Whether or not we like to admit it, we all take pleasure in sitting under the stars while soaking in the warm breath of a campfire and listening to ghost stories.\u00a0 We often find ourselves delighting in the thrill that a spooky tale offers to us.\u00a0 Of course, this is not news to us, for people have adored ghost stories for ages.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
American author, Washington Irving introduced a breathtaking scare to the public when he published\u00a0The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon,<\/em>\u00a0which contained a chilling short story titled\u00a0The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.<\/em>\u00a0 This story in particular, is thought to be derived from a German folktale.\u00a0 It is centered around Ichabod Crane, a native of Connecticut who ventures into the small town of Sleepy Hollow to practice as a schoolteacher and a singing master.\u00a0 He is described as having a terribly thin build and a slightly greedy nature.\u00a0 These traits do not aid him when he decides to win over the lovely Katrina Van Tassel.\u00a0 Unbeknownst to Ichabod, Katrina is already attracted to Brom.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is a theme that appears many times in literature, two men battling over a beautiful woman, it is a timeless conflict that we know and draw amusement from.\u00a0 Irving brings even more humor to the reader by illustrating the contrasts between Ichabod and Brom.\u00a0 As I stated earlier, Ichabod is thin and lanky in stature.\u00a0 Brom on the other hand, is burly and and known for his strength.\u00a0 The mere idea of these two men dueling it out is rather comical.\u00a0 However, we must keep in mind that Irving never openly comes out and tells us the two men are at conflicting odds.\u00a0 This is a popular perception our minds have drawn from the various film adaptations of the story.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ichabod’s hope is fortified when he receives an invitation to a party at the home of the Van Tassels.\u00a0 However, he is disappointed and rejected by Katrina and soon finds himself on a dark path home.\u00a0 It is on this path that he encounters an unsettling sight, a headless figure riding horseback.\u00a0 Ichabod recognizes the figure as the ghost of the Headless Horseman, rumored to be a Hessian solider who lost his head to the impact of a cannon ball during the Revolutionary War.\u00a0 Once the Headless Horseman begins to pursue Ichabod, he rushes towards the bridge where the ghost is said to vanish and not follow.\u00a0 But of course, this does not play out as planned.\u00a0 The Headless Horseman hurls his detached “head” at Ichabod, knocking him off his horse in the process.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n The next morning, Ichabod’s horse returns to town, its rider does not.\u00a0 The townspeople search for him, only to find his hat, saddle, and a crushed pumpkin.\u00a0 \u00a0It is natural to assume that the schoolteacher fled from town in a frightened panic caused by a cruel prank carried out by Brom. However, Irving never reveals this in the text, he only hints at the possibility of a prank.\u00a0 I believe Irving did this to expand the reader’s sense imagination.\u00a0 He leaves us with an uncertain ending so that we can choose if we wish, to invest in the idea of the unknown.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Miranda Alexander Whether or not we like to admit it, we all take pleasure in sitting under the stars while soaking in the warm breath of a campfire and listening […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":3539,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[340],"tags":[346],"class_list":["post-3537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-literary-studies","tag-american-literature","clearfix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3537"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3537\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3649,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3537\/revisions\/3649"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}