New York and New England: Irving's Criticism of American Society

Abstract

A LTHOUGH WASHINGTON IRVING's best-known tales, Rip Van and Legend of Sleepy Hollow, have been interpreted from a number of points of view, critics have missed a significant dimension in the stories by failing to take into account a fundamental regional conflict-the mutual hostility between New York and New England-that appears not only in these two tales, but in other of works as well.' That the New York-New England conflict is basic to Legend of Sleepy Hollow is obvious enough: Ichabod Crane is clearly a Connecticut Yankee invading-and threatening-a New York Dutch society. Less easily recognized, however, is that the same invasion seems to have occurred by the end of Rip Van Winkle. The inn of Nicholas Vedder has been supplanted by the Union Hotel of one Jonathan Doolittle, a name identified elsewhere in works as that of a Yankee;2 Bunker's Hill is one of the rallying cries of the lean, bilious-looking fellow who harangues the crowd; and Dame Van Winkle has been defeated at last by the one type of person, presumably, that she cannot overcome, the Yankee peddler (XIX, 6667, 70) 1 Although Daniel G. Hoffman treats Ichabod Crane as a typical Yankee, he does not discuss the specific regional conflict. See Irving's Use of American Folklore in 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,' PMLA, LXVIII, 425-435 (June, I953), reprinted with minor alterations in Form and Fable in American Fiction (New York, I96I), pp. 83-96. Sara Puryear Rodes, in Washington Use of Traditional Folklore, Newv York Folklore QuarterIYJ XIII, 3-15 (Spring, 1957), mentions the conflict in passing (p. 8). 2The name appears in a list of Yankees in the first three editions of Knickerbocker's History of New York (New York, I809), I, 220; (New York, I812), I, 227; (Philadelphia, I8I9), I, 253. It may conveniently be found in the modern reprint of the I809 edition edited by Stanley T. Williams and Tremaine McDowell (New York, 1927), P. i99; or in that of the I8I2 edition edited by Edwin T. Bowden (New York, I964), P. I8I. The name is omitted in the corresponding list of Yankees in the I848 revision as reprinted in the Hudson edition of Works (New York, 1902). See XI, 260. All subsequent citations of works are to volume and page numbers in the Hudson edition. (I am indebted to Mr. Lewis M. Stark, Rare Book Division, New York Public Library, for information concerning the third edition, and to Professor Bowden for information concerning his edition of the book.)