“Rip Van Winkle” is a short story written by Washington Irving in 1819. The story first appeared in The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent and again in the revised Sketch Book in 1863. This story along with “Sleepy Hollow” became two of Irving’s most famous American Short Stories.
The story of “Rip Van Winkle” is about a very laid back man. He likes to do things on his own time and does not like work hard. Rip’s wife Dame Van Winkle is always nagging on him so he enjoys getting away as much as possible. One of his favorite things to do is hike the Catskills with his dog Wolf and his gun.
This one particular day Rip finds a nice tree and settles for a nap while he in the mountains. When he awakes he hears a man in need of help so he helps him carry his load. The man takes Rip to an area that appears to be an amphitheater where men are playing ninepin. The man offers him a drink from his keg and Rip eventually falls asleep again.
When he awakes the second time he is confused because the sun is coming up and Wolf is nowhere to be found. When he goes to grab his gun he notices it is rusty and not the same as the gun he came to the mountains with. He assumes one of the men from the night before had gotten him drunk and stole his dog and gun. So he set off to find them.
The mountains appeared changed and where the theater once was now rock cliffs. He says, “These mountain beds do not agree with me,” while he was walking. After searching for quite some time with no luck and “a heart full of trouble and anxiety,(he) turned his steps homeward.” When he arrives to his village everything appears changed. It is not until a young woman with a child realizes he is her father who has been missing twenty years that he truly understands the length of his time in the Catskills. The young girl says, “it’s twenty years since he went away from home with his gun, and never has been heard of since—his dog came home without him; but whether he shot himself, or was carried away by the Indians, nobody can tell. I was then but a little girl.”
Rip then lives the rest of his life with his daughter where he was able to return to his old ways. He lived a happy life because to him, “he had got his neck out of the yoke of matrimony, and could go in and out whenever he pleased, without dreading the tyranny of Dame Van Winkle.” He told his story to all people passing through the village whether they believed it or not he was passing on his story.
Rip Van Winkle is told in third-person omniscient point of view. This is a very good choice for this story because the narrator is not one of the characters of the story. The narrator does however, comment on the other characters like, Dame Van Winkle, Rip’s daughter, and the man in the woods. This helps the reader better understand the protagonist, Rip, and his surroundings.
There are different interpretations of the main theme of this short story. One theme is life will go on with or with you. Some things may change but there are many things that will always be. For example Rip states when he reenters the village after his time in the Catskills he comments the dress of the people he saw and said it “was of a different fashion from that to which he was accustomed.” He also commented on the houses saying, “The village was altered; it was larger and more populous.” This shows how there are simple things that have changed but many things were the same. The Catskills still overlooked the Hudson River. The people also still knew of Rip Van Winkle, however the time had passed and the society had changed.
Another theme that can be acquired through the reading of “Rip Van Winkle” is the mind can be a very powerful tool. People’s imagination can cause them to doubt their beliefs. When people heard the story of “Rip Van Winkle”, “some always pretended to doubt the reality of it, and insisted that Rip had been out of his hear, and that this was one point ton which he always remained flighty. The old Dutch inhabitants, however, almost always gave it full credit.” Even to this day the Hudson Valley in the Catskill Mountains remain as the true birthplace of Rip Van Winkle.
Another theme that can be connected to this story is to live each day to the fullest because you may wake up and wonder where your life has gone. We see how Rip lives his days as a child would. He is not a hard worker although he likes to have fun. He does not deal well with responsibilities and does not work. He also escapes his daily routine by hunting in the Catskills. This is Rip’s escape from his wife, Dame Van Winkle and the responsibilities. By escaping he finds himself aged and twenty years older wondering where his life has gone.
As a writer Irving uses a great deal of imagery. This is shown tremendously throughout “Rip Van Winkle”. The story is set among the Catskill Mountains in New York. This is the setting of many American folklores, many of which stem down from Indian fables. Irving describes the Catskills in the beginning of the story and speaks of their “magical hues and shapes”. This automatically allows the reader to connect magic and superstition to the story. The setting is significant because of the many mysteries the reader can draw from the Catskills.
There is also a portion that takes place in Rip’s village. We picture it as a place filled with children who are always, “hanging on his (Rip’s) skirts, clambering on his back, and playing a thousand tricks on him with impunity.” He is also adored by not only his dog Wolf but, “not a dog would bark at him throughout the neighborhood.” The same loving picture is not painted for the reader when he hears about his home and wife. Since Rip would rather “starve on a penny than work for a pound” his home was “the worst-conditioned farm in the neighborhood.”
When it comes to Rip’s wife Dame Van Winkle she grew worse towards Rip with each passing year. The story says, “as years of matrimony rolled on; a tart temper never mellows with age, and a sharp tongue is the only edged tool that grows keener with constant use.” This helps paint a picture in the reader’s mind about who Dame Van winkle was and how she acted towards Rip.
Imagery is also used when Rip meets the man in the wood. The man is described to us as “a short, square-built fellow, with thick bushy hair, and a grizzled beard. His dress was of the antique Dutch fashion—a cloth jerkin strapped round the waist —several pairs of breeches, the outer one of ample volume, decorated with rows of buttons down the sides and bunches at the knees.” Irving is able to paint a clear picture in the readers’ mind of how the man looks.
Overall this is a masterpiece in terms of what a short story should be. This is what attributes to the ability of this story still being told as a fable. If you have never read this short story I would highly recommend it. I also want you to think if you lived in the village when Rip came home do you think you would have believed him?