The 19th Century Romance stories usually happen in neutral territory “between the real world and fairyland, where actual and imaginary may meet” (Hawthorne, “The Scarlett Letter”). The authors of this period used supernatural, bizarre, strange, and magical things to show the truths of human experience rather than reality itself. The short stories “Rip Van Winkle,” by Washington Irving; “Young Goodman Brown,” by Nathaniel Hawthorne; and “The May-Pole of Merry Mount,” also by Nathaniel Hawthorne; are part of this literary period. The main characters of these stories are on a journey, some physical and some emotional. These journeys allow reality to escape them in order to better understand reality itself. The authors engage in detailed analysis of characters and setting through the use of symbolism, and this is made possible by writing stories that employ fantastical and bizarre subjects. “Rip Van Winkle” is the story of a man, Rip Van Winkle, who goes into the woods to take a break from his nagging wife and ends up falling a sleep for 20 years. This story is an analogy to the American’s view before, during, and after the Revolutionary War; Rip Van Winkle symbolizes America while his …show more content…
This is when we know that the “nightmare” is over. When he goes back into town, people do not recognize him, “They all stare at him with equal marks of surprise, and whenever they cast their eyes upon him, invariably stroked their chins.” This surprise is given because America [Rip Van Winkle] has changed, and the post-revolutionary war society could not picture themselves back to their pre-revolutionary war lives. Thus, they don’t recognize Rip and what he represents, a memory of the past. This symbolic voyage is an escape for the character to better understand himself, while it is an allegory of American
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
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.
Rip Van Winkle was a man who traveled to the mountain to escape his nagging wife. Along his journey he encounters a few travelers and ends up drinking with them. He falls asleep on the mountain and wakes up twenty years later without realizing how much time has passed. When he wakes
Washington Irving wrote Rip Van Winkle with the American people in mind. At this time society was changing drastically. America was attempting to go through a struggle with forming their own identity. America was wanting to have an identity that would set them free from English culture and rule. Irving uses his main character, Rip Van Winkle, to symbolize America. Rip goes through the same struggles that America was going through at this time before and after the Revolution. Irving uses such great symbolism in this story to describe the changes that American society went through. This story covers a wide variety of time periods including: America before English rule, early American colonies under English rule, and America after the Revolutionary War.
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 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.
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.
If there is one thing Rip Van Winkle has to offer to us I think it is to pay attention to ourselves. As many of us often do, we get to wrapped up in other's affairs and don't deal with our own lives. We tend to strive for perfection in everyone else's life and lack in our own. Rather that sleep away so many years and let time take its toll on us and those we love, we must act now and be a little more selfish in caring for ourselves.
Van Winkle" depicts a story of a man longing to be free, and of the transformation that occurs to him and the
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.
After wandering with his gun and his close companion Wolf, Rip tracks himself into the upper parts of the Mountains. Soon after, Rip comes across a stranger who was carrying what looked like a keg of liquor. So with the help of the Hollands, which is Dutch Gin, and a whole day of hiking, Rip fell into a deep, solemn slumber. But when he woke up, he did not know how long he had slept or where both of his companions had gone off too. He rises from his spot, and with his aged gun, he heads back to town, trying to find an excuse for his angry wife as for why he had been gone for so long.
Rip Van Winkle tells the story of a man who, on a trek into the Kaatskill mountains, mysteriously sleeps away twenty years of his life during the Revolutionary War. When he returns home, he finds that things have dramatically changed; King George no longer has control over the colonies, and many of his friends have either died or left town. At this point, the story reaches its climax, where Van Winkle realizes that his life may be forever changed.
Washington Irving’s Rip Van Winkle, is the story of Rip Van Winkle, a seemingly lazy man, prone to habitual drunkenness who wanders into the mountains to escape the tyranny of his nagging wife Dame Van Winkle. During his alleged hunting trip, he meets with a mystical band of creatures “dressed in a quaint, outlandish fashion” ( (Irving p 476). Upon the encounter, he is offered a flagon of beverage of mysterious nature, which he consumes most eagerly and then falls into an alcoholic induced slumber. Rip awakens to find himself in a strange and confusing new world, which is both familiar and unfamiliar to him. He returns to his tiny village to find that new faces have replaced the old familiar ones. The house he once lived in has fallen into disrepair and his loved ones are nowhere to be found. Even the inn where he spent many an evening is no longer the same. Where there was once a portrait of King George, a new portrait of another George, this one named Washington, hangs in its place. The old familiar British flag has been replaced by a strange new flag with an “assemblage of stars and stripes” (Irving p 478). In what seems like at first like a fable, Rip Van Winkle, is actually an allegory of the American Revolution. Irving uses creative symbolism throughout the story to portray America before and after the Revolutionary War. Rip is representative of the American people, Dame Van Winkle shows qualities of King George and British rule and the townspeople represent the change in the American people.
"Rip Van Winkle - Washington Irving." Books & Literature Classics. Web. 12 May 2011. .