49 pages • 1 hour read
Washington IrvingThe Legend of Sleepy Hollow
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1820A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Symbols & Motifs
The Church Bridge
When the Headless Horseman chases Ichabod Crane through the forest, Ichabod believes that once he crosses the bridge that leads to the church, he will be safe. He believes this because in Brom Bones’s story, the Horseman disappeared at the same spot (77). Bridges are symbolic passageways, and this bridge, situated between the foreboding forest and the safety of the church, symbolizes the passage between light and dark, the living and the dead.
The stream that separates the forest from the church’s sunny, peaceful knoll is filled with broken rocks and fallen trees. A gloom hangs over the bridge during the day, and a “fearful darkness” consumes it at night (62). While the church itself is peaceful, Irving states that it is “a favorite haunt of troubled spirits” (62).
The Horseman is buried there, and some townspeople claim to see his horse tethered among the gravestones.
Ichabod enjoys going to church. He sings with the choir and uses the occasion to entertain the town’s ladies. Churches are usually symbols of safety, but in the tradition of gothic literature where things take on their opposite qualities, the bridge only leads Ichabod to his fate.
The Headless Horseman
The Headless Horseman is not the story’s antagonist, as readers might suspect, but a symbolic protector of Sleepy Hollow against outside influence. The legend is unique to Sleepy Hollow, and the spirit roams not only the town but also the nearby roads (6). Irving emphasizes that the people of Sleepy Hollow prefer to live a sequestered, traditional life. Sleepy Hollow is only two miles from the port of Tarry Town, which is a source of commerce and exchange. The tavern and market are popular gathering places where nonlocals might encounter the tale of the Headless Horseman and think better of venturing into the hollow.
Ichabod goes about his business comfortably in Sleepy Hollow. Even though the Headless Horseman stories frighten him, they do not deter him from his pursuits, especially when he woos Katrina. After Ichabod’s disappearance, his story passes into local legend and no doubt serves as an even stronger warning to outsiders not to venture into Sleepy Hollow.
“Negroes” and Minstrelsy
“Negro” is an outdated term that was used to describe African Americans, especially during the era of slavery. Today the term is considered offensive and should not be used unless referring to a historical context.
When Irving wrote the story, New York was a slaveholding colony. It was the last northern colony to pass emancipation laws, enacting its first Gradual Emancipation law in 1799, which freed enslaved children born that year but only after a period of indentured servitude. The second act came in 1817, which freed slaves born before 1799, but not until 1827. Through the 1830s, New York remained a popular port for slave ships, and the English and Dutch were the primary operators of New York’s slave industry.
Even though Irving does not mention it outright, Baltus Van Tassel is a slaveowner. It is his man who delivers the party invitation to Ichabod and his “negroes” who marvel at Ichabod’s dancing (56). When describing the story’s Black characters, Irving includes mocking descriptions of their attitudes, speech, appearance, and dress—racist caricatures that became the hallmark of blackface minstrelsy, an exploitative form of entertainment that emerged in America in the late 1820s.
In blackface minstrelsy, white actors blackened their faces with burnt cork and parodied the songs, dance, speech, and body language of enslaved Black people. When Irving describes Ichabod and his dancing as “the envy of all the negroes,” he is ridiculing Ichabod for his wild movements (57). Irving intends the description to degrade Ichabod and presage Katrina’s rejection of his proposal.
Cotton Mather’s History of New England Witchcraft
Cotton Mather’s History of New England Witchcraft is a motif that represents Ichabod’s belief in superstition. Though Cotton Mather is a real author, the book is fictious. The invented title is a humorous reference to Mather’s famous 1693 book about the Salem Witch Trials, The Wonders of the Invisible World.
Cotton Mather was a New England author of the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Mather was a preacher who believed in witchcraft, and his mission in authoring the book was to warn New Englanders of the demonic dangers that threatened their Christian society. A theme in the book is that evil lurks just below the surface of everyday life, so one must be vigilant to keep those forces at bay.
Ichabod does not share stories of witchcraft with the locals to warn them against evil; on the contrary, he enjoys the thrill of telling scary stories and loves being scared. His sessions trading stories of ghosts and witches are a macabre form of entertainment. There is irony in a schoolteacher carrying a history of witchcraft instead of a real history textbook, and Irving uses this to characterize Ichabod as someone more oriented toward superstition than toward the rational world.
Related Titles
By Washington Irving
