Rip Van Winkle (Cyclopedia of Literary Characters)
At a glance:
- Author: Washington Irving
- First Published: 1819
- Type of Work: Short fiction
- Type of Plot: Fantasy
- Time of Work: Eighteenth century
- Setting: The Catskills, New York
- Genres: Short fiction, Regional fiction, Folklore, Fantasy, Tall tale
- Subjects: Husbands, New York, North America or North Americans, Northeast, U.S., United States or Americans, Wives, Philosophy or philosophers, Magic or magicians, Marriage, Villages, Time travel, Eighteenth century, Storytelling, Adultery, Fantasy, Drinking or drunkenness, Fairy tales, Sleep
- Locales: Catskills, NY
Characters Discussed
Rip Van Winkle, a figure based on a character from a German folktale. His name is still used to refer to anyone who is content to sleep his life away or who spends much of his time in sleepy idleness. As a character, he is not so much an as-if-real person as he is the embodiment of a common human desire—to sleep through all the trials and tribulations of adulthood and thus to move painlessly from childhood to the second childhood of old age. Diedrich Knickerbocker describes Rip as a simple, good-natured man who is a kind and considerate neighbor. Although...
[The entire page is 793 words long]
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