Washington Irving

A detailed Summary of Washington Irving


Washington Irving was born on April 3, 1783 in Tarrytown, New York. His father was a merchant and owned an import business. Irving had literary influences early in his life. He was friends with Edgar Allen Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Charles Dickens. Washington Irving had no formal schooling. Instead, he taught himself by reading as many books as possible.

Washington Irving had other interests than just writing. Irving was an inventor. He invented ice drinks and the dumb waiter. Irving was also an entrepreneur. "Early in his life Irving planned to follow his father's footsteps in the family business." (p. 187)

Irving had many writings in his literary career. His works include The Sketchbook, A History of New York, The Devil and Tom Walker, and Rip Van Winkle. Despite all of these well known works, Irving never won any awards. Irving's short stories are The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and The Devil and Tom Walker.

The first semblance in The Legend of Slee


Another parallelism of The Devil and Tom Walker and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is that main characters in each story fear supernatural figures. In The Legend of Sleepy Hollow Icabod is afraid of the Headless Horsemen. Icabod is always looking over his shoulder in fear of the Hessian soldier. Icabod is especially fearful at night in the forest. Icabod would also scare himself by telling scary stories. "Icabod's fear grew from his own tales." (Washington Irving, p.47) In The Devil and Tom Walker, Tom fears meeting the Devil in the woods. The Devil tries to get Tom to give his soul to him but Tom battles his fears and doesn't give in. Tom has heard of the stories about the Devil and wanted to avoid him completely.

py Hollow and The Devil and Tom Walker is that nature proves to be a problem to the characters. In The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, the hollow is the setting for fear in Icabod's tall tales. Irving reflected on the dark setting many times in this stor

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