of the martial character of his ancestors.

This description notes that the traits of courage and energy the Van Winkles once had now have run out or become depleted. Rip doesn’t bother to stand up to his tyrannical wife or take care of his farm, instead justifying his laziness:

In fact, he declared it was of no use to work on his farm; it was the most pestilent little piece of ground in the whole country; everything about it went wrong, and would go wrong, in spite of him.

Instead of working, Rip idles his days away at a tavern:

For a long while he used to console himself, when driven from home, by frequenting a kind of perpetual club of the sages, philosophers, and other idle personages of the village; which held its sessions on a bench before a small inn, designated by a rubicund portrait of His Majesty George the Third. Here they used to sit in the shade through a long lazy summer's day, talking listlessly over village gossip, or telling endless sleepy stories about nothing.

Note the use of words like perpetual, idle, rubicund, lazy, listlessly, sleepy, all of which give the narrative a heavy, almost moribund feeling. Van Winkle is already asleep at the mental and emotional level; his subsequent physical sleep is the natural progression from that state.

Rip’s only exercise is to go into the mountains to hunt small game like squirrels (and even that tires him out). When he encounters the strange men playing nine-pins and drinking from flagons, he reacts with fear and doesn’t inquire about their identity. Nonetheless, he surreptitiously takes a drink from the flagon.

After his sleep, Rip wakes up to find a puzzling sight:

Instead of the great tree that used to shelter the quiet little Dutch inn of yore, there now was reared a tall naked pole, with something on the top that looked like a red night-cap, and from it was fluttering a flag, on which was a singular assemblage of stars and stripes—all this was strange and incomprehensible.

The flag of the now independent republic of the United States symbolizes what Rip is not: a nation of brave, determined people who sacrificed their comfortable lives to achieve freedom through the leadership of General Washington.

Rip is now a symbol of “yore,” the colonial past. At first he can only stare at these people with “vacant stupidity.” His daughter and elderly resident Peter Vanderdonk then identify him and Rip also catches a glimpse of his son:

As to Rip's son and heir, who was the ditto of himself, seen leaning against the tree, he was employed to work on the farm; but evinced an hereditary disposition to attend to any thing else but his business.

This description underscores the previous description that, although his daughter has done well enough for herself, laziness seems to be heredity among the Van Winkle men. And sure enough, Rip returns to his old, indolent ways.

Heroes are people we admire and want to emulate. They have traits we perceive as being desirable, such as courage, integrity, responsibility, honesty, and a moral backbone.

Rip Van Winkle is an example of the American anti-hero in that he represents the "old" ways of the passive colonials. He is lackadaisical, like a colonial subject, henpecked by a wife just as colonial America was henpecked by King George III, and much more apt to sit around in front of the inn discussing old news than doing anything to change his future. He simply bumps along in a happy-go-lucky way and doesn't take much responsibility for his family. We may not hate him, but we wouldn't want to be like him: he is not heroic.

After his twenty years asleep, Rip comes back to a village that is the opposite of him in every way—and quite different from the sleepy, apathetic place it once was. America has fought and won the Revolutionary War, freeing itself from colonial rule. Democracy and freedom have invigorated the people. Rip faces citizens who are full of energy and bursting with initiative. He himself is nothing but an old-fashioned relic of a past time.

Classical literature shows heroes who have qualities of courage, bravery, and morality. As literature progressed, the image of a hero progressed as well. We move from epic heroes, where larger-than-life qualities are celebrated, to more realistic, every-day heroes. Still, though, heroes are seen as people who go beyond what is expected to help, comfort, protect, etc. Heroes are still seen as people that have some sense of morality, though that moral code may not be governed by religion or society as it once was. Anti-heroes go against these traits. We can label Rip van Winkle an anti-hero primarily because of his laziness and passivity. While he is kind and helpful to others, he does not take care of his home or children. He is also not inherently brave to our understanding, an implication made by his missing an entire war while asleep in the mountains. Though we tend to like Rip for his good-natured temperament and his amicability, we do not respect him as a leader nor do we expect valor or bravery from him, making him and anti-hero.