Sleepy Hollow Comparison

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The timeless classic Sleepy Hollow differed greatly from the movie (loosely) based on it. The short story followed our main character, Ichabod Crane, as he tried to gain the heart of Katrina Van Tassel in an attempt to eventually gain her father’s land. We follow the same character through his possible doom. In the movie, Ichabod’s main goal is to solve multiple beheadings. Obviously there is a major contrast between the two. The main differences we will be discussing in this paper are characterization, plot, and conflict. Sleepy hollow describes Ichabod as an extremely tall and lanky man. “He was tall, but exceedingly lank, with narrow shoulders, long arms and legs, hands that dangled a mile out of his sleeves, feet that might have served for shovels, and his whole frame most loosely hung together.”(Irving) While in the movie he was, well, Johnny Depp. He was no longer abnormally tall and his body was proportioned. The short story is very clear about his love for legends, fantasy, and paranormal stories of all kinds; the movie is very clear about his borderline obsessive love of reason and the truth of reality. Katrina Van Tassel’s actress most definitely fit the beauty standards of today, particularly the fact that she was thin. The short story states “She was a blooming lass of fresh eighteen; plump as a partridge,”(Irving) meaning she fit the beauty standards of when this was written: stout. In both of them, he very obviously had “a soft and foolish heart towards the sex”(Irving) The story and the movie both show his pursuit of the heart of Katrina Van Tassel and his lack of a permanent home in the town. The movie closes with Ichabod moving back to London with the orphan boy and Katrina, while in the story he meets his demise by the hand, or should I say, head of the local spirit the headless horseman. In both the short story and the book, someone throws a
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