a) Washington Irving uses Geoffrey Crayon and Diedrich Knickerbocker (both of which are not real individuals) to defend the tale’s credibility by pretending that the stories were passed on to him from these individuals and that he is not the author of the tale. Crayon acts as a reporter who is only passing along what he knows and explains that Knickerbocker is an accurate and credible historian. b) Irving’s tone in the introductory passages can mostly be described as humorous and ironic. Crayon and Knickerbocker are characters created by Irving, who is pretending they are his source for the tale. 3. a) Rip Van Winkle is troubled by his wife, so he decides to get away from the city life and venture into the mountains. Such actions reveal …show more content…
a) Irving satirizes many key elements in the story. The most prominent of these are the characters and setting. b) Irving’s target Rip’s wife, the American Revolution, and American society for his satire. The stereotypical, loveless marriage surrounding Rip’s wife is satirical, along with the fact that the only noticeable difference after the American Revolution was the picture of King George of England being replaced with George Washington. Irving also targets American society through Rip Van Winkle. Rip’s lazy and careless attitude is used to depict how the lives of individuals with that mentality will pass them without them noticing, and that those who work hard in their life will get farther than those who do not. 5. a) The theme of the story is laziness. Those who work hard in their life will get farther than those who are careless and lazy. The lives of individuals who are lazy and careless will pass by them without them noticing and before they know it, their life has passed and they missed out on all the beauty life has to offer. Rip Van Winkle was lazy and careless, so his life passed him without him noticing. He missed out on his daughter’s marriage, the birth of his grandchild, and his wife’s death, along with the death of others in the
Throughout Irving’s story, he used characterization, irony, the dreams, and other literacy devices to bring The Legend of Sleepy Hollow to life for Irving’s audience.
In Washington Irving’s “Rip Van Winkle,” an allegorical reading can be seen. The genius of Irving shines through, in not only his representation in the story, but also in his ability to represent both sides of the hot political issues of the day. Because it was written during the revolutionary times, Irving had to cater to a mixed audience of Colonists and Tories. The reader’s political interest, whether British or Colonial, is mutually represented allegorically in “Rip Van Winkle,” depending on who is reading it. Irving uses Rip, Dame, and his setting to relate these allegorical images on both sides. Irving would achieve success in both England and America, in large part because his political satires had individual allegorical meanings.
The original story by Washington Irving starts out in a small town of Sleepy Hollow. Irving paints an image of bountiful crops, beautiful scenery, and prosperous landowners. Ichabod Crane was a local pedagogue, who taught at the local schoolhouse. He was known for his strict ways and yet he was very popular amongst the families of his students- especially the ones who had ?pretty sisters.? Ichabod enjoyed spending fall evenings with the old widows as they sat by a fire and told stories of ghosts and demons and other supernatural beings. One story that was always told was one of the legendary Headless Horsemen. The tale tells of a soldier who had his head shot off with a cannon ball. His ghost now roamed Sleepy Hollow on his horse, looking for his lost head. In place of his head, sits a jack-o-lantern, which had a fiery glow.
The first thing that strikes me after reading both of these stories is that Irving uses inflated diction in both. This is another reason Irving became so popular. This way of writing made the story more enjoyable and comical. However, to some readers, inflated diction could be confusing and annoying. Either way, this style is prevalent in both of the stories.
Washington Irving and Edgar Allan Poe were both writers who exemplified the writing style of the Romantic era. Both writers used their great talents to take the reader into the story. For example, Irving, in “Rip Van Winkle”, starts the story by saying, “Whoever has made a courage up the Hudson must remember the Kaatskill Mountains.” He also involves the reader in the story by taking us into the everyday lives of the Van Winkles and goes into some detail describing Rip’s “business”. Poe also demonstrates his ability to pull the reader into the story. In “The Fall of the House Usher” he uses extensive descriptions of the settings to give the reader the feeling of being there while the story is developing around them. The writers are also similar in the use of tone in their works. Irving’s use of tone in his stories is typically lighthearted, yet dramatic. This is demonstrated in “Rip Van Winkle” when Rip comes back from the “Kaatskills” and is talking to all the people in the town. There, he finds his son and daughter and asks, “Where’s your mother?” By asking this question, Irving implies both curiosity and even fear if Dame Van Winkle is still around. This humorous approach to the subject of Rip’s wife, makes light of ...
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,
In the first paragraph I chose to look at, it leads right into when Rip goes off for a walk to go squirrel shooting. Although the main reason for his walk was to get away for his nagging wife. The story could be interpreted in two different ways. One being that Rip was a lazy bum who did not take responsibility for his wife, children, and farm. He rather go out and drink and hang with his buddies at the tavern. I believe Irving specifically wrote this story for men. The story makes the wife sound like the wretched, nagging, old ugly woman and all she cares about is bothering her husband. This to me sounds all to familiar to what goes on still to this day. I believe the story makes Dame Van Winkle out to be the one in change of the power, but in reality I believe it was Rip.
...his wife’s tyranny in the surrounding mountains hunting squirrels. With such an unimpressive beginning the strange and mysterious story of Rip Van Winkle starts. Being idle, but still kind person Rip Van Winkle agrees to help a stranger to carry his keg, the liquor in which possesses some magic characteristics. Drinking this liquor made Rip fall asleep for twenty years. While it is the basic mystery of the story, it still has a lot of unanswered questions that are for each reader to answer. For instance, why he fall asleep for twenty years? Is it because he made twenty sips? As to the consequences of this twenty-years sleep, they turned to be more favorable for the idler than he could expect. In his return he found his children ground up and willing to take care of him, no Dame Van Winkle to get on his nerves and an opportunity to do what he wanted.
Protagonist Rip Van Winkle possesses mystical and entertaining characteristics that captivate the reader. Rip Van Winkle regards all of his neighbors with kindness continuously. He shows the depth of American values such as kindness and the love of the neighbor. Van Winkle’s great kindness is illustrated by his helping of others. On page 62, the narrator states “He inherited, however, but little of the martial character of his ancestors. I have observed that he was a simple, good-natured man; he was moreover a kind neighbor, and an obedient, henpecked husband,” confirming that Van Winkle is a kind person and a loving
RAYMOND W. CECOT (2006). Rip Van Winkle: Twenty Years of Missing Time, A Literary Perspective. Retrieved from http://www.iraap.org/articles/ripvanwinkle.htm
The story of Rip van Winkle is a popular folktale of the United States. Its general motif is the magical passing of many years in what seems only a few days. Japan’s popular version of this story is Urashima Taro. In addition to the common motif, the personality of the main characters, Rip van Winkle and Urashima Taro, and plot structures are similar as well.
One particular criterion character effectively supports the central idea in “Rip Van Winkle” by Washington Irving. The character's type develops with the personality development throughout the story. Three types of characters: round, flat, and stock, appear in most stories. The round character displays a fully developed personality and full emotions. Flat characters, also known as supporting characters, do not develop fully or express complex emotions. A stock character, also known as a stereotype, fits an established characterization from real life or literature. With these three types of characters leading the reader through the story, the reader learns the events taking place as well as the changes in the character’s lives. The author keeps the reader informed of the changes affecting the characters throughout the narrative through style. When a character undergoes a fundamental change in nature or personality during the story, the character has dynamic style. However, a character without change defines a static character. Although all characters have a style and type sometimes understanding the differences appears complicated. A chart often helps establish a better understanding of character type and style.
Have you ever imagined being asleep in the forest for twenty years, coming back home and not knowing what has gone on all those years of your absence? Rip Van Winkle went through that, and had to come back home and face some real changes. The author Washington Irving has some interesting characters whom he puts in his short stories. Irving puts some characters in his short stories to reflect on some of his life. For example, Irving has similarities between Rip Van Winkle being asleep in the forest 20 years and Irving was in Europe for seventeen writing short stories and being the governor’s aid and military secretary. These two situations are similar, because they both didn’t know what they were going to come back too and were gone for such a long period of time. Irving does put some of his own life into his short stories and with a reason for his self-reflective works.
Van Winkle" depicts a story of a man longing to be free, and of the transformation that occurs to him and the
Washington Irving uses the idea of American Romanticism to express his ideas of placid scenes of nature and his sense of wonder. During the late eighteenth century this idea was being introduced to society. Washington Irving, being a short story writer that uses a lot of imagery in his stories, emphasizes his ideas and often times has a lesson or a moral for the readers to take away. His stories focus on supernatural events that happen to the protagonists which add importance to the plot and meaning of the story. These events affect Ichabod’s and Rip’s personalities as well as the setting. Irving’s short stories “Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and “Rip Van Winkle” contain distinctly American Romanticism supernatural events, but differ in the settings’ impact on the characters.