|
(2015
midterm assignment) Sample Student Midterm Answers 2015 #3: Web Highlights |
LITR 4328 |
 |
Sarah Robin Roelse
Sleepy Hollow:
Not Sleepy At All!
I’ve always thought that I had an
unnatural attraction to the macabre and madness that the American Renaissance
has brought about, from literature to art, and even in more modern elements of
music and film, but after reading Brenda Trejo’s “Allured By Darkness,” I
realized that I am not alone in my love for the demented and frightening things
that many people see as foul and unintelligible.
Just like Brenda, I am a horror aficionado; I can tell you all of the
rules in horror movies, how to survive horror movies, and which films are going
to stand the test of time just be watching a trailer clip for them; however, I
must admit that there is more to life than the grotesque world which I love, but
that doesn’t mean I have to replace my attraction to the gothic, I just need to
be able to recognize it and be able to teach it to my future students.
In Trejo’s essay, she speaks of learning (through another student’s
essay) how to dissect Washington Irving’s
Sleepy Hollow, recognizing the ideas and how Irving uses particular
vernacular in order to describe and make the story enticing to its readers.
I, too, had that “aha!” moment while we were reading the legendary story
– recognizing particular clues that the author gives to the reader--
but it makes me wonder what else might I have missed, because no one
person will catch everything (this isn’t Pokemon).
I am also quite a fan of the television show on FOX called “Sleepy
Hollow,” for the same fact that the show gives the audience these little clues
to pick up on for future use – such as having the police captain named Irving,
giving the town psychiatric hospital the name of Tarry Town Psychiatric, and
other tidbits from the original story.
I personally think that these clues are given as a means of communication
for future readers to decode in order to really know what the writer was really
trying to depict and share with intelligent life.
After reading through Trejo’s essay, I
had to read her predecessor’s essay
to know what all it was that she had learned and felt while reading the story,
and to my amazement, Brittany
Fletcher dazzled me with her breakdown of the language that Irving uses in order
to captivate readers, and what ultimately has made the story a timeless classic.
Fletcher’s noting that, “the story takes place in a “haunted space” and that
“the night grew darker and darker,”” resonates with the kind of fear that people
seek out in order to gain that surge of adrenaline whilst reading or watching a
story. I think that Fletcher says
it perfectly when she states that, “This passage gives great description into
the “thought” that gives birth to fear first,” meaning that often times our
worst nightmares come to life because we
are the ones who give them life.
In her anecdote about the boxer doggy chowing down on an empty pizza box,
she gives us personal insight into her psychological fears – that there was
someone or something scratching
around in the room, and she would be ill prepared to see a flock of dead
swarming towards her.
Whilst reading Angela Sims’s “Branching Out to Something New,” I noticed
that she also touched on the topic of
Sleepy Hollow and its ability to, “expose[s] the woods and nature as a
ghastly realm of deviant spirits, like the headless horseman.
It is difficult to say which principle embodies Romanticism the most, but
it is certain that nature plays a significant role.”
While I have already stated that there are large amounts of gothic themes
in Sleepy Hollow, I haven’t yet
touched on its romantic plot points – that of the relationships between Ichabod
and Katrina or of Katrina and Abraham, even the natural beauty that morphs into
horrifying scenes in the night. The
relationship between Ichabod and Katrina was doomed to begin with, as he wanted
to leave Sleepy Hollow and she was contented to stay there until her own death;
the relationship that Katrina ends up having with Abraham is perfect because
neither of them have a want for growth as people (Abraham is often described as
a modern day “jock” who refuses to leave behind his glory years of high school
football). The romanticism that
comes from the nature in the story is something that I have briefly mentioned as
being a juxtaposition between night and day, something that Sims also speaks of
– during the daylight, Sleepy Hollow is a lovely little town, whereas in the
dead of night, monsters come out to play.
While I’m sure now that you can see my love of horror is unrivaled by
that of comedy or action, I am still able to appreciate other things in life
than just the deviant scares that leave me out of the “normal” population.
From reading these three essays above, I have learned that I am not alone
in my love for the detestable; I have learned that there are so many layers to
that of what we only take at face value; and I have moved further to being able
to recognize and even show others elements of a story that classify them as
gothic, romantic, or satire, which will be essential to me as a teacher of
literature. I appreciate the fact
that we are given the chance to look at former student’s writing samples to see
what they noticed that I probably completely missed because it gives me a chance
to not only learn more, but to look deeper into the texts in which we are
already so involved in.
