Essay On Headless Horseman

Improved Essays
Headless horseman

Most of us know about the horseman who carries around a jackolantern, and who has no head and searches for one to replace his missing one (Hendricks 1). Well you may not know about that at all and you may be going “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” The Headless horseman has been a legend that has been around for many years and has had many appearances in our modern culture today. This essay will explore the legend of the Headless horseman.

To start with, let's look at the actual legend itself. The Headless horseman was a trooper whose head had been carried off by a cannonball in some battle during the Revolutionary War (Hendricks 1). Now he gallops around around on his horse, in a town looking for his missing head or for someone else’s as a replacement. It is said to happen every night in this town called Sleepy Hollow (Hendricks 1). Ichabod Crane, is the main character in the story, “Legend of Sleepy Hollow”, he was a teacher who was coming to the town, and he is portrayed as an
…show more content…
To start off the area Sleepy Hollow is actually a real place that is now an attraction (Legend 1). The original Elizabeth Van Tassel house was located which is now the northeast corner of Hamilton Place and North Broadway in Tarrytown (Legend 2). Van Tassel was one of the main characters in the book Legend of Sleepy Hollow. The landmark Condominium building is on the site that was the Washington Irving High School until the 1920’s (Legend 2). Washington Irving was the author of the book Legend of Sleepy Hollow. The marshy area where Ichabod first saw the horseman has been drained for some years, but the stream still flows through a park that goes by Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow (Legend 3). Now the Sleepy Hollow of legend is the valley of the Pocantico River, which is a small stream that flows into the Hudson river (Legend

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Irving develops the small village of Sleepy Hollow to show the importance of story telling as he writes “the whole neighborhood abounds with local tales, haunted spots, and twilight superstitions” (Irving 6 ). His intent is for the reader to understand and almost experience the setting showing the importance of the imagination. He develops a quiet dreamy town that is so rooted in the past; it is the perfect setting in which to harbor this scary superstitious story. The frightful imagery makes it so one can almost feel the eerie mist while the story is being read. Washington Irving further develops the landscape of early America as he describes the terrain as, “ fat meadow lands, the rich fields of wheat, of rye, of buckwheat, and Indian corn, and the orchards burthened with ruddy fruit” (Irving 16). One can understand the vast fertile land available to Americans as they travel in search of new opportunities. One can imagine unharmed rolling hills and fields ripe for plowing. By using these descriptive words, the author encourages the reader to visualize and understand why the setting of “Legend of Sleepy Hollow” is significant to the story. He urges us to ponder over the various uses of imagery. Additionally, Irving develops the scene of moving west as he describes “a whole family of children, mounted on the top of a wagon loaded with household trumpery, with pots and kettles dangling beneath” (Irving 17). This vivid description shows that families are free and able to pack up their belongings and explore new frontiers. Washington Irving uses these imaginative settings to set the tone for revolutionary…

    • 850 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    He claims to have fallen in love at her charms, but it is obvious that he is greedy enough to be in love with her likely inheritance. He begins his quest to win Katrina’s hand, but realizes that he is not the only one aiming for her. The village hero Brom Van Brunt had already scared off many of Katrina’s suitors, but Ichabod avoid confrontation with him and continues his attempt. One night, Ichabod persuades Katrina to join him in the ball, but is left with a clear rejection that breaks his heart. During the journey back home, Ichabod encounters a Headless Horseman, the legendary ghost who was said to be a Hessian soldier in the Revolutionary War. This ghost launches at Ichabod, causing him to all of his horse. The next day, the horse reaches the farmland with no sign of Ichabod. With this story with an ambiguous ending, Washington Irving depicts the nineteenth century American ideal of achieving status and wealth through no real hard work. This ideal contrasts the American dream, that was meant to be attained by hard work and…

    • 1568 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Sleepy Hollow Comparison

    • 530 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Have you ever read a short story and then went to a performance on it as well? Almost every time, there are things that are different and the same. In the Legend of Sleepy Hollow, there are numerous times when the Setting, Theme, Characters, Plot, and Conflict are different and the same. Most of the performance and story is the same. But, there are still things that are different.…

    • 530 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Being sold for slaughter is one of the many challenges horse’s face to solely live their lives free of abuse and suffering. Hope can be found in the homes and…

    • 1669 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The village of Sleepy Hollow was dark and gloomy. A crow is perched on the sign waiting for it’s prey to wander the dark streets.The street was so foggy one couldn’t see across the empty streets of the village.Off in the you could see a figure of a man on a horse.Who is this man on this horse?…

    • 709 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Jack Stump Research Paper

    • 745 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Well today i’m gonna tell yall about the story of the great Jack Stump. Jack Stump lives in the great mesa of Arizona, but it didn’t start out that way, oh not at all. Jack Stump was born into being a single child with one parent in 1803. He was born in Arizona on a desert. He was an abnormal child. They say he was born 30 pounds and 35 cm! A tragedy struck and his mother passed away and he didn't have family or friends and had to live on his own. His mother farmed as a living and he carved the pumpkins he grew. Just to clarify by the age of 16 he was already 9 ft 5, could you believe it? He continued carving pumpkins and got quite good at it. After pumpkin through pumpkin, he started to run out of space to put the pumpkins that he had carved out. He had ran…

    • 745 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    The Headless Horseman is a villain from the story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. The definition of the villain archetype is an evil character who exists to cause disorder, confusion, and mayhem on society any to battle against the hero. The Headless Horseman fits under the villain archetype by causing chaos among the town. Anyone who has lived in the town Sleepy Hollow is deathly afraid of the Heinous Hessian. He is the most feared specter among the town that is littered with haunted areas. Every year on Halloween night, he arrives as a malevolent ghost searching for his missing head, stopping for no one in his path. After a mysterious disappearance, all that remains of a missing person is their wandering horse, trampled saddle, a discarded hat,…

    • 195 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Superior Essays

    In the eighteen and nineteen hundreds, American gothic themes were very common throughout stories and poems. These gothic elements, whether in the form of settings, actions, or characters, influenced American literature and are still present in many stories today. Some of these gothic elements include those of terror, the supernatural, and the dark outdoors. Both the Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving and Somnambulism by Charles Brockden Brown contain gothic elements in the form of terror, horror, fear of unknown, madness, and setting of the story.…

    • 1168 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Moral Panic

    • 1623 Words
    • 7 Pages

    The report was scathing, and described the male teachers as incompetent, intemperate, course, hard, unfeeling men who were too lazy or stupid to be entrusted with the care of children (Goldstein, 2014, p. 24). While the report on its own led to some questioning of the male teachers’ capabilities, the true moral panic was incited by two independent parties: Catherine Beecher’s speech, and Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. The main character in Irving’s short story, Ichabod Crane, is painted as a “well-intentioned petty tyrant lording it over the children at a poorly maintained single-room schoolhouse through the generous use of a birch rod” (p. 24). One critical element of most moral panics is their tendency to focus on single stories to incite the largest reaction possible. Though Ichabod Crane was a purely fictional character, the notions he represented were something beginning to be seen within American schoolhouses. The combination of the potential for factual basis married with Irving’s dramatization of that factual basis was exactly what was needed to begin to incite a moral panic of if men were truly cut out to be…

    • 1623 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    What do a cat and a headless horse man have in common? The world may never know. But, the world will know how the two stories by Edgar Allan Poe and Washington Irving are incredibly different but also very similar. “The Black Cat” by Edgar Allan Poe and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” by Washington Irving share many aspects of romanticism; these include the importance of nature, supernatural events, and a sense of individualism. Although these similarities are present the stories are very different. These differences are mostly due to the style the stories were written in; “The Black Cat” is a gothic romantic story while “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” is a traditional romantic story.…

    • 939 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    How often do you read a short story for enjoyment anymore? You may be asking yourself that question, and the truth is, as a teenager, you don’t. So why did I read The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow? That’s a good question, there are many reasons someone would read this story. One reason could be that your 9th mod Honors English teacher told you to read it and write a 2 page reader response about it. However, I am going to tell you another reason why people read this story.…

    • 570 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Icabod Crane Rationalism

    • 228 Words
    • 1 Pages

    Icabod Crane represents the philosophical view of romanticism and Brom Bones is representative to rationalism. Icabod’s character represents an emphasis on imagination, emotions, and nature. He has a strong interest in supernatural stories, which causes him to be apprehensive. Despite Crane having a formal education and large knowledge from being a school teacher, he feels that there is another realm outside of a rationalism (romanticism). The fears which are felt in “The Legend of Sleeping Hollow” by Icabod are from his great imagination and this causes him to feel strong emotions of fear and terror. In as sense of nature, we also observe that due to the ghost story readings he becomes easily gullible and scared by events around him. On the…

    • 228 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Washington Irving was an American short story writer, biographer, historian, and diplomat of the early 19th century. He is best known for his short stories "Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" who are both from his book "The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon". "Rip Van Winkle" is a short story Irving written while he was living in Birmingham and published in 1819. Considering it has been adapted for a lot of other media like cartoons, films, operetta or even stage plays we can reasonably say that the story has an important cultural importance.…

    • 775 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Ichabod’s strong desire for Katrina Van Tassel did not reside in her beauty alone, but predominantly in his desire for wealth, food, and the farm Katrina’s father, Baltus Van Tassel, owned. In “Overview: Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” the writer claims, “when he (Ichabod) sets his sights on marrying Katrina Van Tassel, it is not because of any feeling he has for her, but because her father is wealthy and Crane admires the food that is always displayed in the Van Tassel home” (Milne). Throughout the text, Irving makes numerous references to Ichabod’s obsession with food. For example, when “Ichabod jogged slowly on his way, his eye, ever open to every symptom of culinary abundance, ranged with delight over the treasures of jolly autumn. On all sides he beheld vast store of apples, some hanging in oppressive opulence on the trees… beheld great fields of Indian corn, with its golden ears peeping from their leafy coverts, and holding out the promise of cakes and hasty pudding” (Irving 52-53). It becomes exceedingly evident that Ichabod Crane’s desire for Katrina lies within the materialistic nature of her farm land possession when he compares her to food he would like to devour and consume. “She was a blooming lass of fresh eighteen; plump as a partridge; ripe and melting and rosy-cheeked as one of her…

    • 941 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    He was so obsessed with marrying Katrina and acquiring her family’s farm for his own benefit that he became carried away. He fantasizes about his prosperous future so frequently that he is unable to imagine failing; therefore, he does not make the life changes that are necessary in order for him to be a suitable partner for Katrina. Because of this, Katrina rejects Crane, and he starts on his way home down a dark and quiet path. As he rides horseback into the night, “all the stories of ghosts and goblins that he had heard in the afternoon, now came crowding upon his recollection” (184). After time, Crane believes he is being followed, and eventually chased, by the notorious Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow. The ghost supposedly hunts Crane down and knocks him off his horse by throwing his decapitated head at the teacher. The following day, all that is found on the premises of the chase was “the hat of the unfortunate Ichabod, and close behind it a shattered pumpkin,” (189) which implies that the situation is not a supernatural occurrence. This entire scene is actually a prank pulled by Katrina’s second suitor and Crane’s rival, Brom Bones. Crane’s remarkable enjoyment of ghost stories and mysterious tales, which he believes in due to his strong imagination, makes him susceptible to Bones’s prank. If he had not been so selfish in regards to his intentions with Katrina and so passionate with his imagination, Crane may not have suffered such a tragic…

    • 1121 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays