Rip Van Winkle Literary Analysis

"Rip Van Winkle" was written in 1819 by the well-known author Washington Irving. Rip Van Winkle is a simple man who lives in a village near the Catskill mountains. He is well liked in the village and knows just about all those who live in it. One day Rip ventures out into the Catskill mountains; there he lays down for a nap and awakens, 20 years later, to find his dog gone and his gun rotting. As he enters the town again, Rip notices significant changes in the town, especially that he recognizes no one. Rip Van Winkle promptly reaches the realization that he must have unknowingly slept for almost twenty years. Throughout the short story of "Rip Van Winkle", themes of change and stasis, history and its truth, and freedom in the face of tyranny are evident throughout the entirety of the work. Although "Rip Van Winkle" is a short story, there are many instances in which changes and stasis are apparent in different ways and circumstances. Upon awakening from his slumber, Rip Van Winkle soon discovers that much of the town he knew is now gone. Rip has trouble recognizing the people of his village, to the point that the one person who he

Throughout the story of "Rip Van Winkle", there are many peculiar events that occur; specifically the time during which Rip is in the Catskill mountains. It seems very odd that a man would wander into mountains only to fall asleep for twenty consecutive years without ever waking. One would think this nearly impossible without the assistance of certain modern medicine. The group of men that Rip encountered in the Catskills were rather outlandish, as was the drink which they offered to Van Winkle. “ He assured the company that it was a fact, handed down from his ancestor the historian, that the Kaatskill mountains had always been haunted by strange beings”