Rip Van Winkle

It is important to define what some of the elements of romanticism are so that we can properly analyze this work. Romanticism was fascinated with the beauty and mystery of nature while also...

After Rip Van Winkle's strange ordeal with the men playing nine-pins on the mountain, he falls into a deep, drunken slumber. Upon waking, he is concerned that he may have slept on the mountain all...

The major supernatural event in "Rip Van Winkle" is Rip's falling asleep for twenty years. We are prepared for this when Rip, on one of his rambles, meets mysterious people in a secluded section of...

The opening paragraphs about Rip give several adjectives that you could use to describe him. He is a simple man who doesn't need much. He is good-natured and gets along with just about everybody,...

Rip Van Winkle sleeps for twenty years in imitation of the old German legend of "Peter Klaus," upon which it is based; also, his somnolence for these two decades allows him to sleep through the...

The story takes place in the Catskill Mountains in New York, west of the Hudson river. The author describes the mountains as follows: They are a dismembered branch of the great Appalachian family,...

The opening paragraph reveals a romantic, though not uncritical, fascination with nature: the Catskill mountains are described as "noble" and "magical." These are called "fairy mountains." We...

A satire pokes fun at a problem to make a social comment, often through using exaggeration. In "Rip Van Winkle," Irving uses the character of Rip to satirize the lackadaisical, apathetic ways of...

Rip van Winkle is a humorous cautionary tale. I may have a slightly different take. I think it is about wasting away your life, and letting the world pass you by. So many people just go about...

"Rip van Winkle" is a story that highlights the rapid social changes brought about by the American Revolution. One symbol of that is the quiet inn that turns into the bustling Yankee hotel. Before...

Washington Irving's "Rip van Winkle" has become a story that represents the Early American literary voice. One of the goals of Irving was to give the new country of the United States, some of the...

Irving uses verbal irony in the story. Verbal irony occurs when a statement means the opposite of what it literally states. Irving pokes fun at the do-nothing men who sit in front of the inn,...

At the start of Irving's story, Rip Van Winkle is an easygoing fellow who likes to help people but is a failure at doing anything for himself. He enjoys going to his small tavern and telling...

Rip at first wonders, when he comes home from having been asleep for twenty years, if he is "bewitched." He believes he has been gone only one night, but everything around him seems changed. He...

When Rip returns after twenty years and mentions that he was asleep, the townspeople begin to look at each other, winking and tapping their foreheads, indicating that they think Rip has gone crazy....

There are a number of different important messages in Rip Van Winkle, but many critics have focused on, and debated over, Washington's point about the political, social, and cultural change that...

Romanticism was a reaction against what the Romantic writers saw as the excessive rationalism of the Augustan or Neoclassic Age of eighteenth century literature. The Romantics sought to tell...

The narrator says twice in the opening that Rip is good natured and that this earns him "universal popularity." He is easy going, he lives in the moment, and he likes people. He is always ready to...

Rip himself has an old-fashioned concept of the American dream, one that predates the founding of the United States. His personal dream is of freedom from responsibility, what would later be...

Washington Irving's short story "Rip Van Winkle" tells the story of the titular character, who while beloved by his neighbors, children, and animals, is made miserable by his wife. When hunting...

The fictional Sir Geoffrey Crayon, narrator, and Diedrich Knickerbocker, Irving's fictional Dutch-American historian, serve as the framers of the tales and essays of The Sketchbook as Irving...

One similarity between "Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" is the setting; each takes place in an American Dutch enclave in upstate New York. Both utilize the peaceful, pastoral...

The answer to your question comes in the 1st line of the 5th paragraph: The great error in Rip's composition was an insuperable aversion to all kinds of profitable labor. Having an "aversion" to...

There is definitely a quality by which Rip Van Winkle's married life represents a domestic struggle. As a character, Rip is defined largely in terms of his laziness (much to the annoyance of his...

Some of the most vivid description in the story is of these mysterious people. Rip meets these men in an amphitheater deep in the Catskills. They are wearing "quaint" old-fashioned Dutch clothing:...

The message or moral presented in "Rip Van Winkle" is that if you don't work while you are young and don't make something of yourself, you will wake up one day and find that you have grown old, you...

Rip is the complete antithesis to the self-made Benjamin Franklin. While Franklin is an ambitious go-getter who starts his own newspaper and is active and involved in politics, Rip is a...

There are several ways in which ‘Rip Van Winkle’ can be accounted a romantic tale. In literature, the word ‘romantic’ can be used, in the broadest sense, to refer to any story or poem which deals...

The story is told from a third-person point-of-view by the fictive "historian" of the old Dutch in America, Diedrich Knickerbocker, but let's look a bit deeper at Irving's technique. If we imagine...

There is clearly a Romantic tone to Washington Irving's declared "folk tale," "Rip van Winkle." The description of the natural setting personified in imagery and other figurative language...

Washington Irving is having fun with his audience by telling his audience that the story of Rip Van Winkle by creating several layers of doubt as to the “unquestionable authority” of the story....

When Rip Van Winkle goes on "a long ramble . . . on a fine autumnal day," he inadvertently finds himself in one of the highest parts of the Catskill Mountains in what is nowadays southeastern New...

Irving doesn't provide much physical description of Rip, focusing instead on his character, which is happy-go-lucky, beloved of children, and lazy. We know the young Rip is strong enough to carry...

Rip Van Winkle himself represents a peculiarly American stereotype—that of the (usually) male figure trying to wriggle out from under the domesticating female grasp. Dame Van Winkle might well be...

Rip Van Winkle provides a window to the American Revolution from the vantage of a Dutch burger in the Catskill mountains. What changed in Rip's world was the sovereign authority to whom the locals...

Wolf is the name of Rip Van Winkle's dog. In many ways, I'd suggest that Wolf represents Winkle's life back in the colonial era, lost forever after his long sleep, and the changes that have...

Washington Irving sought to give his tales some of the traditional sense of the old German folk tales. Here are examples of different tones that Irving employs in "Rip van Winkle": A lyrical...

While Rip van Winkle is sleeping, the American Revolution occurs. This revolutionary war took place from 1765-1783, so when Rip awakens the war has been over for two years. This American War of...

It would be hard to find a character more unlike Benjamin Franklin than Rip Van Winkle. Benjamin Franklin exemplifies the spirit of thrift, hard-work, and "can-do" pragmatism. Rip, in contrast, is...

In this scene, Rip has made it to one of the highest and loneliest parts of the Catskills. It is close to evening and as Rip looks down into the mountain glen, he hears a voice calling his name....

The narrator describes how Dame Van Winkle would respond to one of Rip's shrugs. This provokes a "fresh volley" from his wife. "Volley" can mean to kick or hit a ball (as in tennis or volleyball)...

Although Benjamin Franklin did not himself claim to be a self-made man, the term was frequently applied to him in the nineteenth century, most notably in speeches by Henry Clay and Frederick...

Very early in the story, the narrator describes Dame Van Winkle as a "termagant wife." She is constantly nagging Rip about his laziness and his "aversion to all types of profitable labor." She is...

Rip Van Winkle was highly admired for his kindness, his generosity, and his helpfulness by local townspeople; however, his wife judged him to be lazy. He willingly spent his time helping others but...

The most important change, and the one Irving wishes to emphasize through the allegorical character of Rip's wife, is the social-cultural change from a patriarchial society and culture to one of...

Note how, as you move beyond this story's introductory section, it actually opens with a literary picture of the Catskills. From there, it transitions to the village before finally introducing the...

The device of framing the story of "Rip Van Winkle" by Washington Irving and the fact that we have to suspend our disbelief as we read it both stem from the fact that it is a fantasy or tall tale...

Certainly, it is easy to reach the conclusion that Dame Van Winkle represents England, or at least colonial rule. His wife is domineering, nagging, and never tires of telling Rip how inept and lazy...

When Rip Van Winkle awakens from his 20 years of sleep, the world around him is remarkably changed. In that short time, the country went through the American Revolution and declared its...

One of the main conflicts in "Rip Van Winkle" is the tension in the marriage between Rip and Dame Van Winkle. The two characters have such different personalities and their lack of compatibility is...