When we compare Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow to the 1980 television movie The Legend of Sleepy Hollow starring Meg Foster, Dick Butkus, and Jeff Goldblum, we find that while there are several similarities between the two, there are also some key differences. When we look at various characters as well as the storyline, we see those similarities and differences.
Washington Irving’s depiction of Katrina Van Tassel is that she was “a little of a coquette” and liked to mix older and modern fashions—“she wore the…stomacher of the older time; and withal a provokingly short petticoat, to display the prettiest foot and ankle” (Irving 325)—because they accentuated her best features. Add in her beauty—“a blooming lass of fresh eighteen; plump as a partridge; ripe and melting and rosy cheeked”—and it seems that she is a good candidate for being a tease. Her immense grasp of her sex is illustrated by the fact that she plays Ichabod Crane against her other suitor, Brom Bones. The true nature of Katrina’s character comes through when we see Ichabod leave the party “quite desolate and chop-fallen” (Irving 334-35) and we have to wonder as Irving did: “was her encouragement of the poor pedagogue all a mere sham to secure her conquest of his rival?” (Irving 335). It seems that all evidence points to the affirmative in Irving’s story; Ichabod is not seen again, and Katrina marries Brom.
In comparison, the movie’s version of Katrina Van Tassel is somewhat altered. Meg Foster’s Katrina seems to be a spirited woman; unlike the story, she is (eventually) quite taken with Ichabod but not interested in Brom Bones in the slightest. One example of her spiritedness is shown in the first few minutes of her introduction: Jeff Go...
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...rbidden love, whereas Irving’s tale is a tale of possible unrequited love. The characters are vaguely similar in both the written story and the movie, but the glaring difference is that while Ichabod possibly flees from Sleepy Hollow because he was frightened beyond his limits, the movie allows him to denounce any superstition in order to wed his beloved.
There are many conclusions we can draw from the characters as well the storylines from the book and movie. It is up to each of us to decide what kind of characters we want to see; just as it is our own choice in deciding how the story ends. Katrina Van Tassel, Brom Bones, and Ichabod Crane will always be central to the story of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, just as they are important to the nuances of the story, but it is up to us, the readers and viewers, to draw our own conclusions about the headless horseman.
In the story, Irving used characterization to create the backstory, characters, and character’s personalities. Irving used direct characterization, so he could describe each character in the beginning of the story. The main character is Ichabod Crane was pictured as a school teacher, love interest of Katherina Van Tassel, and newcomer of Sleepy Hollow. Few people did not like the fact Crane wanted Van Tassel’s hand in marriage because of his position in society. In the story, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Crane was described as a simple person with no beautiful features and not the type of man that a woman like Katherina
The readings “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” by Washington Irving and The Monster by Stephen Crane are to amazing readings. However, these two texts represent violence and conflicts in different ways, which shows that although they have the same concept their tactic for this same concept is used in a different approach.
In both situations, greed and lust lead to the destruction of a person. The original story by Washington Irving, Ichabod Crane desired so much the Van Tassel estate that he was pushed to fall in love Katrina, therefore angering the local Brom. Ichabod Crane greed led him to his destruction. He was to never return to sleepy hollow and ended up losing not only the girl but also the estate he wanted. One can conclude that indeed Ichabod was seen as a greedy man who would do just about anything to get what he wanted. In contrast, it is evident that in the movie he is portrayed completely different; he is a humble man who just wants to get his job done. Instead, Katrina’s stepmother is the jealous one in the movie directed by Tim Burton. She wants to control money and land which causes her to use the supernatural in order to obtain what she wants. The movie does a good job in keeping it with suspense but Burton decided to take control and show he own version of what happened to Ichabod. Katrina’s mother used the headless horseman to her advantage in order to take revenge especially on the Van Tassels. It was not just the family she was seeking revenge on but any who would at one point have control of the inheritance. Tim Burton chose to use the theme from the original story yet incorporate into his own vision. He was to make Ichabod the main character and the hero of the
Fifteen years separate Washington Irving’s short story “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” with Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story, “Young Goodman Brown.” The two share an eerie connection because of the trepidation the two protagonists endure throughout the story. The style of writing between the two is not similar because of the different literary elements they choose to exploit. Irving’s “Sleepy Hollow” chronicles Ichabod Crane’s failed courtship of Katrina Van Tassel as well as his obsession over the legend of the Headless Horseman. Hawthorne’s story follows the spiritual journey of the protagonist, Young Goodman Brown, through the woods of Puritan New England where he looses his religious faith. However, Hawthorne’s work with “Young Goodman Brown” is of higher quality than Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” because Hawthorne succeeds in exploiting symbols, developing characters, and incorporating worthwhile themes.
?The Legend of Sleepy Hollow? is a short story by Washington Irving. Based on a well-known legend, this story tells the tale of the disappearance of the main character, Ichabod Crane. An effective ghost story, Irving leaves you guessing what the truth is behind the ending. The movie Sleepy Hollow is Hollywood?s portrayal of Irving?s original story. Although the movie is similar to the story in the beginning, the movie takes a twist that leads in another direction that strays far from the original plot.
Over time the language of the original text of "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" by Irving has been reworked to accommodate the change in audience. The Heath Anthology of American Literature has an unabridged version of the original wording (1354-1373). A complete copy of the original text of "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" can be found in the young adolescent classic section of a bookstore or the juvenile section in the library. A juvenile edition of the text adapted by Arthur Rackham from 1928 was a replicate of the original it is filled with seven colored illustrations and numerous sketching. A young adolescent version adapted by Bryan Brown from 2001 has been abridged to accommodate the current young reader. The format is changed in Brownâs edition. The yo...
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.
The characters in Faulkner's southern society are drawn from three social levels: the aristocrats, the townspeople, and the Negroes (Volpe 15). In "A Rose for Emily," Faulkner describes Miss Emily Grierson in flowing, descriptive sentences. Once a "slender figure in white," the last descendent of a formerly affluent aristocratic family matures into a "small, fat woman in black, with a thin gold chain descending to her waist and vanishing into her belt, leaning on an ebony cane with a tarnished gold head" (Faulkner, Literature 25-27). Despite her diminished financial status, Miss Emily exhibits her aristocratic demeanor by carrying her head high "as if she demanded more than ever the recognition of her dignity as the last Grierson" (28). In an equally descriptive manner, Faulkner paints a written portrait of Miss Minnie Cooper in "Dry September." He portrays her as a spinster "of comfortable people - not the best in Jefferson, but good enough people" and "still on the slender side of ordinary looking, with a bright faintly haggard manner and dress (Faulkner, Reader 520). Cleanth Brooks sheds considerable insight on Faulkner's view of women. He notes that Faulkner's women are "the source and sustainer of virtue and also a prime source of evil. She can be ...
Although the titles of the two works are relatively similar, the plot of each is different. If the film does not include the character, Ichabod Crane, and the reference to a Headless Horseman, the film would have no resemblance to Irving’s story. The difference in structure of plot in the two works changes the entire story. Every facet of the story is different between the two. The exposition offers the audience different stories because Ichabod has a new profession in the movie. The conflict in the two w...
However they are also very different in presentation and depiction of character. Washington Irving paints a picture of a lazy man who is loved by all in the village and willing to give the shirt off his back to help his fellow man. “He would never refuse to assist a neighbor even in the roughest toil” (Irving 198), yet in the Shelley Duvall production he appears even more simple minded and perhaps even taken advantage of when it comes to painting his neighbor’s fence. Almost as if his ladder is held for hostage for the ransom of painting, and once finished it is revealed that the neighbor no longer has Rip’s ladder anyway. (Duvall, Rip Van Winkle).
The improbable plots and unlikely characterization showed how much they used creativity. According to a Romanticism article, “The Romantics tended to define and to present the imagination as our ultimate ‘shaping’ or creative power, the approximate human equivalent of the creative powers of nature or even deity” (“Romanticism”). They believe that imagination is an essential and amazing ability that humans possess. Romantic authors often included examples of imagination and creativity within their works. In the short story “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” the supernatural plot and improbable characters illustrate the imagination of Romanticism writers (Irving). Washington Irving must have used a significant amount of creativity to come up with a story that involves a headless ghost riding a horse. He thought outside of his reality and environment in order to create an impossible and fascinating character. The Romantics favored imagination and creativity because they realized how invaluable it truly
In The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Irving portrayed women differently. Katrina Van Tassel is very beautiful, sexy and a flirt. Katrina knew what the power of her beauty could do. Although Katrina isn’t a nag like Dam Van Winkle, she was bad in a different way. Katrina seemed to know what and who she wanted and was willing to use her beauty and sexuality to get what she wants.
Irving does this to help readers realize how caught up the society of Sleepy Hollow is with their past. Irving frequently brings up the Revolutionary war and how the headless horseman was a Hessian soldier from the war. When he writes, “The dominant spirit that haunts this enchanted region is the apparition of a figure on horseback without a head. It is said to be the ghost of a Hessian trooper, whose head had been carried away by a cannonball in some nameless battle during the Revolutionary War… The specter is known, at all the country firesides, by the name of the Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow” (Irving 2). This is an allusion to the Revolutionary war because the headless horseman was a hessian soldier. This explains the theme of supernatural because the Headless Horseman haunts their town and the main character, Ichabod Crane, comes across the ghost of him. Another major allusion in “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” is Ichabod's belief in witches. The author supports this when saying, “He was, moreover, esteemed by the women as a man of great erudition, for he had read several books quite through, and was a perfect master of Cotton Mather's 'History of New England Witchcraft” (Irving 4). Ichabod also believes in the supernatural past. His belief in witches supports the theme of supernatural within the book. Referring to the past using allusion develops different themes within the
...than usual and Katerina seems to disappoint him and leaves him crestfallen. On his way home he finds a dark and creepy path he takes and sees a dark figure nearby that passes. He finally notices that the man on the horse has no head. He tries to get his horse to go faster but fails, because he is not a skilled rider. He ends up by the church where the Headless Horseman is known to be seen. The Headless Horseman follows and with his detached head throws it at Ichabod forcing him to fall off his horse. The next day, there is no sign of Ichabod, but the horse returns back to the owner’s farm. Later a group of people go looking for Ichabod and all they find is his hat next to a smashed pumpkin. Some people believe that Brom pulled a great prank, but the local folklore and old women know he was taken by the Headless Horseman. Ichabod is never seen again in Sleepy Hallow.
Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and the movie “Sleepy Hollow” different story lines. Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” starts with the arrival of Ichabod Crane to fill the position of school master in the township. There lingers in the air a superstitious feeling of the headless horseman. The horseman is a Hessian rider that would take the heads of his victims during battle. Ichaod Crane is met with criticism and practical jokes by the local Sleepy Hollow boys and their leader Brom Bones. Irving describes in his short story that “The neighbors looked upon him with a mixture of awe, admiration, and good-will; and when any madcap prank, or rustic brawl, occurred in the vicinity, always shook their heads, and...