Washington Irving Research Paper

In Washington Irving’s short stories, he shows many ways of criticizing feminism. This could be due to the way he was raised or even his relationships with women. In the short stories The Legend of the Sleepy Hollow, Rip Van Winkle and The Devil and Tom Walker,

Washington Irvin shows his critiques of feminism and how it could be improved.

In the short story, The Legend of the Sleepy Hollow, Washington Irvin comments on feminism in many ways. For example, Washington Irving depicts the men of the story in many different ways while he only depicts women in one concrete way. Ichabod and Brom are represented as polar opposites with different personalities and bodies. While the women in the story are represented as the stereotypical women of that

He is showing how women are easily impressed and would do what they can to get a man with good standing no matter their personality. Washington also accuses women of being

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sleazy. He shows this in the line “She was withal a little of a coquette, as might be perceived in her dress” , where the character is most likely showing cleavage to impress others. This is how

Washington presents feminism in The Legend of the Sleepy Hollow.

In the short story, Rip Van Winkle, Washington Irving expresses his different views of feminism. Although he shows positive attributes of feminism like strength, responsibility and leadership through Dam Van Winkle's character, Washington ultimately shows an altered view of women in the story. In this story he shows women as naggy and ratchet, which ends up rendering them invalid. This is shown through the way Dam Van Winkle treats Rip. Dam treats

Rip as a useless husband who is lazy and not doing enough. Washington also shows gender roles through the way Dam is limited in what she can do, so she has to yell at Rip to do it instead.

Washington represents Dam as ugly, mean and always wanting something out of Rip. Another example is the representation of Rip’s daughter, Judith. Washington represents her as a nice

In the short story, The Devil and Tom Walker, Washington Irvin criticizes feminism in many ways. An example is how he portrays Tom Walker’s wife. She is portrayed as evil, greedy, dirty, tough and only sticking with Tom Walker for her own benefit. This is a criticism of women being greedy and only with men for their own benefit and don’t have true love for them. He also shows how he thinks women would stab someone in the back once they get the chance.

This is shown through how right when Tom Walker’s wife heard of the devil, she went straight to the devil to try and gain the benefits but instead ended up getting killed. Her getting killed could

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also be a criticism as the women aren’t able to gain from a transaction but the men (Tom

Walker) are able to. This is how Washington critiques feminism in The Devil and Tom Walker.

Irving’s portrayal of women in his stories shows how he personally views women.

Through his stories you can see how Washington Irvin seems to not respect women. This could be due to many different factors. One factor could be that he was either heart broken by a woman by getting cheated on or rejected. This would make Irvin think of a woman as sleazy