So I couldn't help but notice a few similarities between The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and the novel, The Great Gatsby, which was brought up in class. While we see that the "blooming Katrina" is the apple of Ichabod's eye, it is not because of any romantic feeling between them, but rather because of Ichabod's desire to advance in the perenially stagnant social classes of the 1800's. We see the same phenomenon take place in The Great Gatsby, wherein the stricken protagonist so desperately desires whats her faces material goods he mistakes it for love. Not only do we see the roots of the American Dream planted as far back as 1800's, we see too represented it's hypocrisy, and it's flaws. Further, on the left, we see Mel Gibson from the movie The Patriot, which is an awesome movie. He is pretty much the ideal "American Hero" ; individualistic, strong, handsome, hard working, anti-semitic....and the list goes on. In "Rip Van Winkle", by the supposed author Diedrich Knickerbocker, we see the foundations being laid for what it is to be an American in literature. On the same note, in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Washington Irving makes a statement more on what an American isn't than what an American is. He highlights problems which surfaced following Mel Gibson's rash and abrupt disposal of the colonizing British. Paramount among these, is a lack of self reliance; which Mel has obviously fulfilled. Though Man reached his pinnacle in 2000 with Mel Gibson's "The Patriot", a study of these early texts may reveal to us once again what it is to be an American man.
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