Amy Irving

Most people would think that “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens is about Christmas when it was originally written to prevent child labor. The novella tells the story of a wealthy and greedy man named Ebenezer Scrooge. He is not the nicest gentleman and he is mean to his poor servant whose name is Bob Cratchit. This book teaches us that money does not always make us happy. This message can still apply to us today. around the time that ACC was written, children did a lot of work in the mines…

therefore his imagination, and intelligence is more developed than the townspeople, or his wife ever thought. Rip’s imagination not only created a free nation, he also freed himself from a nightmarish marriage. Throughout the tale of “Rip Van Winkle,” Irving paints a clear picture of the protagonist’s personality. Rip is flawed, not horribly, but enough for him to face unendurable henpecking from his wife. He is incompetent with household work. After years of consistent belittling from his…

Throughout time, people would argue that a story could be a picture into the past. During the eighteenth century, the ideas both for and against Enlightenment influence a number of writers and their stories. Displaying his use of imagery, Washington Irving, an American short story writer composes “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” to convey his views and ideas regarding Puritanical life. Another profound contributor to American literature is Phillis Wheatley, an African American woman who shares her…

Irving starts out by saying of Ichabod Crane that “he would have passed a pleasant life of it, in despite of the Devil and all his works, if his path had not been crossed by a being that causes more perplexity to mortal man, than ghosts, goblins, and the…

James Cooper and Washington Irving: Different but Alike Washington Irving was born on April 3rd, 1783. He spent his childhood growing up in Manhattan, New York alongside of his ten other siblings. His parents were William and Sarah Irving, his mother was the granddaughter of a clergyman, and his father was an affluent merchant who strongly supported the cause of American Independence. All of Williams sons were expected to support themselves so therefore, he sent Washington to study law in 1801,…

authors wrote of emotion and feeling. Love is the most well-known and over-used emotion. During the Romantic period, many authors wrote of love, Washington Irving and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow are some examples. In this essay, I will compare and contrast the courtship relationships expressed in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving and The Courtship of Miles Standish by Henry Longfellow. Delving into how each man’s strategy succeeded or failed, and how the women responded. A broad…

Washington Irving, American novelist and short story writer, mastered the use of satire in his works. Through this literary device, he was able to ironically criticize institutions with the purpose of improving society. Nevertheless, the author’s subtlety plays an important role in hiding these humorous statements all along his master pieces. Irving’s short story The Devil and Tom Walker is no exception to this satire-use pattern. The tale narrates the story of a stereotypical American man named…

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow Critique I begin my critique with the title of the short story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow was written by an American author named Washington Irving. Washington Irving is famous for this short story along with another one of his stories, Rip Van Winkle. Irving’s short stories were published into one book entitled The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. with his pen name being Geoffrey Crayon. The setting of the story starts with the…

The Devil and Tom Walker The setting of Washington Irving’s “The Devil and Tom Walker” serves as a way for Irving to foreshadow coming events, especially events that are rather… grim. For example, “The swamp was… grown with great gloomy pines and hemlocks”. Pine is a tree that can be seen as symbolising an everlasting element, and hemlock is extremely poisonous to domestic animals and, more importantly, humans. Later, Tom Walker meets the character named ‘Old Scratch, or the devil. The devil is…

Irving’s Romanticism Washington Irving, the first American writer achieves fame in Romantic literature, through legendary stories such as “The Devil and Tom Walker” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” Irving captivates his readers with his ability to twist minds by teaching valuable lessons through Romantic fiction. His spooky story about a “Headless Horseman” and the characters in the story demonstrations the movement of Romanticism. Romanticism is when a treatment of a subject is emotional…