Review the “Rip Van Winkle”: An American Mythology assignment. Follow the instructions below to help plan and organize your essay. Use your Student Guide notes from this unit to complete this activity. As you move forward and begin to draft your essay response to the writing assignment, keep this document handy. Use the information you've recorded here to build your answer.
1. Start organizing your thoughts by citing at least two examples from “Rip Van Winkle” of each characteristic of mythical stories.
Characteristic Examples from “Rip Van Winkle” set in the past, often in remote or exciting places and times “Rip Van Winkle” is the story that describes two different periods of time, both of which are past to the reader. The story starts describing the situation in America twenty years before the War for Independence (1775-83) and ends describing the life in the middle of the War. Although the definite dates are not stated, from the very beginning the writer stresses that it is the story from the past. filled with remarkable, strange, or exaggerated characters Irving Washington is widely known today for his ability to describe characters. Despite the fact that he says little or no word about Rip Van Winkle’s, his wife’s and his friends’ appearances, it is easy to imagine them. The author concentrates on description of personality, making a stress on the differences of human nature that made his heroes really prominent. Let us take the description of Dame Van Winkle as an example. “His wife kept continually dinning in his ears about his idleness, his carelessness, and the ruin he was binning in his family. Morning, noon and night, her tongue was incessantly going, and everything he said or did was sure to produce a torrent of ho...
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...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.
In Washington Irving’s work “Rip Van Winkle,” Irving demonstrates all characteristics of an American Mythology rather humorously. These characteristics affect the story attracting the attention of readers and impacting the reader’s experience of the story by relishing America’s unique attributes and values. In “Rip Van Winkle,” Irving incorporates attributes of American Mythology by setting the story in exciting pastimes, filling the story with strange and exaggerated characters, and featuring magical mysterious events.
A common idea throughout the United States is that a person is to work their hardest, notably, with some type of aspiration within their mind that they would like to achieve. With that being the case, even a virtually inescapable predicament is not considered to be a justification for the inability of achieving a personal goal or subjective goal that was passed to themselves from another person. Subsequently, within the short story “Rip Van Winkle,” the titular character has an absence of ambition within his life. Rather to hard work, he spends his days casually lazing about in the forest with his dog Wolf. As well as these actions resulting in frequent derision from his wife. Hence that Rip Van Winkle is antithetical to popular
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
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.
Myths relate to events, conditions, and deeds of gods or superhuman beings that are outside ordinary human life and yet basics to it” ("Myth," 2012). Mythology is said to have two particular meanings, “the corpus of myths, and the study of the myths, of a particular area: Amerindian mythology, Egyptian mythology, and so on as well as the study of myth itself” ("Mythology," 1993). In contrast, while the term myth can be used in a variety of academic settings, its main purpose is to analyze different cultures and their ways of thinking. Within the academic setting, a myth is known as a fact and over time has been changed through the many different views within a society as an effort to answer the questions of human existence. The word myth in an academic context is used as “ancient narratives that attempt to answer the enduring and fundamental human questions: How did the universe and the world come to be? How did we come to be here? Who are we? What are our proper, necessary, or inescapable roles as we relate to one another and to the world at large? What should our values be? How should we behave? How should we not behave? What are the consequences of behaving and not behaving in such ways” (Leonard, 2004 p.1)? My definition of a myth is a collection of false ideas put together to create
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.
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,
Irving, Washington. “Rip Van Winkle.” The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Nina Bayn. New York: Norton & Company, 1999.
In this essay I am going to focus in the Greek Mythology. In the Greek Mythology there is no single text that introduces all of the myth’s characters and stories because the myths were part of an oral tradition that unfolded gradually in the written literature of the archaic and classical periods.
...ide to them. The mythical side is present because a culture or society does not want to believe the facts that are known in an attempt to give reassurance to ones inner self. A modern example of a myth is the belief that one cannot achieve a pregnancy upon the primal intercourse experience. Research has proven that this is not true, but many believe or are told that this is the case. These types of myths are used today to create reassurance for those believing them. The word myth has been defined by scientific evidence throughout history. As scientific evidence has become clearer, early myths have become less clear to the present day human being. Even though early myths are becoming obsolete, they are still being studied to teach all aspects of life and culture past and present. Also, modern myths are being studied just as well to teach the aspects of the world today.
In Rip Van Winkle, Irving shows his doubts in the American Identity and the American dream. After the Revolutionary war, America was trying to develop its own course. They were free to govern their own course of development; however, some of them had an air of uncertainties on their own identity in this new country. Irving was born among this generation in the newly created United States of America, and also felt uncertainty about the American identity. Irving might be the writer that is the least positive about being an American. The main reason for this uncertainty is the new born American has no history and tradition while the Europe has a great one accumulated for thousands of years. Therefore, in order to solve this problem, Irving borrows an old European tale to make it take place in America. This tale related to the Dutch colonists haunts the kaatskill mountains. In order to highlight the American identity, Irving praises the “majestic” mountains which Europe lacks. He describes the mountains that “their summits…will glow and light up like a crown of glory” Nevertheless, the use of these ancient explorers into Rip Van Winkle only to show that although American has formed its own identity, no one can cut its connection with Europe. No wonder when America was still under tyranny of the British rule, some people still cannot cut the blood relationship with Europe. Therefore, the American identity is blurred by their relationship with Europe since then.
The earliest myths are found to exist during the archaic period. The Greek word “Mythos” describes words or speech and can also mean a tale or legend. Myths have continually been to be passed down for traditional purposes. Elders would tell these magnificent stories to inspire and teach young children about gods and heroes. Mythology was important
Washington Irving's, "Rip Van Winkle" presented a tale of a "dreamer." Rip Van Winkle was a family man
The issue of identity seemed a pertinent issue at the time. In this story, Rip Van Winkle's search for identity provides, perhaps, the most stimulating aspect of the story. In the selected passage, we see his character go through tremendous emotional changes. In only one paragraph, we watch his life unfold as he searches for the inner truth that he had been denying. In one paragraph, we watched a man find himself.
The writer acquaints the reader with the idea of myth. While recognizing that researchers contrast enormously on the exact definition, Oswalt demands that this should not discourage the single person from looking for a decent meaning of the saying. While trying to help characterize the saying, he records four essential qualities of a myth. These qualities conclude that people have practically zero natural worth, they are relatively absence of enthusiasm toward history, they are fascinated with magic and the occult, and they refuse to acknowledge obligation regarding individual