Through the character of Rip Van Winkle, Washington Irving satirizes an apathetic, happy-go-lucky person who would rather not work too hard and who blames his troubles on outside circumstances. For example, although it is clear that Rip would rather go fishing or hunting (or pretend to) than work on his farm, he doesn't see its dilapidated condition as due to his own neglect. Instead, Irving pokes fun at Rip's mindset as follows:

weeds were sure to grow quicker in his fields than anywhere else; the rain always made a point of setting in just as he had some outdoor work to do ...

The story also satirizes how Rip reacts to what his wife has to tell him. Rather than take seriously her understandable desire that he work harder to provide for his family, he sees her as a scolding fury (a "termagant") and himself as a henpecked victim. We are told he must

console himself, when driven from home, by frequenting a kind of perpetual club of the sages, philosophers, and other idle personages of the villages.

Obviously, the narrator is being satiric when he calls these idlers "sages" and "philosophers" when all they do is gossip and discuss months-old news. Further, rather than needing to "console" himself by doing nothing, Rip needs to apply himself to some labor.

After Rip returns from twenty years asleep, he is in no way reformed. The story here satirizes the way he is, however, now treated as a wise elder. The older, but still clueless Rip:

was reverenced as one of the patriarchs of the village.