The story takes place during the French Revolution in Paris. It is about a young man named Gottfried Wolfgang. Wolfgang is a very romantic German student who gets impacted by some philosophical doctrines and extremely imaginative thoughts creating to himself an evil spirit that wants to ensure his perdition, which leads his family to send him to Paris hoping this change of scene would cure him. While living in Paris, his encounter with the philosophical theories of that time and the bloodiness of the French revolution diseases his imagination more and makes him a recluse who isolates himself at his apartment in the Pays Latin. Later, Wolfgang happens to dream of a gorgeous girl for whom he would be mistaken for madness. In a gloomy street under the sound of thunder and illumination of lightning near the scaffold of a guillotine, he meets a homeless girl who happens to be the beautiful girl he dreamt of. Wolfgang takes her to his apartment falling in love with her and giving her his immortal pledge. In the later day, Wolfgang acts hysterically when he finds her a dead body, and even frightful when the police officer tells him that this girl was guillotined yesterday. After he knows that, he suddenly becomes terrified because he thinks that the girl was the evil spirit animated the girl to bring him perdition, which leads him to true madness. In the end, the narrator introduces himself as "the old gentleman with the haunted head" saying to his friend that this story is a fact because the German student told it himself at the madhouse.

 More into the characters. Gottfried Wolfgang is a guy whose imagination takes him away from reality or as Irving refers to him “but being of a visionary and enthusiastic character, he had wandered into those wild and speculative doctrines which have so often bewildered German students”(Tales of a Traveler 3). Wolfgang, the main character, is where the theme is embodied and the hidden statement manifests. Through the story, Irving highly intends to create a well-structured view of its main character introducing his background in the beginning as “a young man of good family. He had studied for some time at Göttingen” then getting into Wolfgang’s mindset saying, “his health was impaired; his imagination diseased.”, so Irving attempts to say that his hero is not as any sort of hero used to be in a story, but a vague man whose life is devoted for imaginative thoughts and delusional meanings.

 Then, Irving walks the reader through the journey of discovering the character by the events Wolfgang encounters and how the mind of this romantic person becomes more diseased due to his interaction with the French revolution and the philosophical doctrines of that time, such as saying about him when he arrives in Paris "the scenes of blood which followed shocked his sensitive nature; disgusted him with society and the world, and made him more than ever a recluse" and "He was, in a manner, a literary ghoul, feeding in the charnel house of decayed literature", in the former sentence is where Irving completes drawing the picture of Wolfgang's mentality after which Irving presents the second and last main character, the homeless girl. Before Irving shows the girl in the event directly, he starts building the plot up to this interesting character by introducing the idea of the dream "a dream produced an extraordinary effect upon him. It was of a female face of transcendent beauty".

 In a gloomy place down the guillotine, Wolfgang meets the homeless girl to which he surrenders his heart. Irving makes her look gorgeous or as the narrator says “the very face which had haunted him in his dreams. It was pale and disconsolate, but ravishingly beautiful” in which Irving refers to the girl character as a symbol of beauty who later becomes the evil spirit Wolfgang avoids. Another mysterious character is the narrator “the old gentleman with the haunted head”, which Irving presents at the end without mentioning any details about him, but a strange statement that leaves an open question and may contradict the readers' interpretations while reading the beginning and middle of the story, which is when the inquisitive man asks the narrator about the reliability of the source and the he replies that he had it from the best authority, the student himself!

 Irving uses a third-person omniscient point of view to walk readers through the story. Through the beginning and middle of the story following a chronological order, Irving utilizes many imagery elements and creates several minor events, all of which build-up to the two major events that take place at the end. Irving attempts, at first, to give readers a picture of who Wolfgang is by engaging him in many minor events then associating that with the influence of that period on him politically and philosophically. “Wolfgang arrived at Paris at the breaking out of the revolution. The popular delirium at first caught his enthusiastic mind, and he was captivated by the political and philosophical theories of the day: but the scenes of blood which followed shocked his sensitive nature; disgusted him with society and the world, and made him more than ever a recluse.” (3).

 Moreover, in order to prepare readers for the catastrophic end, Irving introduces the scene of the library, where Irving manifests the instability of Wolfgang's mindset and the effect of romantic doctrines on him, using some great literary devices, such as symbolism, imageries, and metaphors, which shown in these lines:

“he spent hours together in the great libraries of Paris, those catacombs of departed authors, rummaging among their hoards of dusty and obsolete works in quest of food for his unhealthy appetite. He was, in a manner, a literary ghoul, feeding in the charnel house of decayed literature” (3).

 After that, we come to another minor event in which Irving shows another controversial aspect of Wolfgang's mentality, that plays a significant role in completing the whole picture and justifying Wolfgang’s interaction with the homeless girl, which is through the dream “a dream produced an extraordinary effect upon him. It was of a female face of transcendent beauty” (3).

 After the picture gets completed, Irving begins the climax where two major events take place. Meeting the homeless girl and the frightening tragedy. In those occurrences, Irving rises the strong interrelation between what was previously mentioned with Wolfgang's reactions. To illustrate more, the gorgeous girl Wolfgang dreamt of, became the same girl he meets. His unreasonable solidarity and favor of irrational doctrines bring him to see a haunted head as a girl in a black dress. His similarity with Swedenborg forces him to illusion the evil spirit. When it comes to the conflict, all of the former events represent a mysteriously internal oscillation in Wolfgang’s behavior and the reality he is surrounded by which Irving uses as a representation of the consequences of the absence of reason on Wolfgang’s life.

 The surroundings like place, period, and social environment play a fundamental role in conveying the themes in the story since it does not contain many dialogues. To introduce the place, Irving uses some imageries, such as, “there in a gloomy street” referring to where Wolfgang’s apartment is, some metaphors  “feeding in the charnel house of decayed literature”, and an archetype “where the statue of Henry the Fourth had been overthrown by the populace”, by which Irving attempts to give a comprehensible image of the major shocking events. So, we can see that Wolfgang is directly affected by what surrounds him, the depressing places he is in, and the atmosphere of the places he is used to frequenting, all of which justify his nature (3).

 Since the historical period is a significant part of the story, Irving alludes to it in several cases, such as “at the breaking out of the revolution”, “the scenes of blood which followed shocked his sensitive nature”, or by using an allegory “It was the height of the reign of terror” (3). In those expressions, readers see how holding irrational beliefs and romantic thoughts do not alleviate Wolfgang’s suffering that is caused by his encounter with the bloodiness of French Revolution but make it worse.

 The main theme of the story is embodied in Wolfgang’s personality and unreasonable acts. Irving critiques some of the fundamental characteristics of the Romantic doctrine that spread during the 19th century as a response to the enlightenment, so Irving shows the tragic end that the exaggeration of believing in them may lead to. Romantic movement is highlighted by its exaggerated belief in supernaturality and solitary life, so Irving manifests the “evil spirit” and Wolfgang’s reclusive life in the story to show how such beliefs and acts would lead the young man to be a hellish life that ends in madness and that Wolfgang’s adherence to these ideal meanings does not help him stand against the tragedy of life represented by the French Revolution but destroys him more. Another romantic characteristic is the absolute influence by love in Wolfgang’s temperament “It was of a female face of transcendent beauty. So strong was the impression made, that he dreamt of it again and again” which leads Wolfgang to declare his devotion to the girl and surrender what the narrator called “rubbish of the old times” referring to the virtue of marriage. We then see how he pledges himself to an evil spirit rather than a gorgeous girl he thought the girl was. All of those major events tell us that Irving attempts to say that the absence of reason in our lives can be hazardous to the extent of madness, and that the romantic thoughts have a limit after which imagination becomes diseased.

 Concerning Irving’s style. Although it is a critique of romanticism, Irving uses many gothic devices to deliver the story. For instance, the supernatural force “evil spirit”, depressing setting “the old and gloomy street”, the feeling of fear and terror through “the guillotine”, and many other literary methods, all of which are known for Gothicism in literature.  Also, uses a narrator to tell the story making him know what happens during it, but the narrator does not seem to know all the details, which Irving means to make it controversial. His use of vocabulary intends to be dramatic, abstract sometimes, and deeply descriptive in most cases. An example of a very contentious hint is when the narrator says about Wolfgang "he took up a notion, I do not know from what cause". Another example that leaves a huge door in front of readers is when the narrator states that he was told the story by Wolfgang himself at the madhouse "The student told it me himself. I saw him in a madhouse at Paris." (3). Thus, we can tell that Irving’s intention was not to convey a clear idea or to have a specified ending, but a hole of wonders and questions.  

 Even though there is no visible controversy or intellectual revolution the story has caused, it seems to critique and reveal the manifestations of its era, such as the philosophical doctrines like romanticism and idealism. It also states some powerfully philosophical and moral questions concerning to what extent love should reach and the enormous power the social environment has on people, the two of which we see in those lines “the forms and ceremonies of marriage began to be considered superfluous bonds for honorable minds” and “ the scenes of blood which followed shocked his sensitive nature; disgusted him with society and the world” (3).

 Sometimes we get astonished by how much profundity and value a work of art can contain, and how deep a reality can appear through a brilliant author. More specifically, in the story, Irving masters a wide variety of literary devices to deeply convey his ideas, especially, symbolism. It is marvelous how he succeeds in putting many intense details in one short story without making it look vulgar. The foundational structure of the story holds the themes strongly, which I have been in a shock of.

 In closing, I can confidently tell that Irving’s short story is a piece of art that creates a profound overview of the limits of irrational beliefs and shows how that blind adherence to romantic thoughts does not alleviate the evil in life but attracts it. We observe that in Wolfgang’s sensitive temperament, unreasonable manner, and through the impact the region of terror has on Wolfgang during the French Revolution. I also believe that this crammed story of deep meanings has brought to the surface a valuable set of questions that have not been answered yet and valuing such a short story is a path towards doing so.