How Does Rip Van Winkle Symbolize The Struggle Of Early America

Born in 1783, Washington Irving was a first-generation American. Starting in his teenage years, he discovered and embraced his talent for writing. One of Irving’s most memorable pieces was “Rip Van Winkle.” Irving used characteristics that were common to mythology authors to emphasize the folkloric theme. These characteristics are the following: the story is set in the past in a remote place, the story is filled with exaggerated characters, and the story features impressive, magical, and hysterical events and consequences. These characteristics impact the story.

Through the course of “Rip Van Winkle” you stumble upon many remarkable and strange characters. Washington Irving reveals these complex characters through humor and exaggeration. Irving not only gives readers the characters

To begin, “Rip Van Winkle” by Washington Irving is an allegory. The characters in the story represent something. Rip’s life is a metaphor for what happened before and after the Revolutionary War. First of all Rip’s complacency at the beginning of the story, giving into to his wife and letting her control him represents America’s complacency in giving into England and letting them control them. Rip didn’t want any responsibilities or anything to do. He was a very lazy person who was fine being complacent and not doing anything or even caring about his own land. Rip Van Winkle’s wife Dame Van Winkle was a tyrant over him and always brought him down "her tongue was incessantly going, and everything he said or did was going to produce torrent" (Irving 473). In the same way Great Britain was a tyrant over America and always brought the

Thus he recapitulates the country’s heady release from British rule, and consequent complications” (218). Rip Van Winkle was faced with the same situation as America, he now had to find his place in this unfamiliar world. He saw the whole world past quickly past him and now he had to deal with the repercussions of the choice that he had made.

In an English interpretation, one could see Rip Van Winkle as the mother country or England. Rip is “a kind neighbor, and an obedient hen-pecked husband .” (430) To an English citizen reading this story, it could easily represent the English monarchy. For years before the

Before the American Revolution, people used to have determined beliefs, traditions and government, but after the war, society was confused. For example, the website saylor.org stated, “Politically, the American Revolution carried significant and historic consequences … established a republican form of government out of what had been a monarchical and colonial political system. It altered the position of American people from being subjects of the British crown to citizens and political participants of a republic” (How Revolutionary Was The American Revolution?). Now, people had more freedom and the ability to express their thoughts on what they wanted for their country. As a result, people was struggling to leave old habits. The symbolism in this quote emphasizes how America had to adapt: “Rip now resumed his old walks and habits; he soon found many of his former cronies, though all rather the worse for the wear and tear of time; and preferred making friends among the rising generation, with whom he soon grew into great favor” (Irving, 1014). This quote is of great importance because it shows the reader that Rip Van Winkle himself represents the old country. Since all the news about the revolution and his family happened so fast to him, he does not know how to deal with them. For this reason, he kept his “old habits”, while at the same time, he adapted to his environment. Given these points, “Rip Van Winkle” can be analyzed as a story about the struggle for identity because of the

Rip Van Winkle knew how to make the most out of his freedom and this aura about him led other people to follow

Washington was able to fuse several themes with his exploitation of imagery throughout the story. “Rip Van Winkle” is a myth. A myth is an old-style novel, concerning the early times past of culture.

The historical context urges the Irving’s great tale into the world of American mythology. Another example of the impact of mythological setting lies near the beginning of the plot arch. Rip goes up into the Kaatskill Mountains to hunt; a place that Irving depicts as remote in the following excerpt from the story: “Rip had unconsciously scrambled to one of the highest parts of the Kaatskill Mountains…and the still solitude had echoed.” The isolation that Rip had while in the mountains, where he would later sleep for twenty years, impacts the reader. It shows the reader the reason why nobody ever found him, as well as evoking a deeper emotion and concern for Rip as he slept out there all alone. Emotions find themselves imbedded in this mythology once again.

At its most basic level Rip Van Winkle is a humorous story of a man who sets off into the mountains to find so much needed peace and quiet, then sleeps for twenty years. Washington Irving uses a combination of satire, imagery, and irony, intertwined with symbolism, to paint an allegorical image of the American Revolution. Irving particularly focuses the tale of Rip on America’s political struggle during the latter half of the eighteenth century while highlighting the role of England as a colonializing society. The use of symbolism helps in creating a vivid mental picture and a physical sensation of the subject without directly referring to the details of the revolution itself. Understanding the symbolism helps in deriving the full meaning of Irving’s writing and the themes it addresses. Ultimately, an analysis of the symbolism will help in understanding the American struggle against England, and how the American Revolution shaped the future of America.

Rip van Winkle written by Washington Irving; a story inspired by German Folklore, turned into American Mythology. This story has all the fixings for a great read; a nagging wife, a man who goes forward in time, and different but interesting changes of the storyline and scene. Irving’s use of imagery really helps the reader understand the scene and concepts of the story. At the same time, this keeps the reader interested and engaged for the whole story. A man sleeps for twenty years, pre-revolutionary war to post-revolutionary war, and finds himself in a completely different world; but how does this shape American Mythology? As we read into the story the answer to that becomes clearer, the American people, after the revolution, were struggling with forming their own identity. This story was

Escaping his nagging wife, Rip, travels deep into the forest and pondered the views of “the lordly Hudson, far, far, below him, moving on its silent but majestic course” and “a deep mountain glen, wild, lonely, and shagged, unaware of the life changing events that were about to take place (Irving). He encountered a group of dwarves who had a keg of liquor of which he snuck many fateful drinks until falling into a deep sleep. When he woke up twenty years later having missed the revolutionary war, the deaths of many friends and family, the most prominent of which being his wife. Rip Van Winkle's 20 year disappearance into the wilderness illuminated where his true concerns lay, not in politics or even in the length of his life but the freedom from “the yoke of matrimony” (Irving). The romantic theme of nature and its mystical qualities gave Washington Irving's short story it's thought provoking

In the late 1700's and early 1800's, literature began to show it was changing thanks to the newly formed democracy in America. As is the case with any young government, many different interest groups arose to attempt to mold the government according to their vision of democracy. Washington Irving, a native New Yorker born in 1783, grew up in a world engulfed in these democratic ideals. He grew up to be, as many would grow up in this atmosphere, a political satirist. This satirical nature of Irving's shows up well in "Rip Van Winkle", as he uses historical allusions and symbolic characters to mockingly compare colonial life under British rule to the democracy of the young United States.

            If there's one passage in this story that would summarize the entire story it would be this one. Every theme throughout Rip Van Winkle is touched on somewhere in here and the constant theme of "who Rip is" is the underlying question of both this story and this passage. In the beginning of the story I think we all took a liking to such a friendly character who cares so much about pleasing everyone. However, towards the end of the story Rip seems to examine his life and realizes that he doesn't like everything about himself, and that quite possibly some changes are in order.

“Rip was ready to attend to anybody’s business but his own: but as to doing family duty, and keeping his farm in order, he found it impossible,” (Irving 10). Washington Irving is a romantic American writer in the 1800s with works including Rip Van Winkle as a part of the collection of essays and short stories called The Sketchbook. Rip Van Winkle is set in a village near the Kaatskill Mountains during the American Revolution and tells the story of a man who is loved by many in the town but spends his days in idleness. His wife often nags him because Van Winkle does not work for anything in his family. One day, to escape his wife’s nagging, Van Winkle walks off into the mountains with his dog, Wolfe. He stumbles upon a group of strange