Critic Greg Smith writes, "This tendency to overlook the headless horseman as a major character in 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow' can be attributed to the widely accepted conventional reading of the story" (175). "That the reader is invited to come to this conclusion for him or herself is fairly obvious, but it is of paramount importance to the story's overall effect that Irving's narrator does not" (175).

In his critical analysis of "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," critic Greg Smith writes, "This tendency to overlook the headless horseman as a major character in 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow' can be attributed to the widely accepted conventional reading of the story which holds that the headless horseman is not a real specter" (175). In his essay, Smith argues for a different reading of the role of the headless horseman in "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow."