Fear is an autonomic response triggered by unpleasant stimuli that causes increased heart rate, muscle tension, and rapid breathing. While fear reactions are not consciously controlled, they serve an evolutionary purpose of avoiding risks that could end our lives. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving was an early work of American literature that used fear and the supernatural to tell the ghost story of a headless horseman. Other authors have since adapted and expanded on the themes of fear in works of Gothic and children's horror literature.

1.  Fear is a response in mind to unpleasant
stimulus that result in production of
chemicals that affect the heart, muscles and
quick breathing (Julia 65).
 We do not trigger fear reaction consciously,
it is autonomic.
 If we were not anxious our lives would end
because we would engage in risk behaviors.

2.  The legend of Sleepy Hollow is an aspect of
fear in literature
 The story of sleepy hollow has been adapted in
the American film and TV shows.
 Irving’s works was the start of the American
literature culture

3. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
The Legend of Sleepy
Hollow’s perfect work
of art is a ghostly story
about things that bump
especially in the night.
 The story discusses a
man who rides a
stallion at night
(Harris 61).

4. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
the man’s head was shot,
he rises, bounced on his
stallion and rides through
the valley looking for his
lost head (Kendrick 24).
The Farmer pursues the
headless man.

5.  Ichabod was a teacher and was given a stallion
to ride to a social place, he came closer to the
tree where a man had been executed by
renegades.
 He thought he had seen something white
moving among the trees. Suddenly his stallion
stops and he sees something so repulsive, dull
and colossal.

6. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
The scene portrayed here, evokes
fear and awe on the reader.
 The main subject if to instill fear
The component theme in the fiction
is the mental characteristics of fear.
Anthony David a career journalist has
contributed in his gothic novel of
horror that involves heavenly
strengths that contrive to deceive and
wreck people.

7. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
 Other Authors who contributed to
horror are Kendrick Charmette and
Harris Marla exploit what have
become stock impacts. These are the
physical disengagement of the hero,
anticipation and confusion, and the
presentation of a shadowy "other" or
secretive shrewdness.
Their aim is inciting the readers, for
instance, in their ghost and horror
stories in children’s literature

9. Anthony, David. "Gone Distracted": "Sleepy Hollow," Gothic Masculinity, And The Panic
Of 1819." Early American Literature 40.1 (2005): 111-144. Academic Search Premier.
Web. 29 Feb. 2016.
Harris, Marla. "Contemporary Ghost Stories: Cyberspace In Fiction For Children And
Young Adults." Children's Literature In Education 36.2 (2005): 111-128. Academic
Search Premier. Web. 25 Feb. 2016.
Kendrick, Charmette. "The Goblins Will Get You!: Horror In Children's Literature From
The Nineteenth Century." Children & Libraries: The Journal Of The Association For
Library Service To Children 7.1 (2009): 19-23. Academic Search Premier. Web. 7
Mar. 2016.
Layton, Julia. "How Fear Works." HowStuffWorks. HowStuffWorks.com, 13 Sept. 2005.
Web. 07 Mar. 2016.