Henry Irving

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,…

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…

1350-01 1. How did the wave of Immigrants coming into New York influence the kind of entertainment being created? In the beginning of the 19th century there were many forms of entertainment that were created from all the different ethnic groups that flowed through New York. All of the different ethnic neighborhoods that housed the immigrants had their own special form of entertainment, whether it was watching a musician play at a pub, or on the street. As the different ethnic groups began to mix…

use themes to add dimension, help the reader understand, and direct the reader in following the path of novel’s intention. Providing a novel with the structural value of a theme, the author keeps the reader guided. In a Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving uses themes to combine the complexity of his work. Without the theme of religion/doubt tying in with fate versus free will, the novel would lose substance and value. Faith and religion, without a doubt, is the underlying main source of the…

published in 1824 by Washington Irving, a conversion from an illustrative, descriptive tone to a revealing tone is a technique the author uses to give the reader an insight into the selfishness and greed of the character Tom Walker and his wife. Many literary elements are used in writings from this period in time and even writings from the present in order to convey a lesson, or moral, for the person reading to take away from the piece of literature. Washington Irving was one of these authors,…

Being considerate and helpful to others is what makes you have a humanity. “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens is a story about a man named Ebenezer Scrooge who was tremendously greedy and was visited by the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future to make him see what his selfishness had caused him.This story has multiples themes, such as social justice, the true meaning of humanity, etc. Greed overtakes the humanity of those who possess it because it pushes away everyone you love and…

When thinking about the United States as an upstart country, as it was in Washington Irving’s time, certain basic terms and images come to mind, as they were taught in primary school: puritans and pilgrims, Indians, untouched landscapes, new settlers (in this case Dutch), and so on with things of that nature. Accompanying these terms are some more abstract ideas. The notion of freedom, the American dream, hard work, self-interest, and the concept of rebelling against an unmatched power also…