Asher K. Sisneros
Dr. Gary North
American Literature
December 23, 2024
Washington Irving was the first American author with international prowess, and he used words masterfully, painting a picture in his readers’ minds. His two most prominent tales are The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle. Both, though very different, share light-hearted and amusing descriptions, characteristic of Washington Irving’s work—especially the descriptions of the setting and the side characters.
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow chronicles the unfortunate misery that befalls the strange school teacher Ichabod Crane when he falls in love with the beautiful allure of Katrina Van Tassel. But even more than her beauty, he falls in love with her father’s prodigious estate and vast wealth. Being as gluttonous as he was odd-looking, the trap of greed and lust snared up the unsuspecting schoolmaster, and he garnered the envy of the village big-shot, Brom Bones. After having a verbal tussle with the maiden Katrina, Ichabod seemingly loses her heart—though that event is shrouded in ambiguity—and Ichabod mysteriously dies on his way home. Irving leads the reader to believe that the wicked Headless Horseman killed him but then suggests that Brom Bones may have played a larger role in Ichabod’s disappearance than anyone realized. Katrina Van Tassel was a promiscuous woman with many short-lived relationships as she vied for the affectionate attention of all men more than the loyal love of one. In the end, two things ensured Ichabod’s misery: his gluttony, and Katrina’s promiscuity.
Washington Irving’s comprehensive descriptions of Katrina, her father, Brom Bones, and the Headless Horseman, were central to the story. Without them, readers could not understand Katrina’s beauty and promiscuity, her father’s immense wealth, Brom Bones’ popularity and envy, or the mysterious allure surrounding the Headless Horseman. Without that knowledge, the story would be drastically different. Even if just one of those ideas were absent, the entire story would transform. If the reader was unaware of Katrina’s promiscuity, the presumptive break-up at the end would be shocking rather than fateful; without her father’s wealth, Ichabod would seem more love-stricken than greedy; without the Headless Horseman, the tale would seem more like an unjust murder than a mysterious disappearance in the renowned ghost town of Sleepy Hollow. In short, the comprehensive descriptions about all the characters around Ichabod Crane were central to the story—and if one was absent, the entire story would be drastically different.
Rip Van Winkle chronicles the misery Rip Van Winkle endures by living with his bossy wife. Their relationship is far from loving, and he feels abused and bullied by her attitude. Even their dog bemoans the misery under her iron-fist rule. To make matters worse, Rip was diligent in all matters except work at home. His estate was in shambles and farm in ruin, but somehow he managed to lend a helping hand to all of his neighbors and friends whenever they needed it, and he did it without grumbling. But when his wife called, matters changed, and he was overcome with an incurable slothfulness. Squirrel hunting was the only cure for Rip; it was the only way for him to escape the company of his wife. Upon one hunting trip into the mountains, he stumbled on a silent gentlemen carrying some liquor. Characteristically, he gave the man a helping hand and met other strangers playing nine-pens. Though he did not know the silent strangers, he sat by them. After a few drinks of the liquor, he dozed off to sleep. When Rip Van Winkle woke up, everything had changed: the scenery changed, his dog disappeared, his gun was rusted, and the men were gone. After going back to the town, even the town had changed. The flag was different, the banned of King George was replaced with a banned of George Washington, and he did not recognize any of the people or the dogs. Finally, at the very end, Rip Van Winkle realized that he time travelled twenty years into the future, and the gentlemen he ran into were Henry Hudson and his crew who always made a surprise appearance in America every twenty years. To Rip’s astonishing and gleeful surprise, his wife was dead. And overnight, he was relieved of her vexing company.
Although there are fewer central characters in Rip Van Winkle than in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, the comprehensive descriptions of his wife and the new town are equally critical to the story. Without a proper conveyance of his annoyance with her “bossy” attitude, readers would not understand why he was happy to hear that she died. The entire premise of the story is amusing in its simplicity. In essence, it is about a man who hates his wife and wakes up to find that she has disappeared, giving him immeasurable joy. Is there a moral to the story? Not really. At best, maybe the moral is to mary wisely. Whatever the case, Washington Irving described her in great—and humorous—detail, and that detail was central to the story. Both of Washington Irving’s stories, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle, had amusing and long descriptions about the characters surrounding the protagonist. In The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, those descriptions were about Katrina, her father, Brom Bones, and the Headless Horseman; in Rip Van Winkle, they were about Rip’s wife. In both cases, those descriptions were central to the story. Without them, the stories would have been drastically different, making them both of equal importance.
Asher Sisneros 