The Power Of The Imagination In The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow

The American Revolutionary War forced a lot of changes upon the American people. American culture was confronted with clashing ideologies of the old traditions and the new progressive ideas to embrace the foundations of a developing new country. These tensions and concerns about the validity of the enforced changes were recorded within the literature produced during this time of turmoil. Romantic Literature incorporated the power of the imagination as a vehicle to propel the narratives. Washington Irving’s, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" reflects certain aspects of concern held by many citizens of the changing political, social, and everyday fundamentals of life after the Revolutionary through a theme of the powers of imagination and how it could lead to a devastating downfall. It is through Ichabod Crane, the protagonist, that the narratives intention to warn of dangers of relying solely on the progressive imagination that had taken hold of the leaders of their infant country, just as Crane’s own imagination allowed his continued belief in ghost stories which lead ultimately to his downfall. The question that is asked through “The Legend of …show more content…
Irving used this medium to express his concerns about America’s desperate need to be recognized as a fully-fledged adult country while still in their infantile stages. Terence Martin, author of “Rip, Ichabod, and the American Imagination”, wrote, “The conservative impulse of America generated by the desire for immediate adulthood quite naturally had its effect on the working of the creative imagination” (137). Irving used the educated yet ghost story believing, Ichabod Crane, to represent the disastrous implications that could result from a course of action dependent on facts not completely grounded in tangible reality; highlighting the naivety and childishness of the