Essay on Rip Van Winkle For many generations, people around the world have read the short story of Rip Van Winkle, whether it was in school or just have a passion for reading. The story was originally published in a book called “The sketch Book” written by American author Washington Irving. The story itself takes place around a small village near the Hudson River in a time around the American Revolution era where Great Britain still had control of the colonies. Irving uses effective writing to show the reader as much detail as possible to understand where and what is going on especially during the transitioning periods. The theme of this story could be about depression as described by certain topics that the main character experiences. The …show more content…
“Poor Rip was at last reduced almost to despair; and his only alternative to…... was to take gun in hand, and stroll away into the woods.” (33) This meant that he was thinking of ending his life. Irving once again did not explicitly write it. Van winkle goes to the Kaatskill Mountains, described as very seclude and large. He does not kill himself entirely but as the story went he fell asleep for twenty years. That could be implied that he just wanted to sleep all his problems away. When he wakes up, it is a new start as most of the people he knew have died in the revolutionary war or have grown old just as he did. The true relief that Van winkle felt was when he finds out that Dame Van Winkle has already passed away and will no longer cause him grief. Irving describes Van winkles new start in a way that the reader can understand better by including the revolutionary war aftermaths. Before Rip van winkle slept for twenty years, it was a time that Great Britain dictated all life in the colonies. This was symbolism for grief and frustration. When Rip Van Winkle wakes up there is no longer a British rule but a United States. In the new United States its expresses happiness in its tone just as Van Winkles new life
“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
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
Throughout quarter three, our class has read four short stories, each one portraying human behaviors. I am comparing and contrasting two characters from “Miss. Brill” by Katherine Mansfield and “The Destructors” by Graham Greene. Miss. Brill and Old Misery or Mr. Thomas have many similarities and differences including the internal forces that affect them and the external forces that make them who they are.
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.
A common theme among many literary works set during the depression era is alienation. In these works of fiction characters often become isolated which cause them to be alienated by society as well as their family. In the short stories such as “To Set Our House in Order” by Margret Laurence and “The Lamp at Noon” by Sinclair Ross, we see characters that face these conditions. As a result the authors address the theme of alienation in similar ways, yet develop it in their own unique methods.
During the process of growing up, we are taught to believe that life is relatively colorful and rich; however, if this view is right, how can we explain why literature illustrates the negative and painful feeling of life? Thus, sorrow is inescapable; as it increase one cannot hide it. From the moment we are born into the world, people suffer from different kinds of sorrow. Even though we believe there are so many happy things around us, these things are heartbreaking. The poems “Tips from My Father” by Carol Ann Davis, “Not Waving but Drowning” by Stevie Smith, and “The Fish” by Elizabeth Bishop convey the sorrow about growing up, about sorrowful pretending, and even about life itself.
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.
When I was younger the world was such an innocent, delightful place. People were kind, and always willing to help. As I have grown I have found that my views of the world and the people in it have changed; I don 't find it to be as innocent or delightful. I have slowly become to notice the wicked around me. Nathaniel Hawthorne 's "Young Goodman Brown" and Washington Irving 's "Rip Van Winkle" both convey changes in their views of the people and world around them.
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,
Set in the farmlands of the Salinas Valley in California, "Of Mice And Men" is based on the 1930's Great Depression. This novel shows the struggle of two migrant workers, George Milton and Lennie Small in fulfilling the 'American dream'. The dream shared by many of owing "a little house and a couple of acres". From the onset of the novel, it becomes crystal clear that Lennie is heavily reliant on his companion, George. What's more, Steinbeck portrays the two by juxtaposing them to a father and son figure. In this assessment, I plan to clearly deconstruct and explore some of the ways Steinbeck leads up to George's final decision to shoot Lennie.
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.
Washington Irving's, "Rip Van Winkle" presented a tale of a "dreamer." Rip Van Winkle was a family man
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.
These three short stories have many similarities to each other and to the author, Irving’s, life. As I explored deeper into these short stories, I found out that many doors are opened in these few pages of text. Many revelations and understanding has come from exploring deeper into each and every one of these three short stories by Irving. “Rip Van Winkle”, “Pelayo and the Merchant’s Daughter”, and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” have all helped me laugh and I have enjoyed diving into them and discovering a whole world of short stories.