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As the enraptured Ichabod fancied all this, and as he rolled his great green eyes over the fat meadow lands, the rich fields of wheat, of rye, of buckwheat, and Indian corn, and the orchards burthened with ruddy fruit, which surrounded the warm tenement of Van Tassel, his heart yearned after the damsel who was to inherit these domains, and his imagination expanded with the idea, how they might be readily turned into cash…

During the rising action of the story, the narrator details Ichabod’s greed and gluttony to explain his reasoning for perusing Katrina. Ichabod is more drawn to the edible abundance and the wealth of the Van Tassel farm than he is to Katrina herself. The ways in which his greed corrupts him are further underscored by his fantastical intention to sell the farm rather than live on it with his hypothetical future wife.

He was a kind and thankful creature, whose heart dilated in proportion as his skin was filled with good cheer, and whose spirits rose with eating, as some men’s do with drink. He could not help, too, rolling his large eyes round him as he ate, and chuckling with the possibility that he might one day be lord of all this scene of almost unimaginable luxury and splendor.

Leading up to the climax of the story, the narrator describes Ichabod’s greed and gluttony while at the Van Tassels’ party, when he loses himself in his overindulgence and becomes drunk. As a result, he becomes obnoxiously chipper and turns off the people he seeks to impress. Additionally, his greedy thoughts of one day owning the Van Tassel farm blind him to the reality that he is not a suitable match for Katrina.

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