What was Rip Van Winkle's age at death?
The story ends without telling us how old Rip Van Winkle is when he dies. However, we know Rip must be at least in his late forties or early fifties when he returns to his village after twenty years.
Rip disappears as a relatively young man. He has a wife,...
Unlock This Answer Now
Start your 48-hour free trial and get ahead in class. Boost your grades with access to expert answers and top-tier study guides. Thousands of students are already mastering their assignments—don't miss out. Cancel anytime.
Already a member? Log in here.
a farm, and small children. He does not provide well for them monetarily, but he is a beloved fixture of his village. Then, meeting the spirits of Hendrick Hudson and his crew bowling in the Catskills Mountains, he drinks their enchanted beer and sleeps for twenty years.
When he reappears in his village, Rip meets his adult children: a son who resembles his younger self and a competent, hardworking daughter who is married. She invites him to live with her in her "snug" house, where she takes care of him. While Rip's daughter calls him an "old man" before she recognizes him, and the text refers to him as an "old fellow," Rip's actual age at this point remains unclear.
We don't learn about Rip's death, because that part of his story is unimportant. What are important are the twenty years he was asleep, with all the momentous changes that took place, such as the birth of the United States as a vigorous new nation. As the story says, Rip creates a stir for a short time when he reappears after his long hiatus, but in general, the country has moved on. Rip survives as a quaint relic of a bygone era.
How did Rip Van Winkle die?
Washington Irving doesn't specify how Rip dies, but presumably, he dies in his village, attended by his daughter and son and surrounded by villagers who venerate him. In a postscript, Knickerbocker (the fictitious collector of these tales) says that he has met Rip himself and that although Rip was very old, his reasoning seemed to be intact and his story must be true.
However, it might be argued that in a way, Rip never actually dies. Rip is a person who exists outside of time. His twenty-year nap, during which the country is politically transformed, does little to change Rip's personality. He remains a good-hearted, though idle, villager. The steadfastness of his character endures, even if his old friends do not. When he returns to the village after so many years and is quizzed on his politics, none of that makes any sense to Rip, who never really thought about politics or governance even before his enchanted sleep; all he knows is his village, and all he requires is an audience for his tale.
In this sense, Rip has achieved a kind of immortality. He has become one of the legends of the Catskills, along with Henry Hudson and the Manitou. No matter how Rip dies, it appears that in one sense, he lives on forever through his legend.