Along the reaches of the Hudson River, not far from the Catskill Mountains, there is a small, Dutch town. The mountains overshadow the town, and there are times when the good Dutch burghers can see a hood of clouds hanging over the crests of the hills. In this small town lives a man named Rip Van Winkle. He is beloved by all his neighbors, by children, and by animals, but his life at home is made miserable by his shrewish wife. Though he is willing to help anyone else at any odd job that might be necessary, he is incapable of keeping his own house and farm in repair. He is descended from an old and good Dutch family, but he has none of the fine Dutch traits of thrift and energy. Rip spends a great deal of his time at the village inn, under …show more content…
As evening comes on, the two sit down to rest before heading for home. After they rise again and start down the mountainside, Rip hears his name called. A short, square little man with a grizzled beard is calling to Rip, asking him to help carry a keg of liquor. The little man is dressed in antique Dutch clothes. Although he accepts Rip’s help in carrying the keg, he carries on no conversation. As they ascend the mountain, Rip hears noises that sound like claps of thunder. When they reach a sort of natural amphitheater near the top, Rip sees a band of little men, dressed and bearded like his companion, playing ninepins. One stout old gentleman, who seems to be the leader, wears a laced doublet and a high-crowned hat with a …show more content…
After many of them stroke their chins upon looking at him, Rip unconsciously strokes his own and finds that his beard has grown a foot long. The town itself looks different. At first, Rip thinks that the liquor from the keg has addled his head, for he has a hard time finding his own house. When he does locate it at last, he finds it in a state of decay. Even the sign over the inn has been changed to one carrying the name of General Washington. The men who are gathered under the sign talk gibberish to him, and they accuse him of trying to stir up trouble by coming armed to an election. When he is finally able to inquire into the whereabouts of his old friends, he is told that men by those names have moved away or have been dead for twenty
The tenement was the biggest hindrance to achieving the American myth of rags to riches. It becomes impossible for one to rise up in the social structure when it can be considered a miracle to live passed the age of five. Children under the age of five living in tenements had a death rate of 139.83 compared to the city’s overall death rate of 26.67. Even if one did live past the age of five it was highly probable he’d become a criminal, since virtually all of them originate from the tenements. They are forced to steal and murder, they’ll do anything to survive, Riis appropriately calls it the “survival of the unfittest”. (Pg.
The group meet an old crone who tells them that she saw a little human boy with the MYSTERY PIPER. She directs them to the Yellow Forest on the outskirts of the village. Cub panics when he sees the mud on the old crone.
After reading the story of Rip Van Wrinkle, the first expression I received as a message was change, and regardless of how one reacts or view circumstances, evolution will continue its natural process. In addition, when I considered how the author’s illustration of Rip Van Wrinkle need to find refuge in the time of (distress) his wife’s overwhelming nagging, I noticed how Wrinkles’ neglected to take charge of his empire; his home, children and wife, therefore, he did not confront his personal challenges to ease or eliminated his stress, instead, he walked away from his wife’s overwhelming nagging. In turn, another message the reading audience may convey is that, in order to witness radical change, sometimes interest and or participation is
The narrator is in town because of a strike at the company he works for in Corbury Junction has caused delays. Starkfield is the nearest habitable town so he had taken up lodgings with a widow named Mrs. Ned Hale. One day the narrator is need of ride to Corbury Flats where he is to catch a train to the Junction. When the horses on which he usually depends fall sick, Harmon suggests that Ethan, a poor man always in need of a little money, might be able to give the narrator a ride. The narrator is surprised to find out just how poor Frome really is, and Harmon explains that what little money that comes from his family's saw-mill and farm goes into care for his family. The next day, Ethan drives the narrator over to Corbury Flats and back again in the evening; he continues to do so everyday for a week. Through their conversations, the narrator slowly finds out that Frome has an interest in science, which surprises him.
...ture of King George in “Rip Van Winkle.” Rip returns to his village twenty years after he left and realizes that someone has transformed the King into George Washington (541). Irving, realizing that much of life is merely a refashioning of the same ideas and structures into something that looks new, has taken an old German folk tale and turned it into a story of American life. We may live in a time with vastly different resources, technologies, and opportunities, but the urges that drive us are still the same.
town historian. The story of Van Winkle shows us how dependent he was on the community, without which
Next the story introduces Dame Van Winkle, Rip’s stern wife. She maintains contempt for her husband’s “insuperable aversion to all kinds of profitable labor” (Irving). This tyrannic...
In “Rip Van Winkle” by Washington Irving he writes about a simple man, Rip Van Winkle, who does just enough to get by in life. He lives in a village by the catskill mountains, and is loved by everyone in the village. He is an easy going man, who spends most of his days at the village inn talking with his neighbors, fishing all day, and wandering the mountains with his dog to refuge from his wife the thorn on his side. On one of his trips to the mountains Rip Van Winkle stumbles upon a group of men who offer him a drink, and that drink changes everything for Van Winkle. He later wakes up, twenty years later, and returns to his village were he notices nothing is the same from when he left. He learns that King George III is no longer in charge,
George Saunders, a writer with a particular inclination in modern America, carefully depicts the newly-emerged working class of America and its poor living condition in his literary works. By blending fact with fiction, Saunders intentionally chooses to expose the working class’s hardship, which greatly caused by poverty and illiteracy, through a satirical approach to criticize realistic contemporary situations. In his short story “Sea Oak,” the narrator Thomas who works at a strip club and his elder aunt Bernie who works at Drugtown for minimum are the only two contributors to their impoverished family. Thus, this family of six, including two babies, is only capable to afford a ragged house at Sea Oak,
“From the metropolis of Philadelphia, or rather from Norris Town to understanding the road passes over a reddish, and shelly, or slaty kind of property, throughout a very wide and mountainous countryside, acceptably well educated by the farmers. The farmhouses are good quality, and their Barns above poorness. The entire Road certainly from Philadelphia to Reading goes over undulating and busted grounds--but very pleasing despite.”
The literary fiction “A Visit of Charity” is a deceptively simple story. Marian, is a young Campfire Girl, who dutifully visits an “Old Ladies’ Home” (122) to gain points for her charity work. Although, one would expect at first that Eudora Welty’s story would be all about charity, care, and being noble in the process of doing so. A closer look at the characters’ real motives, along with the settings and imagery reveals that the visit becomes one of selfishness which blinds people to the real needs of others, rather than being truly charitable and noble.
“Rip Van Winkle” is set during the reign of King George the Third in a small village near the Catskill Mountains. Rip, the protagonist, states his residence is “a little village of great antiquity,” (page 62). In the opening of the story, the village where Rip held residence was remote and of great age. Villagers did not expand and can be described as complacent. Upon Rip’s return to the village after a mystical event, Rip is perplexed to see that the only thing recognizable is the natural surrounding features of the Catskill Mountains. The small village was now “larger and more populous. There were rows of houses which he had never seen before, and those which had been his familiar haunts had disappeared,” (page
Horatio Alger's “Ragged Dick” is a story which expresses the morals found within a fourteen year old homeless boy. This young boy is quite different because of the morals and actions he showcases to others. Unlike other homeless individuals, Ragged Dick is a boy who puts forth honesty while acting in courteous ways which represent a true level of dignity. Although Ragged Dick is such a prideful and respectful young boy, he is also known as a “spendthrift.” Spendthrifts are individuals who are careless with their actions in terms of their spending as they have little no regard for their money. One example of this can be seen as we read, “Dick's appearance as he stood beside the box was rather peculiar. His pants were torn in several places, and had apparently belonged in the first instance to a boy two sizes larger than himself. He wore a vest, all the buttons of which were gone except two, out of which peeped a shirt which looked as if it had been worn a month. To complete his costume he wore a coat too long for him, dating back, if one might judge from its general appearance, to a remote antiquity” (Alger).
In RIP Van Winkle, Dam Van Winkle is abusive, nagging, and sarcastic. In Rip Van Winkle, Washington Irving states that “but what courage can with stand the ever-during and all besetting terrors of a woman’s tongue.” He seems to imply that he did not like women who gave their opinions and spoke their mind. It seems that Rip is going into the woods to escape his wife.
The economic status of the main characters is poor, without hope of improving their condition, and at the mercy of a quasi-feudal system in North America during the late 1800's. Being a sharecropper, Ab and his family had to share half or two-thirds of the harvest with the landowner and out of their share pay for the necessities of life. As a result of this status, Ab and his family know from the start what the future will hold -- hard work for their landlord and mere survival for them.