Home > The Legend of Sleepy Hollow Summary & Study Guide > The Legend of Sleepy Hollow Group > Discussion Board

What are some of the similes,hyperbole and personification used in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Can you make it clear by citing it ?!?

Personification: giving "person-like" living qualities to inanimate objects.

"as if on the wings of the wind" is personfication (This is toward the beginning of the story when the author is describing the bewitching aura of the town).  This one, too:  "And how often was he thrown into complete dismay by some rushing blast, howling among the trees..." is personification.

Simile:  a comparison made between two things using "like" or "as"

Icabod had "a long snipe nose, so that it looked like a weather-cock perched upon his spindle neck" is a simile.

Hyperbole:  an extreme exaggeration of some sort

One example is "It's raining cats and dogs."

An example from the story would be this description of Icabod Crane:

 "To see him striding along the profile of a hill on a windy day, with his clothes bagging and fluttering about him, one might have mistaken him for the genius of famine descending upon the earth, or some scarecrow eloped from a cornfield."

Good Luck!