Essay on Rip Van Winkle

Rip Van Winkle and Young Goodman Brown: A story of runaway husbands and there similarities and differences.

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

This contrast is easily revealed in the following sentence: "the wind tolled like a distant church-bell, and sometimes gave a broad roar around the traveler, as if all Nature were laughing him to scorn" (Hawthorne 1204). Whereas the wind affectionately "plays" with Faith's pink ribbons, it noisily taunts Young Goodman Brown. Also, as Nina Baym suggests, both the wind and the pink ribbons may, in fact, provide "concrete symbols that link the saving power of the woman with her body and through her body to Nature" (138). Hawthorne visually enhances the ambiguity surrounding Faith's dual role in nature through his repetitive and symbolic use of the pink ribbons. There is deceit and uncertainty in the very color pink that exists somewhere between the extremes of white, representing grace and purity, and red, symbolizing fiery passion and sin. However, Young Goodman Brown, in his naïve belief of moral absolutes, is unable to decide upon the essentially complex double meaning that may be behind the very being of Faith's character. As a result, he sees Faith gracefully adorned with her pink ribbons, as the essence of angelic purity.

Young Goodman Brown's wife, Faith, is also an important symbol in this story. Her name alone implies that she is a symbol for goodness and the Christian life that Young Goodman Brown leaves behind when he departs on his journey. In the story, it says that she calls out to him and he turns his back on her, which can either be taken literally or in the sense of one turning his back on God and Christian life, because he heads for the woods, an implication of sin and witchcraft. In her hair, Faith wears pink ribbons, which are a sign of her innocence and playfulness. When Goodman Brown sees her pink ribbons in her hair, he is aware of her innocence, so when he finds a pink ribbon belonging to her clinging to a tree branch in the woods, he doubts the faith of her and of all those around him.

Nathaniel Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown illustrates vividly how society and culture can very much influence a person's sense of identity and belonging, or in the case of Young Goodman Brown the lack thereof. Being a Puritan man in a society that scorned the ways of witches and the devil, Young Goodman Brown grew up with a very pious outlook on life. Yet when it occurs to him to look at life a little bit differently, Young Goodman Brown receives more than he has bargained for. The journey he embarks on sheds a whole new light on his society that not only creates a struggle between himself and his fellow men but also one within himself.

As Brown is witnessing the evils that surround him, he tries to save himself and prays. As he is praying he begins to hear voices from the sky, as is they were coming from religious godly figures, such as his wife Faith. He then sees the pink ribbon that she wears in her hair on the ground. This causes Brown a great deal of despair because it could mean that Faith is also going into the forest to practice evil things.

Of the many symbols he uses in this story, each has a profound meaning. They represent good and evil in the constant struggle of a young innocent man whose faith is being tested. As the story begins, Young Goodman Brown bids farewell to his young wife "Faith, as [she] was aptly named" (211). When she " ...thrust her own pretty head into the street, letting the wind play with the pink ribbons of her cap" we associate

Almost as soon as the grand setting is told, the designation of the story itself, the character Rip Van Winkle, is introduced. He is depicted ideally as well, said to be simple and widely liked, and most importantly good natured. Without hesitation, it is stated that he is a descendant of a family who played a more than respectable role in the history that helped to capture and establish the land that is now his mountainous village. He is recognized as more than the average citizen already, perhaps one of great influence, not unlike the nature itself. "He was, moreover, a kind neighbor and an obedient henpecked husband. Indeed, to the latter circumstance might be owing that meekness of spirit which gained him such universal popularity," (Irving 702). Despite this constant distressing of his spouse, made eminent in the opening pages, Rip was able to ignore the chronic squabbling and seek elsewhere for loyal friendships, which in turn, boosted his regard. After some time, however, the nagging became overbearing, and he was forced to flee to the highest peak of the mountains where he would be surrounded by nature, and thus was at ease with himself. However, Irving introduces a twist; the nature of the mountains cast a magical command upon Rip and forced him into a sound sleep for twenty years. When he awoke Rip found himself an old man in a place that was, at first,

According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary similarity is defined as a quality that makes one person or thing like another. ("Merriam-Webster") Many people tend to believe that diversification is what makes life interesting, this is true; however, humans are genetically inclined to remain with what they are familiar with. Humans are generally creatures of habit, they will continue going to the same coffee shop, order the exact same coffee, every single time they visit: the similar elements bring them comfort. Authors are no different than the average person: they will only write about what they are familiar with. In the Devil and Tom Walker and Rip Van Winkle, we see that the author Washington Irving uses similarities in setting, male protagonists, female antagonists, and mystic characters.

A central theme in Hawthorne's novel is that everyone is corruptible, and many of the things like the pink ribbon that once represented goodness to Young Goodman Brown were illusory. The next clue in the decryption of these ribbons comes when the devil is trying to convince Mr. Brown to come to the ceremony and he sees something fall from the sky. “The young man seized it, and beheld a pink ribbon. ‘My Faith is gone!’ cried he, after one stupefied moment,” (320). This perfectly signifies how Goodman Brown interprets the loss of the ribbons as the same as the loss of his virtue. Goodman Brown loses his idealistic Faith when he becomes certain she has been tempted by the devil. The falling of the ribbon from the sky is a symbol of the falling of Lucifer from heaven or Adam and Eve’s fall from Eden. The once representation of purity, Faith, falls from grace in Goodman Brown’s eyes similarly to how Lucifer the angel did when he challenged God. The final quote needed to cement the pink ribbons as symbolism in the chronology of the story is found on the last page. “Turning the corner by the meeting-house, he spied the head of Faith, with the pink ribbons, gazing anxiously forth, and bursting into such joy at sight of him”(323). This final mention of this pink ribbon gives some insight into the resolution of this ambiguous

The pink ribbons worn by Faith symbolized the innocence of Goodman Brown’s faith. Pink is associated with being sweet, playful, and child like. It is when Goodman Brown sees the ribbons floating down from heaven that he knows he has lost his faith and that innocence has been tainted with evil. The staff symbolizes a type of deception of sin. The devil twice offers his staff to man. Once to Goodman Brown and then to Goody Cloyse. The devil deceives by offering his staff as a source of comfort an object to lean upon when Brown and Cloyse are tired and weary. Sometimes in life it is much easier to lean on the evil and take the path of least resistance rather than stand up for what is right and what we believe in. The forest is a classic symbol used in many stories. The forest is seen as dark, deceiving and a way to get lost. In “Young Goodman Brown” the deeper Brown gets into the forest the more lost he becomes. He is separated from his faith and all he knows as good. The “hanging twig and the coldest dew” is one of my favorite symbols used in this story. This whole scene is full of imagery with the cold damp rock and the feeling of hopelessness in the air. The twig with the cold dew on it is what awakens Brown from his dream or vision. This is what makes him face the reality of

Hawthorns pessimistic view on the world and people is expressed in “Young Goodman Brown” by the symbol of faiths pink ribbon. Goodman Brown ventures into the forest by himself and

The character of Rip Van Winkle was one who was considered lazy and unproductive. He was "one of the happy mortals...who take the world easy, eat white bread or brown, which ever he can be got with least thought or trouble..." (Irving 983). Winkle was the kind of

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.