "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" to be read as just an innocent tale. A strong female influence and the sharp difference between male and female storytelling in Sleepy Hollow are two important gender issues that ultimately enable the women to control the men and maintain order. Work Cited Irving Washington. "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Nina Baym. 5th ed. Vol. 1. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1998. 948-69. Works Consulted Benoit, Raymond. Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." The Explicator. Washington: Heldref Publications, 1996. " Ringe, Donald A. American Gothic: Imagination and Reason in Nineteenth-Century Fiction. Lexington KY: The University Press of Kentucky, 1982.

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