Compare and Contrast
Late 1700s: Husbands and wives divide up labor according to a strict system. Men are responsible for farm work and handling money and business; women run the house, the children, and the garden.
Today: Husbands and wives are more likely to divide up responsibilities according to the talents of each person, although women are still primarily responsible for house cleaning and child care.
Late 1700s: Laws would make it difficult, if not impossible, for Dame Van Winkle to divorce her husband and remarry, even after being abandoned for twenty years.
Today: A woman in Dame Van Winkle's position would be able to divorce her husband after being abandoned and would be able to find a new partner to help her maintain the farm.
Late 1770s: Irving's hometown, New York City, is a major metropolitan center with a population of 80,000. The population of the United States is under 7 million.
Today: The population of New York City alone is over 7 million.
Media Adaptations
Three excellent unabridged readings of ‘‘Rip Van Winkle'' are available on audiocassette or compact disc. In each case, ‘‘Rip Van Winkle’’ is paired with "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.'' A reading by Jim Beach was recorded in 1990 by Blackstone Books. James Hamilton reads the two stories on the 1993 Recorded Books, LLC, recording. And a reading by George Vafiadis was recorded in 2000 by Sound Room Publishers.
Tales of Washington Irving (1987) is a videocassette release of animated films made in 1970. Distributed by MGM/UA Home Video, the 48-minute tape includes ‘‘Rip Van Winkle’’ and ‘‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,’’ and features the voices of Mel Blanc and other familiar stars.
A children's video version, based on Irving's story, Rip Van Winkle, was produced in 1997 by Rabbit Ears Productions. It is narrated by Angelica Huston and features original music by Jay Ungar and Molly Mason.
Historical Context
Becoming a Nation
Washington Irving was born in 1783, the year that the American Revolution was formally ended by the Treaty of Paris. His parents had been born in England but Irving was among the first generation of people to know from birth that they were not British subjects, but Americans. The nation was still new, and in many ways unformed. It was not yet clear what the Revolution meant and how the new country would be different from the old colonies. Irving wrestled with this question in ‘‘Rip Van Winkle,’’ by having his characters hotly debate political change on election day.
Before the turn of the century, men and women of society wore elaborate powdered wigs and fussy clothing reminiscent of that seen in the French court. Now the common man was the ideal, and the idea that the nation would be ruled by a wealthy aristocratic class was giving way to a more egalitarian sense of rule ‘‘by the people,’’ or rule by all of the white men, regardless of social class. Two political parties, Federalist and Democratic-Republican, were formed in 1792, and scenes like the one Rip finds when he returns to his village, of a ‘‘crowd of folk’’ arguing and ready to riot on election day, became common throughout the land. The transition to egalitarian rule was a bumpy one. Issues like the ‘‘rights of citizens,’’ including property rights, were hot topics, and debate was often characterized by ignorance and anger.
One question that was little addressed when ‘‘Rip Van Winkle’’ was published in 1819 was the matter of where the Native Americans should live. Native Americans had been routinely removed from their lands as the new nation pushed westward, and in 1830 an act of Congress established the Oklahoma Indian Territory, to which...
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thousands were forcibly moved. The proper role for Native Americans in the new America became increasingly a subject for debate. In 1848, Irving added a ‘‘postscript’’ to the end of ‘‘Rip Van Winkle,’’ after the ‘‘Note.’’ The added section, which is omitted from many editions of the story today, describes several Native American traditional stories about ghosts and spirits in the Catskill region, a reinforcement of the sense of ancient mystery that Irving tried to capture in the story.
The New American Literature
‘‘Rip Van Winkle’’ was created during a period when America demanded a new type of literature to represent its vision of itself. At the end of the eighteenth century, the writing coming out of the colonies and the new nation tended toward schoolbooks and sermons and historical essays, developing ideas that had come out of Europe. There was little to distinguish American writing from British. A small collection of plays—most of them bad, and none of them still performed—had featured American characters, but readers who wanted fiction had to import novels from England. Now the new nation wanted to look forward, to create American ideas and American models for future generations to look to.
One of the most striking things about The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. for readers today is how European it is. Most of the thirty or so sketches and stories are about English characters in English settings. Some of the plots, including the plot of ‘‘Rip Van Winkle,’’ are borrowed from German folk tales. But readers of The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. in the 1820s marveled at two things: a few of the stories, including ‘‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,’’ were set in the United States; and the writing itself was stronger and more interesting than anything else available at the time. The stories set in America were filled with romantic descriptions of beautiful and powerful American landscapes, and celebrated the desire to escape from society and return to the wilderness that soon became a characteristic American theme.
Irving became a model for writers on both sides of the Atlantic for the next fifty years. One group of satirists in New York during the first half of the nineteenth century called themselves the ‘‘Knickerbocker Group’’ in tribute to Irving. They are almost forgotten today, but Irving’s humor and his writing style also influenced generations of major writers including Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville, and Mark Twain. But in trying to use European material and transplant it to American settings, Irving had no models himself.