Irvings American Progeny Essays - The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow

Irving's American Progeny Irvings American Progeny Washington Irving had the unique opportunity of helping a new nation forge its own identity. America, fresh out of the revolution, looked for an author to take charge and create something that seemed to be missing from the newly born nation. He took this responsibility seriously and made a mythology that founded an American literary tradition. He took bits and pieces from the Old World and incorporated them into the New in such a manner that what he wrote appeared original, and yet tied into a tradition that was centuries old. He did this in a manner that astonished many Europeans who believed an American could never produce literature with such a strong English foundation. Although Irving relied heavily on European influence, he drew distinct lines between the American and the European and his plot lines illustrate the struggle between the United States and England. This amazing period in the nations history provided an excellent backdrop for Irvings work. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (is)a celebration of the bounty of the United States, (Bowden, 72). This bounty fueled the fire of social change that was burning in the U.S. at the time. If we ever had a period during which social progress was not retarded then it was exactly the period Rip slept through. In that generation we were transformed from a group of loosely bound and often provincial colonies into a cocky and independent republic with a new kind of government andas the story itself makes clear enougha whole new and new-fashioned spirit, (Young, 466). Irving took full advantage of the new scene around him, and immortalized himself by demonstrating the importance of what he saw. When I first wrote the Legend of Rip Van Winkle, so Irving remembered it in 1843, my thoughts had been for some time turned towards giving a color of romance and tradition to interesting points of our national scen ery which is so generally deficient in our country, (Wagenknecht, 174). Irving used his characters as depictions of American ideals and emotions in order to show the drastic change that had recently occurred. Sleeping through the American Revolution forced Rip Van Winkle to cope with the amazing changes that had taken place while he was asleep. Rips country has changed its name. On the hotel sign, George III has given way to George Washington. Rip is no longer even Rip Van Winkle; his own son now answers to that designation, (Hedges, 140). From Rips point of view, the village he left represented private turmoil and public tranquility. At the storys end, Rip enjoys private tranquility in a village given over to public turmoil. It is almost as if the one is the price that Rip has to pay for the other, (Roth, 158-159). Rips world had undergone unpredictable changes, but he quickly got back into the swing of his old easygoing life swapping stories outside of the hotel. Irving also demonstrated the volatility of the times by his definition of history. Irvings introduction of Ichabod Crane defines a particular problem of the early American writer. In this by-place of nature, he writes, there abode, in a remote period of American history, that is to say, some thirty years since, a worthy wight of the name Ichabod Crane. The archaic substantive wight serves to emphasize the incongruity of the introduction; only in the America of the time could a remote period of history be defined as thirty years, (Martin, 336-337). Irving took this peculiarity and used it to his advantage in a humorous way. He allowed Americans to laugh at the newness of their government while helping them realize the exceptionality of the time period they had just experienced. He also uses humor in creating his American mythology, while scoffing at those who believe in such supernatural occurrences. Springer gives validity to the imaginative elements of The Legend. What Irving does is show us the value of imagination in bringing wonder and enjoyment into our logic bound lives, (483). Martin disagrees with this notion. Crane loses all chance for the double prize of Katrina and the wealth of the Van Tassel farm when, terrified by his excessive imagination, he is literally run out of the