Themes in Sleepy Hollow

Throughout The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, as well as its television counterpart, run several important themes.

The first is the use of imagination. In Washington Irving’s version, Ichabod lets his imagination run wild after hearing the stories of ghosts and legends after the party at the Van Tassels’. This ultimately leads to his downfall because he convinces himself that all of it is real, including the headless horseman. In this case, imagination because too much of a good thing, due to the fact that Ichabod is then in his own world and not reality.

In Fox’s TV version, Sleepy Hollow, Ichabod comes from the Revolutionary War era to present day and everything that is going on is indeed real and not just in his imagination. However as a result of time warp, so to speak, everyone else has to use his or her imagination and realize that it is much more than that.

The second big theme is the belief in superstition. This is similar to imagination, because once again superstitious people get inside their own heads and the mind can play tricks and make people see what they want to see, hear what they want to hear, etc. When going through a haunted house, for example, most people will think about who or what will jump out and scare them and then their senses will become heightened in hesitation/expectation of what’s to come.

Love is also apparent, as seen romantically between Ichabod and Katrina and sisterly love between Abbie and Jenny. There also seems to be a growing like and possibly love, between Abbie and Ichabod as they work and get to know each other more. Towards the end of episode five, Abbie says something like how Ichabod belongs in present day Sleepy Hollow and it makes one wonder whether the script will call for the two of them to fall in love as time goes on.

Revenge is another powerful theme and is obvious through the Headless Horseman and the demons and other evils seen so far. Revenge will only escalate with the appearance of the other Horsemen of the Apocalypse and wicked spells and creatures they bring with them.

On the lighter side of everything though, it turns out that Hollywood does have a lighter side as well. Elementary and Sleepy Hollow writers started a Twitter “feud” which has since ended, but is still quite comical.