The Anti-Hero Comparison of Ichabod Crane and Han Solo

An anti hero is a central character in a story who lacks conventional heroic attributes. Whereas the traditional hero will stand for the values of courage and self-sacrifice, the anti hero often will act selfishly and without concern for others.

In the original Star Wars trilogy, Han Solo is immediately seen as the anti hero. The first scene where Han is shown in the Mos Eisley Cantina, all he cares about is his money that he will receive from Luke and Obi Wan Kenobi. Throughout Episode IV Han shows the traits of a classic anti hero, some examples include his statement to Princess Leia, "I ain't in this for you sweetheart and I'm certainly not in this for your revolution. I'm in it for the money... I expect to be well paid." He is also portrayed as an anti hero when Leia makes the comment to Luke saying, "Your friend is quite a mercenary. I wonder if he really cares about anything... or anybody." All of these traits show how Han Solo is selfish, only thinks about money, and doesn't care about anything which proves how he is the anti hero in Star Wars.

In The Legends Of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving, Ichabod Crane is clearly portrayed as an anti hero. In the story, Ichabod Crane only wants Katrina Van Tassel for her wealth and land, not for love. This is shown with the quote, "He was satisfied with his wealth, but not proud of it; and piqued himself upon the hearty abundance, rather than the style in which he lived." which shows his greed for money from Katrina in order to make himself better off. On page 16, it is shown how Ichabod Crane becomes obsessive over Katrina's land, so obsessive to where he fantasizes how much money he could make off of selling the land and moving to another state. These quotes also shows how selfish Ichabod Crane is by him only thinking about what would be best for himself with the least amount of work possible. All  Ichabod Crane cares about is his wealth and what would be best for him, rather than anything about Katrina.

Han Solo and Ichabod Crane share the classic traits of what an anti hero would do. Both are selfish, only concerned with what would be best for them and not thinking about anyone else. Han and Ichabod also both have an immense greed for money as that is all they try to achieve throughout both stories, not letting anything stop them from reaching this goal.