The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
After reading the article The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, a change has occurred from the typical horror story to a violent and bloody legend. The original short story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is an example of a simple, yet mysterious fable in which Ichabod Crane acts as the protagonist. Ichabod becomes the victim of the feared headless horseman after believing the superstitious tales of this spirit preying in the night. The film that is supposedly based upon the tale provides a deceiving, yet compelling title of Sleepy Hollow, as one might assume that the film is a replay of the short story. The film and original tale differ in some aspects. the film has blood, gore and controversy while the story is a simple and descriptive place where an evil incident occurred. The gap between the story and the film is somewhat large, as the two are almost completely different.
BRIEF INTRODUCTION OF THE FILM SLEEP HOLLOW
In the film Sleepy Hollow, the story is like this: at the end of the 18th century, the police also adapted to the old way to criminals, they beat the criminals to force them admit to the crime. Young police called kapoor, Crane believed they should adopt to a scientific way. So he was not popular and was sent to a small town called sleepy hollow to handle with serial murder.
Sleepy hollow has a legend of "the headless horseman", but Crane didn’t believe it. As many people died and he witnessed the officer was killed by the headless horseman. He had to believed it. So he was determined to find out the truth.
After some investigation, Crane doubted that the Van Houten was the criminal.
At the same time, he fell in love with the daughter of Van Houten. Soon, he found that he wouldn't have to find the headless horseman, because the horseman had come. as many people was killed by horseman, he knew that Katrina’s mother is wizard, her father is a rich man, and her stepmother is daughter of poor man whose land was occupied by the Van Houten . This charming old woman had an affair with the will managers of the town. And, Crane found all the dead are related with property inheritance of the Katrina’s father. When Crane witnessed van was killed by the horseman in church, he misunderstood Katrina’s mother. He think Katrina’s mother manipulated the headless horseman. But in halfway he thought the real murderer was her stepmother. When her stepmother manipulated the headless horseman to kill Katrina he seized the key to manipulate the headless horseman from her stepmother. The key is skull of horseman and set horseman back to hell, before he left, the horseman dragged her stepmother together down to the hell. Crane and Katrina returned back New York and began a happy life.
BRIEF INTRODUCTION OF THE ARTICLE THE LEGEND OF SLEEP HOLLOW
But In the original story, Crane loved the ghost stories and love the Katrina. Actually, he loved the wealth of the Baltus Van Tassel . But he has a rival Brom who is the hero of the country round, which rang with his feats of strength and hardihood. From his Herculean frame and great powers of limb, he had received the nickname of BROM BONES, by which he was universally know. Crane knew that he can’t win. So he became Katrina’s music teacher to be access to her. In the end part, when he left the Baltus Van Tassel’s party, he went across the forest. All the story of ghosts and
goblins that ha had heard in the afternoon, now came crowding upon his recollection. When he arrived in the river, the headless horseman suddenly came out. So Crane rush to the bridge. When he turn back to see where the headless horseman is, the headless horseman threw his head towards Crane. He was hit by it, so he fell down from his horse. After that, he disappeared in the village. In the end, Brom married with the Katrina.
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE NOVEL AND FILM
when we read the original story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. We may found that it has many differences between film and original story. In original story, there was no plot about Katrina’s mother. Crane was a teacher of a small village rather than a detective. And it was Brom that married with the Katrina rather than the Crane and so on.
In the story, Ichabod Crane, the protagonist, was a sycophantic, lean, lanky, and extremely superstitious schoolmaster from Connecticut, who competes with Abraham "Brom Bones" Van Brunt for the hand of 18-year-old Katrina Van Tassel. Finally, he mysteriously disappears from town, leaving Katrina to marry Brom Bones, who was "to look exceedingly knowing whenever the story of Ichabod was related". However, in the film, Ichabod Crane, a police constable, sent from New York City to investigate a series of murders in the village Sleepy Hollow by a mysterious Headless Horseman. In the end, his job in Sleepy Hollow over, Crane, Katrina and Young Masbeth returned to New York, in time for the new century.
CONCLUSION
Though the film is very wonderful, but it changes the plot of the original story. It don’t respect the original story. So when the audiences watches the film they may be misleading about it. So in my opinion, when the famous articles are adopted to films, we should respect the original story. The changes can exist, but the main meaning should be preserved. We can’t change the author’s original meaning to avoid the misleading of the audiences.
Works cited
吴伟仁，History and Anthology of American Literature, Volume 1: Washington Irving,
the Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press: 蔡剑锋，1990. Print.
睡谷的传说英语读后感
On the eastern side of the Hudson River in New York, there is a small market town called Tarrytown. About two miles from Tarrytown is a little valley. People call it "Sleepy Hollow." The ancestors of the people there are the original Dutch settlers of New York. These Sleepy Hollow people tend to be highly imaginative and often claim to have seen ghosts.
The major ghost of the region is the spirit of a horseman without a head. This spirit, so people say, rides every night to find his companions. And it is said that as he goes to churchyard where he is buried, he rides as fast as the wind.
Soon after the end of the U.S. Revolutionary War(1775-6), a man named Ichabod Crane came to Sleepy Hollow to be the teacher in the area. Ichabod was tall and thin. His head was small and flat at the top. He had big ears, large green glassy eyes, and a long thin nose.
Ichabod taught in a one-room school house where he used a small tree branch to strike misbehaving students. He punished the Dutch children most. But he was careful to get along with the students whose mothers were good cooks, because his salary was low and he had meals at different families.
Ichabod made himself useful in many ways. He helped the farmers with their daily works. He also passed gossip around to their wives. Besides, he was the unoffical chorus director for the area. In the winter evening, he listened to and accepted all the ghost stories the old Dutch wives told. As he walked home at night, every bush looked to him like a ghost covered in a sheet.
Soon Ichabod Crane became interested in Katrina Van Tassel, the only child of Baltus Van Tassel. Mr. Van Tassel had a big farm. From the time Ichabod met Van Tassel and had a look at his farm, Ichabod's main purpose in life was to make Katrina his wife.
However, Ichabod did have a rival, Abraham Van Brunt, whose nickname was Brom Bones. Brom was very strong and very naughty. Although he did not really do any evil thing, he liked to play jokes on others. He also wanted Katrina to be his girlfriend. Katrina was not really interested in him, but she certainly did not discourage him. Ichabod did not want to compete publicly with Brom. Ichabod just made use of every opportunity he had to see Katrina. But Brom tried very hard to play jokes on Ichabod at his schoolhouse and during his singing classes.
One autumn day Ichabod was invited to a party that evening at Mynheer Van Tassel's. In the afternoon, Ichabod spent an extra thirty minutes brushing his old and only suit. Ichabod then borrowed a horse named Gunpower from Hans Van Ripper, a bad tempered farmer he lived with. Gunpower was a thin and old plowhorse. In fact, Ichabod was really a strange-looking creature on the horse.
All the important people of the area came to Heer Van Tassel's castle that evening, including Brom Bones. Ichabod was happy that he was invited. As he enjoyed the delicious food, he smiles to himself that he might become the owner of the farm one day.
When the music began, Ichabod danced with Katrina. Then he went to join a group of older folks and exchanged stories about the war and the Hollow's ghosts. These included the story of the tree where Major Andre was killed, and of course, the story of the headless horseman.
Soon the party broke up; Ichabod, however, stayed on to talk with Katrina for a little while. When he left her he felt somewhat disappointed, without knowing exactly how she felt about him. He rode off on the old horse he had borrowed.
It was the middle of the night when Ichabod approached Major Andre's tree. This was the place where so many of the ghost story scenes supposedly took place. He heard a groan and saw something white, but he passed by. Two hundred yards ahead there was a bridge over a river. This was in an area known as Wiley's Swamp. Here the road looked dark because of the shadows from the oaks and chestnut trees.
Ichabod's horse, Gunpowder, suddenly stopped before the bridge. And just then Ichabod saw something huge climbing upward in the shadow of the grove. Ichabod was terrified. He asked in unsteady voice: "Who are you？" There was no response. And the unknown thing moved to the center of the road. This thing appeared to be a large horseman, on a powerful black horse!
Ichabod quickened his horse, and the stranger kept up with him. When Ichabod's horse slowed down, the other horse did too. Ichabod's heartbeat quickened. As he turned around, he was shocked to see that the horseman did not have a head! The head was carried beside the saddle.
Ichabod tried to get away from the monster, but all he did was in vain. www.xzhufu.comThe monster came closer and closer. As they reached the churchyard, the monster hit Ichabod with its own head. Ichabod fell off and tumbled headlong into the dust. Next morning the old horse was found. But no one could find Ichabod. What they did find was a shattered pumpkin on the ground.
The people in the area came to the conclusion that Ichabod had been carried off by the galloping horseman. But an old farmer, who had been to New York City, learned that Ichabod was still alive and became a judge in the city. Brom Bones, in the meantime, had married Katrina. Whenever he heard anyone tell this story, he always smiled. He laughed especially heartily when anyone mentioned the pumpkin. The old country wives, however, still believe that Ichabod was carried away by some supernatural spirits.
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