Irving’s use of Masculinity and Femininity
Washington Irving 's famous short story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow has many aspects masculinity and femininity. Femininity tends to dominate the short story a lot more than masculinity does, with the protagonist being very feminine. The two main male characters in the story are Ichabod Crane and Brom Bones. These two characters couldn’t be more opposite of each other than they are throughout the story, especially in aspects of masculinity. While Brom is the big and strong manly man, Ichabod is small and seen as more mature. These contrasts in character become a lot more distinct when considering masculinity of the two characters. Brom being the more masculine and Ichabod as more feminine.
In this short story, femininity tends to overpower masculinity. The reader tends to see more feminine …show more content…
The men of Sleepy Hollow often tell stories where they make themselves the heroes so they sound impressive to others. Whereas the women tell stories about ghosts and tales of haunted places, which are the stories Ichabod likes. Most of the men would hear these tales, but never truly believed them, again adding on to these stories to make themselves sound as though they are heroic. To the men of Sleepy Hollow these stories were nothing more but fun, but for Ichabod not so much. “The feminine in Ichabod is his unmanly, superstitious, trembling, and gullible side”(Plummer and Nelson 175) he actually believed these stories. Unlike the men, Ichabod believed everything that was told in these stories. It is often believed that Brom was the Headless Horseman. This makes plenty of sense, Brom didn’t truly believe the story, but Ichabod did. So this was an easy way to scare off Ichabod. Brom didn’t like Ichabod, he especially didn’t like how Ichabod wanted to marry Katrina, so what better way to get rid of him than by scaring him? Plus Brom loved playing tricks on people as
Washington Irving 's famous short story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow has many aspects masculinity and femininity. Femininity tends to dominate the short story a lot more than masculinity does, with the protagonist being very feminine. The two main male characters in the story are Ichabod Crane and Brom Bones. These two characters couldn’t be more opposite of each other than they are throughout the story, especially in aspects of masculinity. While Brom is the big and strong manly man, Ichabod is small and seen as more mature. These contrasts in character become a lot more distinct when considering masculinity of the two characters. Brom being the more masculine and Ichabod as more feminine.
In this short story, femininity tends to overpower masculinity. The reader tends to see more feminine …show more content…
The men of Sleepy Hollow often tell stories where they make themselves the heroes so they sound impressive to others. Whereas the women tell stories about ghosts and tales of haunted places, which are the stories Ichabod likes. Most of the men would hear these tales, but never truly believed them, again adding on to these stories to make themselves sound as though they are heroic. To the men of Sleepy Hollow these stories were nothing more but fun, but for Ichabod not so much. “The feminine in Ichabod is his unmanly, superstitious, trembling, and gullible side”(Plummer and Nelson 175) he actually believed these stories. Unlike the men, Ichabod believed everything that was told in these stories. It is often believed that Brom was the Headless Horseman. This makes plenty of sense, Brom didn’t truly believe the story, but Ichabod did. So this was an easy way to scare off Ichabod. Brom didn’t like Ichabod, he especially didn’t like how Ichabod wanted to marry Katrina, so what better way to get rid of him than by scaring him? Plus Brom loved playing tricks on people as