Irving Berlin

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…

continually spoke of how he was so careless and was destroying the family. In fact, “morning, noon, and night, her tongue was torrent of household eloquence’’.His response was to shrug his shoulders, shake his head, and go outside. Hence, Washington Irving had set-up Rip as if he was not caring about what his wife had said. For example “The narrator blames most of Rip 's failings on the evil temper of his wife and makes sweeping generalizations about women and marriage’’(Lloyd). In comparison to…

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…

supernatural, lush nature, and imagination. An author, by the name of Washington Irving, sought to create stories other than the dramatic, chivalrous, romantic stories that were dominating the world of literature. He wanted a book that would be amusing to read, and could have the reader laughing. From this desire, he created “The Legend of Sleepy…

Rip Van Winkle Rip Van Winkle by Washington Irving is the quintessential example of American Romanticism. Using characteristics that he would later use in his more widely known novel, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” And incorporating characteristics from the “Leatherstocking Tales” novel series. Characteristics such as heroic simplicity and intensely detailed descriptions of nature. Other characteristics like A national/ self-identity playing a large part in the characters popularized by the…