Themes In The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow

What is one of the many themes in the Legend of Sleepy Hollow? The Legend of Sleepy Hollow can mean many things for the reader, depending on how the reader interprets the story. There is a mystery of a headless horse man that haunts the enchanted region. The headless horseman is said to be the ghost of a Hessian trooper. His head had been carried away by a cannonball during a battle in the Revolutionary war. Although there are many dominant themes in Sleepy Hollow, one of the themes is the supernatural.

First of all, the story starts describing Sleepy Hollow by stating, “Some say that the place was bewitched by a High German doctor, during the early days of the settlement; others, that an old Indian chief, the prophet or wizard of his tribe,

held his powwows there before the country was discovered by Master Hendrick Hudson” (Pg. 2 Para. 3). This story lets the reader know since the beginning that there is something supernatural going on in Sleepy Hollow. It states that there are many different legends of how the place got bewitched. No one really knows how the region got enchanted. This lets the reader foreshadow that there is some spooky things that are going to happen in this story. Washington Irving let the reader know in the beginning that Sleepy Hollow is bewitched, so the readers could put more emphasis and importance from the start. The reader probably would not put much importance in the supernatural events that were happening in the story if Irving would have just put the ghostly beliefs of the region in the middle of the story.
Next, Washington Irving goes ahead and adds to the mystery of the supernatural when he describes a headless horseman in the story: “The dominant spirit, however, that haunts the enchanted region, and seems to be commander- in chief of all the powers in the air, is the apparition of a figure on horseback, without a head” (Pg.

2 Para. 4). The region is not only enchanted, but there is a headless horse man that haunts Sleepy Hollow. This demonstrates that there is more than one spooky thing going on in Sleepy Hollow. Many people are terrified of being outside at night because of the headless horseman. Ichabod liked to spread the word of the headless horseman and other tales: “He would delight them equally by his anecdotes of witchcraft, and the direful omens and portentous sights and sound in the air” (pg.6). Washington Irving introduces Ichabod spreading other scary accounts. This proves that people liked to listen to tales in Sleepy Hollow and that they do believe in the supernatural. They passed down the anecdote to each

other
Lastly, Ichabod proved that he believed all the tales that he had heard when he thought about “all the stories of ghosts and goblins that he had heard in the afternoon now came crowding upon his recollection” (P.

16). Ichabod was coming from the party at Katrina Van Tassel’s house. It was night time until he was on his way back home. He was scared about the headless horseman since the horseman supposedly comes out at night. Later that night, Ichabod was being followed by a person in a horse. He did not know who it was, but figured it was the headless horseman. The next day, there was an investigation to look for Ichabod because he was missing. All they found was “in one part of the road leading to the church was found the saddle trampled in the dirt; the tracks of horses’ hoofs deeply dented in the road,” They also found Ichabod’s hat and a shattered pumpkin. They did not find his body. Many people had different ideas of what happened. One person said he was alive and had left to another place to become a justice in a court. Others said he has disappeared by the supernatural. This legend ends with a mystery. No one knew exactly what happened to Ichabod, but since the story starts out with describing the tale of the headless horseman then most people would think that’s who got Ichabod.

There are many descriptions that prove that there are many supernatural things that happen in Sleepy Hollow. The supernatural theme is very dominant in the Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Washington Irving

made emphasis of the supernatural when he began the story describing the mysterious occurrences in Sleepy Hollow, introduced other ghostly tales told by Ichabod, and the disappearance of Ichabod. Ichabod is thought to be a victim of the mysterious headless horseman. No one truly knows what happened to the poor fellow.