Monday, 8 September 2008

What are the similes, hyperbole, and personification used in "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"?

: The
narrator characterizes all the small Dutch settlements scattered throughout the Hudson Valley as
"like those little nooks of still water which border a rapid stream." The low hum of
the voices in Ichabod Crane's classroom are described as being "like the hum of a
bee-hive."

: As Irving begins to describe the Hudson River Valley
setting, the narrator calls the area "one of the quietest places in the whole world."
There is no way for the narrator to know if this is accurate, so it is presumed to be an
overstatement. The same is true of this claim: "meteors glare oftener across the valley
than in any other part of the country."

is found in the opening words
of "" as Irving begins describing the setting: "On the bosom of one of those
spacious coves which indent the eastern shore of the Hudson . . . " The word
bosom'sis that of a woman's chest. In further describing the mysterious and
supernaturalof Sleepy Hollow, the narrator states that "the nightmare . . . seems to make
it the favorite scene of her gambols." Nightmares are personified as
female.

href="http://www.ibiblio.org/ebooks/Irving/Sleepy/Irving_Sleepy.pdf">http://www.ibiblio.org/ebooks/Irving/Sleepy/Irving_Sleepy...

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