LITR 4232 American Renaissance

Sample Student Research Project 2010
Essay

Eric A. Cherrie

28 November 2010

Washington Irving and Tim Burton: Sleepy Hollow Then and Now

          In class we had a discussion on The Legend of Sleepy Hollow's lasting effect—how did Americans simply know the story, without ever reading or seeing a film version of it? During her presentation, Brittany Fletcher alluded to a Freudian view—we have it inside of us—murder and incest are part of our human nature. I think that is a fair reading of Irving's tale. It is not the one I choose to follow, but it is an option. I see the story very differently. For me, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow deals with the crisis of knowledge; it is a tale of epistemology. The story is about what the narrator and the reader can truly know. At the heart of the action is a school teacher who thinks he knows everything, and a being that has lost its head (mind). The Headless Horseman is a metaphor for action without understanding. However, I am not choosing sides. This paper has no thesis. Simply, it is my goal to explore and understand The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. I have made no assumptions; I did not set out to prove that Ichabod was or was not killed that mysterious night in the woods. I have not set out to prove Brittany wrong and myself right. This paper is at its core a medley of interpretations. In an effort to understand Washington Irving's story, I also watched the most recent film version of it—Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow. This paper is a direct reflection of both Irving's short story and Burton's adaptation.

          The title of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow adds a unique quality to its mystique. Most stories are concerned with creating a world that the reader can imagine and believe. However, Irving places "The Legend" in the title of the story. This very simple addition changes the entire structure of the story. Irving no longer has to create a world for the reader to believe; instead, he creates an aura of popular belief around the story—if it is a legend, then other people believe it to be true—therefore, the reader should believe it to be true. Irving invites the reader to suspend his/her disbelief about the story's veracity. Ultimately, it does not matter whether the reader believes the legend or not. In fact, Irving leaves doubt as an option; his story ends with hearsay about the whereabouts of Crane. The reader can never truly be sure about what happened that night in Sleepy Hollow. The fact that this story is a "legend" only implies that the story deserves to be told and retold to future generations.

          The title also works in another interesting way. The title is a metaphor for the mind. "Sleepy Hollow" is the setting of the story. It is a place where a "drowsy, dreamy influence seems to hang over" it. Drowsiness and dreams are the in the realm of the mind. Structurally, "hollow" is a noun; "sleepy" is an adjective. A "hollow" is an empty or unfilled area. The mind, at times, can be and is an empty or unfilled place. "Sleepy" describes the hollow; therefore, the title translates to the mind is a sleepy place. This title plays on the uncertainty of the events in the story. This story can possibly be a dream, a figment of the imagination, or entirely real. "Sleepy" implies a vulnerability of the mind; it is on the edge of dreams and reality. Therefore, the mind has an inability to distinguish between the two worlds.

          The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is further complicated by the odd narration. The short story is not a firsthand account of the events. Rather, the story was "found among the papers of the late Diedrich Knickerbocker." Regardless of where the story was found, it would make sense that the story would not be told from a firsthand witness because of its "legend" status. As mentioned earlier, a legend needs to go through a couple of people before it deserves to be called a legend. However, the story is told from a first-person point-of-view. The choice of a first-person narration, where the narrator was not actually present, makes the story hard to believe at times. After all, the first-person point-of-view is essentially a firsthand account. Sleepy Hollow would have been much easier to write in a third person omniscient or third person limited (limited to Ichabod Crane's mind). Therefore, it was a conscious choice for Irving to write this story in the first person. Irving must have seen some advantage to writing it this way. By writing Sleepy Hollow in the first-person he allows the narrator to place himself in the story. Irving is forwarding a theme of imagination in the story. The story becomes a hodgepodge of the original legend and the narrator's influence, which is true of any story; though, Irving's narrator intensifies that idea.

          What happened between Crane and the Headless Horseman that night in the woods is between them and Irving (if he even knows). However, the story must be told. The narrator is given carte-blanche; he can decide the events. His ability to make or remake the legend maddens the reader; they can never be sure of the truth. If the story had been told in the third person, then the reader would be forced to choose between belief and disbelief. However, the unreliable narration leaves the reader in a constant state of indecision; it is a kind of permanent suspension of disbelief. It is a literary limbo.

          Tim Burton's remake of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is in many ways a parallel to the narrator's retelling in the short story. Tim Burton takes many liberties under the title of artistic license. On a personal aside, I have to admit that I really like Tim Burton's remake. It is by no means an interpretation of the story; Burton completely changes and modernizes The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. The first and most obvious choice was his photographic view of Sleepy Hollow. The Gothic genre consists of three main colors: black, white, and red. Irving's story is filled with colors. Black, white, and red are coupled with colors like orange, yellow, and gold. This combination of colors adds depth to his story. Irving's story by no means follows the gothic tradition for the sake of fitting in. The use of different colors like orange, yellow, and gold can also be seen as arabesque style. The description of Katrina Van Tassel wearing "ornaments of pure yellow gold" and the description of the Van Tassel's party also add to the notion of an arabesque scene. The Van Tassels are farmers who are obsessed with looking like more than just farmers.  

          However, Burton ignores Irving. He sticks primarily to the gothic color code. The entire movie is shot in a haze. It gives it a dream-like quality. It also adds to the mystery; there is something always lingering over the setting. While the movie is not shot in black and white, there is a sense that it could very well have been. Schindler's List uses black-and-white coupled with intervals of red in a similar way to Sleepy Hollow.  However, Burton chooses to use a mixture of a neutral colors (beige and blond) in the foreground and gothic colors (black, white, and red) in both the foreground and the background. The neutral colors blend in, and the black and white blend in. Though, the red is very easy to see. By having the colors blend, Burton creates a much less jarring image than the one created in Schindler's List. However, the gothic undertones running throughout the story are by no means understated.

          One of the interesting critiques of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow can be seen from a feminist point-of-view. Irving in a lot of ways is extremely unkind to the female sex. This is also a trait I found in Rip Van Winkle. I wonder if Irving was a sexist? Anyway, Irving associates Ichabod with the female sex; he emasculates Crane in order to make the story humorous. Ichabod is a teacher. While in today's society teaching has become a feminized job, it would most likely be anachronistic to think of teaching as a feminine career during that period of time; Ichabod was a man of math, science, and religion. However, he was also a "man of some importance in the female circle."

          He was important to the females of the village for two reasons. First, Ichabod was a singing instructor; all of the ladies of the town wanted to learn how to sing. Singing along with painting and the learning of foreign languages has long been associated with the general education of an accomplished lady. Personally, I like that those traits were considered somewhat valuable; I think that both men and women should receive a more liberal arts education. Anyway, Ichabod, by being able to sing, embodies the female stereotype. His masculinity is blurred by his voice. In essence, Ichabod de-genders himself. Second, the women of the village love him is because he interacts with them during the gossip sessions. Ichabod will sit and listen to the "old Dutch wives" and their "marvelous tales of ghosts and goblins, and haunted fields, and haunted brooks, and haunted bridges, and haunted houses." Irving wants the reader to feel like Ichabod is just "one of the girls."

          Irving has only one female character of any status—Katrina Van Tassel. Before Irving even introduces Katrina, he writes, "and he [Crane] would have passed a pleasant life of it...if his path had not been crossed by a being that causes more perplexity to mortal man than ghosts, goblins, and the whole race of witches put together and that was—a woman." Katrina, before being introduced to the reader is equated to the worst of supernatural beings. When Katrina is finally introduced, she is referred to as "a little of a coquette." She is a temptress; Katrina is Eve and Delilah. She is the women who destroyed the man.

          However, Katrina is never given a voice. She is by no means an autonomous agent. She has the ability to dress well, and she is rich. In fact, it is her money that attracts Crane. Sure she looks good, but Ichabod idolizes her because of her father's fortune. Katrina cannot be seen as an object of sex, the way so many women are seen by men, rather she is a tool for social mobility. This is the inverse of the usual gender roles. The stereotypic gender roles involve the female trying to marry a rich man (Jane Austen novels). Therefore, Ichabod's attempt to "marry-up" furthers the notion that Ichabod is the embodiment of the female stereotype.

          Furthermore, Crane's death or removal from Sleepy Hollow can be seen as a rejection of the effeminate man. When Ichabod is contrasted against Brom, Ichabod is seen as an incredibly feminine character. Brom is the stereotypic male character. He is strong, manly, burly, in love with the prettiest girl in the neighborhood, and ready to fight anybody for her. Other men back down from Brom. In contrast, Ichabod is tall and lanky, reads, gossips, and simply goes around Brom's back to get to Katrina. Ichabod goes so far as to avoid any kind of interaction with Brom because he does not want to get into a fight. There is also the issue of the competition between Ichabod, Brom, and the Headless Horseman. According to legend, Brom raced the Headless Horseman and won. Ichabod sort of raced the Headless Horseman; however, he lost the race. Furthermore, Katrina's rejection of Ichabod is also telling. Katrina accepts the marriage of Brom. The effeminate man was removed and the manly man was raised to an even higher level on the social ladder.

          Tim Burton decides to portray Ichabod Crane in a different light. Crane is not a school teacher in the movie. He is a detective. The detective is an interesting choice. Burton is playing around with the film noir genre. The film noir is an interesting subset of the gothic genre. It works really well with the story for several reasons. First, in the film noir genre the protagonist is flawed in some obvious way. The protagonist is usually a drunk; however, in Burton's movie Ichabod was abused as a child. This flaw really humanizes Crane in way that is not seen in Irving's story. It opens up Crane to the audience. Rather than being a comic hero, Burton makes Ichabod a complicated hero that the audience can laugh and sympathize with. Second, detectives, like teachers, have certain traits common to the profession. Detectives are men of science, logic, and intuition. They are not gullible men that will believe just any old story. Burton's Ichabod is not the kind of man that will sit around believing in ghost stories. He has not read "Cotton Mather's 'History of New England Witchcraft.'" Furthermore, detectives are known for seeing their jobs and life as black-and-white, metaphorically of course. At the beginning of the movie Ichabod is not the complicated character Irving describes. Irving's Ichabod is captivated by both the real and the fanciful. Burton's Ichabod only believes in the real and tangible world. It is only through the events that transpire during his stay in Sleepy Hollow that he comes to believe in the supernatural. Moreover, Ichabod's career creates an interesting correspondence with the world. Ichabod sees the world in black-and-white; therefore, the audience sees the story in black-and-white. Last, Burton's change of profession for Ichabod helps Ichabod maintain some of his masculinity. Detectives are stereotypically men; Ichabod is chasing after criminals, also manly. He is doing autopsies (Doctors, especially surgeons are stereotypically men); he explores the haunted Western Woods; exploration is a male characteristic. However, Burton's Ichabod is somewhat socially aloof, awkward, and idealistic; these traits make it easy for an audience to laugh at him and connect with him at the same time.

          One of Burton's best changes to Irving's story was the use of Katrina Van Tassel and Mrs. Van Tassel. In Irving's story, Katrina is important, but she is also voiceless. Mrs. Van Tassel is a nonexistent in Irving's story. However, Burton creates rich characters with agency and influence over the plot and themes of the movie. In the very begging of the movie, Katrina Van Tassel kisses Ichabod Crane. She was wearing a blindfold. The kiss represents an action without thought or reason; however, unlike most actions without thought and reason, this action had a good effect. Katrina is in many ways is the foil for Crane. Ichabod is a man of reason; Katrina is a woman of passion. They are unlikely soul mates; however, their behaviors help illustrate the importance of the other.

          The Katrina Van Tassel remains the love interest of Crane. However, it seems to be a mutual affection in Burton's film. She seems to be just as interested with Ichabod as Ichabod is with her. When Ichabod asks all of the men in the town to accompany him into the Western Woods to search out the Headless Horseman, no man follows except his loyal servant. While in the woods he realizes that Katrina has followed him on his journey. Katrina breaks the gender stereotype. In Irving's story it is Ichabod who acts like a woman; however, in Burton's rendition it is Katrina who acts like a man.

          Katrina also represents a stock character. She is the reliable female found in all film noir movies. She is always there to help the hero find his way. Throughout the movie Katrina gives Crane little tidbits of information about the town of Sleepy Hollow. All of the information is helping Ichabod solve the mystery. Furthermore, when Ichabod is attached by the Headless Horseman, it is Katrina that takes care of him.

          Furthermore, in Irving's story Katrina is compared with the worst ghouls and goblins. However, in Burton's movie Katrina is a literal witch. There is no separation between her and the spirit world. Though, she is a good witch; she cast spells of protection on Crane. However, the fact that she is a witch further complicates her character. Witches have an inherent association with evil. At the very least, Katrina becomes a somewhat darker character. Her witchcraft also further illuminates the differences between her and Ichabod.

          Mrs. Van Tassel also has a very interesting character back-story in Burton's film. Mrs. Van Tassel is Katrina's step-mother. She, like Crane, is an outsider to Sleepy Hollow (though this is not found out until the end of the movie). She grew up in the woods with her sister. She had a difficult childhood like Ichabod. She is also a witch like Katrina. However, she is not a good witch. She is the one in control of the Headless Horseman. This is an incredible difference. Mrs. Van Tassel is both in control of herself and a supernatural being.

          Mrs. Van Tassel is representative of the femme fatale. Once again, Burton is drawing from the film noir genre. Mrs. Van Tassel appears to be an ordinary wife. She takes care of the house and home; she loves her husband and step-daughter. She even takes care of Ichabod when he is attacked and Katrina needs some rest. However, she is in complete control. She is having people killed, and she is killing people herself.

          Burton also creates an appealing reason for Mrs. Van Tassel's murderous rampage. She is motivated by revenge; though, the revenge has a twist. She is killing people off in order to be the sole inheritor of the Van Tassel Estate. This is a dark twist on Irving's motivation for Ichabod to marry Katrina. As an audience response, I have to say that this is far more appealing than having a greedy comic hero. It is safe to say that Burton made a much more audience friendly story. It is a Hollywood production; people have to like the film in order to make a profit. Therefore, the film has to be more simplistic. The heroes and the villains have to be clear by the end of the story. Irving did not have those same pressures. His ideas of good and evil can be a little more ambiguous.

          One theme in particular stood out in both the movie and the story. Appearances are not always as they seem was the recurring theme. In Irving's tale, Irving writes about the "topsy-turvy" nature of Sleepy Hollow. During a practical joke Brom turns everything in Ichabod's school upside-down. "Topsy-turvy" is more than just a cute way to describe disorder. It relates to a term in physics called the tippe top effect. During the tippe top effect, an object is spun at a quick speed. However, rather than keeping the center of mass at its lowest point, the way it is taught in whiteboard physics, the object flips over, and the center of gravity is driven upwards. I do not understand the physics of it; I just remember my physics teacher demonstrating the effect with someone's senior ring. The effect serves as an illusion. If you were to ask any average Joe whether a spinning top would spin on the bottom side or the stem (the top side), they would undoubtedly tell you the bottom. Appearances would dictate the answer—the bottom is heavy—therefore, it will stay on the bottom.

          In Burton's film, Ichabod carries a toy from childhood. It is a circular piece of paper. On one side a red cardinal appears, on the other an empty cage. Attached to the paper are strings at each horizontal end. When Ichabod spins the strings, the card flips back and forth at high speeds. An image is created—a cardinal in a cage. Two separate images create a singular illusion.           Appearance is created by those who are in control. In Irving's story, Ichabod is the school master; his control extends to the children he teaches. However, he has no reason for trickery. On the other hand, Brom is trying to win back the girl of his dreams. He has admittedly turned Crane's school topsy-turvy, and he plans on tricking Ichabod further (a reading for Brom as the Headless Horseman). In Burton's Sleepy Hollow, Mrs. Van Tassel is just the wife of a rich farmer (she has no control); it also appears as if the Headless Horseman has killed her. However, it was Mrs. Van Tassel's maid that dies. Mrs. Van Tassel fakes her death as the ultimate illusion. She was in complete control throughout the movie.

I have read and reread this story; I have watched and re-watched this movie. I have a thousand things I could talk about (twinning, the absentee Negro in Burton's film). However, I still have no idea why Americans simply know the story. While I was watching Tim Burton's film, I realized that the two people (my girlfriend and her brother) I was watching the film with had never seen or heard the story. They are also two people that I would consider fairly intelligent and knowledgeable. They are the only two people that I have ever met who did not know the story. I am not really sure what I want to say or do with that; it just seemed odd. They were both homeschooled during their elementary school years. Their mom taught them Latin and had them traveling around Europe. I hypothesize they missed the formative moment in every child's life when some other kid from the neighborhood comes by and tells them the story about the Headless Horseman.

Work Cited

     Burton, Tim, dir. Sleepy Hollow. Paramount, 1999, Film.