The setting of Sleepy Hollow, New York, is significant because one of the story's major themes is the conflict between "country" people and "city" people. The original settlers of the Tarry Town area were Dutch, and they are depicted as strong, hearty farm people. Abraham "Brom Bones" Brunt and the Van Tassels are examples of these people. On the other hand, Ichabod Crane is an outsider from Connecticut. He is a Yankee--an city man with English ancestry.
Sleepy Hollow is a secluded and very small glen off of the Tarry Town settlement area. This also helps set the mood for the spooky and comic events of the ending. If it were a city, or even a larger town, Brom Bones's Headless Horseman trick would not have worked against Ichabod Crane. Also, at the Van Tassels's party earlier, Brom Bones and the other Dutch farmers told old ghost stories from the area in order to lay the groundwork to scare Ichabod Crane. This worked because Crane is an outsider, whereas the Dutch farmers are the original settlers of Sleepy Hollow. Brom Bones knows the land and the history behind it, but Crane does not. In the end, when Brom Bones disguises himself as the Headless Horseman of legend (said to be the ghost of a Hessian trooper from the Revolutionary War), he chases Ichabod Crane all the way to the Old Dutch Burying Ground, a church and cemetery yard in Sleepy Hollow. In this Dutch colonial setting, the "country" man essentially wins over the "city" man.
It's clear that Washington Irving thought of the place where his story takes place as very significant. After all, the name of the town is in the title--"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." Even more evidence is that fact that Irving begins the story with a lengthy and vivid description of the town and its surroundings. It is a sequestered area with an aura of magic and dreaminess. Sleepy Hollow lies in a little valley two miles away from the small market port of Tarry Town, and it is "one of the quietest places in the world."
The other consideration of the setting of Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" is the time period in which the story took place. Although Irving published his story in 1820, it takes place around 1790, 30 years earlier. The American Revolutionary War ended in 1783, so the story takes place in the years very soon right after the war. This was intentional, because the Revolutionary War is an important aspect of the narrative. The Headless Horseman himself is said to have been a soldier (a hired German trooper by the British army) in the war. Furthermore, Ichabod Crane's status as a Yankee, a "American" on the side of the colonies, is very prominent.
The setting of Irving's story is the Dutch settlement of Tarry Town, New York and takes place in 1790. Sleepy Hollow was a seculded little area of the town itself.
Washington Irving set “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”...
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in a small Dutch settlement called Tarry Town (now Tarrytown ), not far from New York City. The story takes place around the year 1790, not long after the end of the American War for Independence. Many believe the ghost was a soldier who was killed during the American Revolution. Theclimax of the tale takes place at a bridge near the “real life” place of the Old Dutch Church in Sleepy Hollow, New York.
Washington Irving's short story "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" is set near Tarrytown, New York, which is above New York City. It takes place near a widening point of the Hudson River.
What are the different settings in "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"?
The narrator begins the story with a description of Greensburgh, New York. It is a small town on the eastern shore of the Hudson River. This town is also known as Tarry Town, a nickname some wives have given on account of their husbands "tarrying" (lingering) at local taverns.
Two miles from town lies a valley (Sleepy Hollow). The narrator describes it as "one of the quietest places in the whole world." The narrator remarks that it would be the perfect place to escape from life's distractions. But he adds that there is something mysterious about the valley. He says that "a drowsy, dreamy influence seems to hang over the land." There are rumors that the land was bewitched by a German doctor and/or the land is the former site of an Indian wizard's powwows. The people in the neighboring town have had plenty of odd experiences and have many stories to tell about the allegedly bewitched land. The legend of the headless horseman is the most prominent tale of Sleepy Hollow. The narrator adds that anyone who spends some time in Tarry Town and/or Sleepy Hollow will fall under its dreamy spell. While some of the other areas of the country (and New York City in particular) are undergoing change, this area has remained relatively the same. It's as if to say, it is stuck in the past. This notion goes along well with the idea of the continuing traditions and legends of the valley.
Another piece of the setting is Old Baltus Van Tassel's farm and farm house. It is extravagant as farms go. Ichabod Crane is as enamored with it as he is with Katrina. He came to regard the Van Tassel estate like a castle with Katrina as the princess and object of his affection. Only Brom Bones (and the Hessian) will stand in his way.
The bridge represents the division between the material world and the world of the supernatural. Crane's only hope to escape the Horseman is to reach the bridge. The bridge is also symbolic of the town's culture, being quaint and realistic but also connected (bridging) to legends and stories of the supernatural.
What are some unique characteristics of the setting in "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"?
Sleepy Hollow is a small, isolated village near the Dutch settlement of Tarry Town in New York. Quiet, dark, and shrouded in a dreamlike mist, the little village seems caught in a spell cast by an unseen god or witch. Its residents perpetuate ghost stories and folk tales not only to imbue the town with a sense of importance or excitement, but also to warn off outsiders. Sleepy Hollow’s mystical qualities also call to mind the domain of Hypnos, the god of sleep in the Metamorphoses.
Despite its isolation, Sleepy Hollow has had its share of excitement as the site of some nameless battle during the Revolutionary War. It also derived one of its most infamous supernatural residents from this battle: the ghostly Hessian soldier known as the Headless Horseman. Since Irving sets the story’s events in 1790, the war, which had ended only seven years previously, would still have loomed large in the minds of many residents of Sleepy Hollow.
Had Irving set the tale in a city or even a slightly larger and more accessible rural township, the story would have suffered tremendously. In order for The Legend of Sleepy Hollow to work, its setting has to be in an isolated location. Only in such a place can mistrust of strangers, superstition, and belief in the supernatural flourish so freely.