English -Romanian [605981]

Tabun Andreea
English -Romanian
3rd year
English Literature

Sources of ambiguity in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

Ambiguity, in the Cambridge English Dictionary, “is a situation or statement that is unclear
because it can be understood in more than one way”. Many writers use this technique to make
their readers understand their work in a variety of ways, giving th em a sort of complexity. In this
way, they make the readers have a deeper thought so that they can use their imagination to
explore it. In literature, ambiguity is used intentionally, forcing the readers to think of a central
idea. There are two forms of a mbiguity in writing and speech: lexical ambiguity and syntactic
ambiguity. The first one present two or more possible meanings within a single word and the
second one shows the presence of two or more possible meanings but within a sentence or a
phrase. (R . Albu’s semantic course s).
“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” by Washington Irving revolves around 2 character s: Ichabod
Crane, seen as a naïve schoolmaster from Connecticut who tries to win the hand of Katrina Van
Tassel and Brom B ones, a neighborhood her o who is also in love with Katrina and who will
come to haunt Ichabod. The relationship between these 2 men can be seen as the conflict
manifested in American Literature between the urban and the rural.
In this story, Irving uses ambiguity to develop a supernatural ghost story. Donald Anderson
says in his book called “Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” that “Ichabod causes his own
undoing by allowing his mind to dwell on subjects that obscure his v iew of reality”. He is very
supportive with the fact that Ichabod spends a lot of time reading Cotton Matter’s writings about
the Salem witch trials (Anderson 208). He supports this idea because of Ichabod’s love for the
ghost stories of Sleepy Hollow. Ichabod allows the stories to dominate his thoughts (Anderson,
208). The narrator claims that Ichabod spends too much time reading his mythical and
supernatural stories until he could no longer see. In this way, his mind would be full of strange
events and he would go ho me through the dark forest which was full of bizzare sounds. These
are signs that modify a person ’s sense of reality.

Tabun Andreea
English -Romanian
3rd year
English Literature

In “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow ” there is the possibility that Brom wants to exclude Ichabod
from his relationship with Katrina by all the pranks he play s on him. When the story of Ichabod ’s
crush is relayed, Brom “always bursts into a heavy laugh at the mention of the pumpkin ; which
led some to suspect that he knew more about the matter than he chose to tell ” (Irving 775). This
paragraph does not necessarily say that Brom was involved in this event, it is more a presence of
ambiguity that the author is trying to develop to create a great ghost story. This is more like a
funny story for Brom , not believing all the supernatural present in this story. The pumpkin could
be seen as a sign that the w hole incident was an evil trick or we can presume that the pumpkin
was already there before the event happened. There are many possibilities regarding how the
pumpkin got there.
The old farmer who report that Ichabod is still alive, is not a pr oof that all the event was a
joke. We have the following paragraph: “It is true, an old farmer, who had b een down to New
York on a visit several years after, and from whom this a ccount of the ghostly adventure was
received, brought home the intelligen ce that Ichabod Crane was still alive ”, where the nar rator
does not say that it is true that he still lives, but that is true that the farmer said so. In this way,
Ichabod could have seen a real ghost and that the supernatural still exists.
Another example of ambigu ity is present at the end of the story : “The old country wives,
however, who are th e best judges of these matters, maintain to this day that Ichabod was spirited
away by supernatural means” . This paragraph can be seen as a detail that the author uses to
create ambiguity and makes it impossible to make a trustful conclusion.
This story presences that a mbiguity regarding the supernatural which provides many ghost
stories with their fullness, meaning that Sleepy Hollow has to deal with supernat ural things just
like American History story. The author ’s purpose in this story is to inform the readers about
how some things are said just to keep the story inte resting. In my opinion, Sleepy Hollow would
be boring wi thout the myth of the headless horseman . Washington Irving intentionally wrote this
story with some ambiguity to leave the opportunity that the supernatural events appear.

Tabun Andreea
English -Romanian
3rd year
English Literature

Bibliography
1. Anderson, Donald. “Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” The Explicator 61.4 (30
March 2010): pag. 208 ;
2. Irving, Washington “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” Anthology of American Literature.
Vol. 1 10th Ed. Ed. George McMichael an d James S. Leonard. Boston: Longman, 2011 :
pag. 775;
3. R. Albu ’s semantic courses .