Friday, June 1, 2012

What makes this story a unique early American tale? What is the recurring theme in "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow?"

The type of story that Washington Irving wrote, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,a story of fiction, makes it a unique American tale.

"Previously, the writing coming out of the colonies and then out of the new nation was primarily religious or historical."

"It was the first book by an American writer to become popular outside the United States, and helped establish American writing as a serious and respectable literature."

"Irving was alive and writing at the moment in American literary history when a true national literature was being called for and created."

The strength and influence of women in the new world is a subtle theme in this work. 

"Female influence that gently molds the inhabitants of Sleepy Hollow through the folklore that emanates from that exclusively female, domestic province, the hearth."

The hearth, the center of the house, where life, warmth and nourishment flow from, where women are in command.

Katrina is in control of the story's outcome.  It is her flirtation with both men and her resistance to Crane that results in the jealous reaction of Brom Bones.  Katrina gets what she wants, a fuss made over her and the man she hoped for all along, Bones.

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