Identity In Rip Van Winkle

Rip Van Winkle desires to leave his nagging wife, driving him into the woods revealing a gorgeous, woodland landscape and a

Rip Van Winkle is described as a man who “was one of those happy mortals, of foolish, well-oiled dispositions, who take the world easy, eat white bread or brown, whichever can be got with least thought or trouble, and would rather starve on a penny than work for a pound” (46). He was a stubborn man

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.

This shows how women were often depicted as the antagonist in literature. It shows she was controlling and intolerable. Rip loves to sit around with his friends and talk about newspaper stories which is his way of avoiding work of any kind. The nagging insults Rip and causes him to declare women as troublesome. Eventually he can’t take any more and leaves. “Poor Rip was at last reduced almost to despair; and his only alternative to escape from the labour of the farm the clamour of his wife, was to take gun in hand, and stroll away into the woods” (459). It represents women in a negative light, because Dame Van Winkle drove her husband to leave. Women are expected to be respectful to their husbands. When they don’t do as they are told, they are seen as stubborn and arrogant like Dame Van

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

The short story, “Rip Van Winkle”, is a tale of a man who went up into the mountains and after a long string of odd events went to sleep. He woke up twenty years later. He went from being use to what the world was like before the Revolutionary War of the United States to how things changed after the war. When he came back from the mountain he found that his wife and friends were gone. His children were grown up and living in this new world that he had stumbled into. He found that changes had been made to clothing and how people acted; buildings that used to be in the town were now gone or changed, and a government that he had no idea about. In this short story the author used the differences between pre-Revolutionary War and

“Rip Van Winkle” is a classic American Mythological story that tells the tale of a man who sleeps for twenty years after drinking a mysterious drink. Rip Van Winkle is a very lazy, American man who one day, ventures off into the woods with his dog named Wolf. While in the woods, he finds a group of men playing Skittles and drinking liquor in the middle of an amphitheater. He joins them, and drinks some of their alcohol, but he soon passes out. When he awakens, twenty years have passed, and he missed the Revolutionary War, his children growing up, and even his wife passing away. What characteristics make this folklore such a classic fable in American literature? The story is set in the past, features exaggerated and strange characters, and

He ‘s a lazy and obedient hen-pecked husband. “In a word, Rip was ready to attend to anybody’s business but his own; but as to doing family duty, keeping his farm in order, he found it impossible.” His idleness to his responsibility can be seen as American’s unwillingness to be a servant of England. “There is phlegm and drowsy tranquility” around the town before the revolution war. However, after Rip awakes from his sleep for twenty years, everything in the town has changed. “There was a busy, bustling, disputatious tone about it, instead of the accustomed phlegm and drowsy tranquility.” Also, the sign outside the tavern where he spent much of his time has changed from King George to General Washington. After seeing all of these changes, at first Rip doubts his own identity, especially when he sees his son who is” a precise counterpart of himself.” However, before long, “he resumes his old walks and habits,” because he doesn’t compelled to change himself into a post Revolutionary American. Since it never happens as an event in his life, it makes no drastic change in Rip’s life. Because he has no indent to fit in the new society to be who he has to be at the new age, he tries to retreat or stay in the past which is what the Americans need to lead their cultural life.

Our identities are key to our understanding of the world. Mental models through which information is processed are built off of life experience, taught ethics and morals, and upbringing. Identity is discussed in the following texts - The Politics of Exile by Elizabeth Dauphinee, “Unlearning the Myth of American Innocence” by Suzy Hansen, and “Letter to America” by Aida Hozic - through various themes of American culture. Dauphinee, in particular, examines the depth of personal identity and its ability to change. All three works consider the many components of personal identity and its formation as well as its undoing.

Furthermore, Rip Van Winkle’s identity itself represents America’s journey before and after the American Revolution and the difficulties that were faced. When the reader is first introduced to Rip Van Winkle, he is a well-known man. The community loves him and he has made a name for himself based off the needs of others. He is very dependent on the community and the community is dependent on him. The following citation how well-liked Rip Van Winkle is before he takes his trip to Kaatskill mountains. “Certain it is, that he was a great favorite among all the good wives of the village […] The children of the village, too, would shout with joy whenever he approached.”(https://www.ibiblio.org/ebooks/Irving/Winkle/Irving_Winkle.pdf, Page 8) When Rip returns, he is faced with the reality that he has lost any form of identity he once had. Nobody recognized him, the children laughed at him, and even the dogs barked after him, none of these were the case before his trip. Irving used Rip Van Winkle to represent America

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

Despite being a very diverse literature genre in terms of influence and inspiration, North American literature encompasses many works that share some very common thematic elements. Though there are several themes shared, one in particular can be found in most any work – the importance of identity. Particularly in some selected pieces yet to be named, identity is a very important element, not only because it is a necessity for a main character in any work of literature, but because these works express ideas about identity as being very individualistic – as opposed to being a mere result of cultural surroundings. Zora Neal Hurtson’s Their

Next, the characters enter the scene of mythology. In order for mythology to come across as supernatural, the characters must lend themselves to mystery. In Rip Van Winkle, not only do other intriguing characters appear, but Rip himself tends towards strange behaviors. After all, Rip did sleep for twenty years without waking. That in its self begins to reveal the underlying interest of the story. Perhaps the most strange and exaggerated characters would prove to be the bowler in the forest. In the text it says, “He was still more surprised at the singularity of the stranger’s appearance.” It goes on to

The two stories Stray and Washington Iviring: Rip Van Winkle both answers the question how do our conundrums impact who we are. In the story Stray Doris’s father did not let Doris keep a stray dog, but after Doris’s father went to the pound he found out that the pound is not a very nice place. In the Washington Iviring story a man named Rip van winkle was getting tired of Dame van winkle’s constant nagging and then runs off to the mountain for 20 years which seemed like one night.

In the beginning of Rip Van Winkle, Rip is portrayed as lazy husband who would do anything for others except his own husbandly duties. Rip Van Winkle’s wife, Dame Winkle, who is nothing like her husband goes around doing her wifely duties, as a wife and mother, regardless whether her husband Rip meets her needs. Despite been such a likeable person to his friends and neighbors, Winkle makes his wife’s life complicated. Dame Van Winkle is the typical wife that takes care of the obligations she has at home while Rip refuses to be productive around the house. The story emphasis’s how relentlessly Dame nags Rip. However if Rip had assumed his share of household responsibilities perhaps Rip might not have felt an impact. Dame’s life is further complicated by the absence of 20 years of her husband. When Rip returns Dame is dead and he is taken in by his daughter who replaces the maternal role that his wife (dame) had