20B. "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" (1820) by Washington Irving

 

Aesthetics: Humor

• Irving’s description of Ichabod cracked me up, especially when they said he could be “mistaken him for the genius of famine descending upon the earth, or some scarecrow eloped from a cornfield” definitely pushing the fact that he’s a thin wisp of a man (Irving).
• a fascinating protagonist with a fun mish-mash of endearing and charming traits, like his psalmody singing which “resounded far above all the rest of the congregation”, alongside more concerning qualities, such as his adherence to the “golden maxim” of “Spare the rod and spoil the child” and his variety of strange features with his most vivid description being his nose that “looked like a weather-cock perched upon his spindle neck”(Irving).
• Gunpowder . . . was an old plow-horse, who had “outlived everything but his viciousness.” The horse was described in an unattractive manner, having a “rusty mane and tail (that) were tangled with burrs.” He also had an “ewe neck and a head like a hammer” (Irving).Overall, the horse was described in an unlovely [manner], having been worked into this shape. Gunpowder seems to be a parallel to Ichabod himself-a beaten down and rough man, not very attractive, but gets the job done. He was a sort of outcast and low-class. On the contrary, Brom Bone’s horse is much like his character. Bones is a proud and sneaky person. Like Ichabod and Gunpowder, Bonas’s horse called Daredevil is much like his owner. Daredevil was a proud steed, “full of mettle and mischief.” Bone’s horse possessed that mettle and mischief of “which no one but himself could manage.” Daredevil was also known to perform tricks “which kept the rider in constant risk of his neck.” This parallel between animal and owner was echoed in Bones as it was with Ichabod and gave way to a humorous imagining of each man in relation to his horse. 
• Despite the story having dark undertones, it’s oddly humorous and seems to have a narrow focus on heads and food. Why Irving chose these two topics to focus on and write over is a mystery to me, but the mere fact that those are the subjects most often discussed made the story funnier than it was probably meant to be
  
  SB:  It is meant to be funny.

Aesthetics: The Cultural Afterlife of The "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"

• I have seen a stage production of this story before, but this is the first time I have ever read it. It is still just as interesting and captivating, but there seems to be a different emphasis. Ichabod is a teacher who enjoys reading stories and is rather imaginative, and the rest of the town of Sleepy Hollow is filled with superstitious people who are “given to all kinds of marvelous beliefs; are subject to trances and visions; and frequently see strange sights, and hear music and voices in the air” (6). One thing which surprises me quite a bit is the comical aspect of the story. The stage production and other times which I have heard the story always treated it like a short horror story which is rather serious, but this one ends with the townspeople thinking that Ichabod’s story of the Headless Horseman chasing after him to just be a prank pulled on him by Brom Bones.

Aesthetics: The Reader (and Brom) Know

• I wondered if Brom Bones is actually the headless horseman, and the legend continued because Brom Bones would run off any outsiders that came to their town. I believe the “head” was a pumpkin because of the descriptions of autumn in the beginning of the story.
• It is interesting that the story is told from a set of papers belonging to “the late Diedrich Knickerbocker” instead of an alive and present narrator. Maybe Irving did this to make the story appear more realistic or historical, as if he wanted the readers to believe that the story had actually been found among the belongings of a dead man who heard the tale from someone (a stranger during a business meeting) who also heard the tale. It is because of this that I think the story of Ichabod Crane is something Irving wanted the reader to question. For instance, the gentleman who originally told the story to Knickerbocker said that he “[didn’t] believe one half of it” after spouting a confusing syllogism. There is also the matter of Brome Bones who “always bursts into a hearty laugh” when the ending of the story is told, implying that he knows more about the story [than] others. If [Brom] does know what happened to Ichabod, it further supports the idea that the reader should not trust what Ichabod saw the night he fled Sleepy Hollow.
• The story has an ambiguous ending (kind of). We find out that the thing the headsman was carrying was a pumpkin rather than a head, and at the end of the story Brom laughs off any questions about the night Ichabod went missing. Both of these events point to Brom being the headless horsemen, since he didn’t want Katrina to pick Ichabod over him. However, some of the logistics of this questionable. Such as, how did Ichabod not recognize Brom? Or how did Brom catch up to Ichabod? Why would Brom feel the need to run Ichabod out of town when Katrina rebuffed him at the end of the party? I feel like those first two questions have easy answers; Ichabod didn’t recognize Brom because it was dark and even when Ichabod slowed the horseman didn’t catch up. Brom is also a skilled horseman who is originally from Sleepy Hollow, meaning that he knew shortcuts in the area. As for the question about Katrina, I feel like there is an answer to this; Brom is a jock. I know that is a modern term, but it fits Brom to a tee. All the characters in this story are stereotypes; Ichabod is the nerd, Brom is the jock, and Katrina is the love interest whose only character traits are how much she is coveted by the leading men. Brom’s characterization is that he wants to solve everything with brute force, trying to goad Ichabod into a brawl over Katrin. Even though Katrina rebuffed Ichabod, she had not officially chosen Brom, so Brom still felt threatened. Dressing up as the horseman and knocking Ichabod unconscious with a pumpkin lines up alarmingly well with his prior characterization. I don’t know if Irving wanted this ending to be ambiguous and unnerving or if he trusted his readers to figure the ending out, but these obvious clues point to the latter.
• Finally, something very hard to miss to me was the comparison of Daredevil performing tricks which would “keep the rider in risk of his neck.” The neck comment struck me as odd and felt like a clue at [Brom's] being the Headless Horseman, with it having no head. Also, If Daredevil were so connected with his owner, and able to do such tricks, it would be easy for them to attack Ichabod as he was attacked. Further clues towards the end of the story also indicated this being truth, with [Brom's] amusement at the disappearance of Ichabod
• Ichabod probably thought, since he was such a believer in the old tale, that it really was the Headless Horseman who assailed and chased him. He probably never even thought that it could be Brom Bones. Or perhaps he did but was so embarrassed by the prank and his dismissal from the heiress that he thought it best to never return.

Ideology: Brom as Hero?  

• I still find myself dumbfounded on the unrequited cruelty enacted upon Ichabod.

Ideology: Intellectual Life

• On the subject of stereotypes, I do want to point out that Ichabod subverts his stereotype a little when it comes to the treatment of his school children. He hits them, but only the ones that are not already afraid of him. Instead, he gave “a double portion on some little tough wrong-headed, broad- skirted Dutch urchin”. He’s a bully just as much as Brom is, but because he is lanky and nerdy and runs away from his problems in the end, he still fits the nerd stereotype. Brom also slightly subverts his stereotype by using trickery. He could never goad Ichabod into a direct fight, so he exploited Ichabod’s known fear of ghost stories to run him out of town. He still resorted to brute force when he chucked the pumpkin at Ichabod’s head and injured him, but he had to come up with a clever way to get to that point since Ichabod was too smart to fight him one-on-one. The only main character who doesn’t subvert their stereotype at all is Katrina. (But this was in the 1800’s so, like, who’s surprised?)
• It is made known from the beginning that Ichabod is a poor schoolteacher whom “to see striding along the profile of a hill on a windy day, with his clothes bagging and fluttering about him, one might have mistaken him for the genius of famine descending upon the earth, or some scarecrow eloped from a cornfield.["] However, it seems while he appeared to be helpful toward the residents, they kind of saw him as a bit a of a mooch without a real means of making money. As is stated, “might not be too onerous on the purses of his rustic patrons, who are apt to consider the costs of schooling a grievous burden, and schoolmasters as mere drones.” Moreover, Ichabod himself seemed to hold some prejudices himself as he is described as someone who “administered justice with discrimination rather than severity, taking the burden off the backs of the weak, and laying it on those of the strong.” Furthermore, he seemed to “prey” on the students of families who had “pretty sisters and housewives noted for the comforts of the cupboard.” Perhaps, it one of the prime reasons he went after Katrina. Maybe that is why he was “chased down” by the headless horseman.

Cultural Context: American Identity Narrative

Compare with:

• "Calathumps" (1825) at the University of Virginia. See: Richard Bernstein's 2003 biography Thomas Jefferson'; Mr. Jefferson's University: A History (1981) by Virginius Dabney; ,"Letter to Joseph Coolidge, Jr., 13 October 1825" by Thomas Jefferson; The Sage of Monticello (1981) by Dumas Malone.
• Charlotte Temple (1791) by Susanna Rowson (America's first best-selling novel)
• The Contrast (1790) by Royall Tyler (the first professionally produced play written by an American author)
• The Lion of the West (1831)by James K. Paulding
• Life of George Washington (1809) by Mason Locke Weems
• Biographical Memoir of Daniel Boone (1834) by Timothy Flint
• Davy Crockett's Own Story (1833) by Davy Crockett
• "The Turn Out" (1833) by Augustus Baldwin Longstreet
• In 1839, the University of Virginia's faculty chairman "was assaulted by two students and horsewhipped while at least one hundred other students looked on and did nothing to stop the outrage" (Dabeny 9).
• In 1841, another faculty chairman attempt to stop a masked student from firing shots on the Lawn in front of his residence, and ths student shot and killed him (Dabney, 9).