An Analysis Of Washington Irving's Rip Van Winkle

Taking a couple of extra hours on the morning of your days to sleep in is what a lot of people look forward to after bustling week at everyday life. On the other hand sleeping for twenty years without waking up a single time is a whole different reality. In Washington Irving’s mythological story “Rip Van Winkle”, the title of the story / character falls into a deep and long sleep lasting for twenty years. After that twenty years and when Rip wakes up, the fashion, the government, and the architecture of the village have all changed. Washington Irving’s creates a humorous and magical experience in Rip Van Winkle that takes the reader through a world of exaggerated characters, mysterious events and breathtaking settings that the reader can compare
The story is set amidst the Catskill Mountains when America was “under Great Britain ruling.” Irving describes the mountains as “wild, lonely, and shagged.” This description conveys a land that is impressively free and undisturbed to the reader. The fact that Rip is able to “overlook all the lower country for many a mile of rich woodland” allows the reader to positively envision a place in time that hasn't been tainted by settlers, pollution of the city, and other outside factors. Irving writes about several unexplained events such as Rip “heard a voice from a distance hallowing “Rip van Winkle! Rip Van Winkle! As Rip looked around “but could see nothing but a crow winging its solitary flight across the mountain”. However, the rugged land is not the only aspect of the setting that renders enchantment. The Old Dutch village, with its “lattice windows” and “gable fronts surmounted with weathercocks,” also presents a place filled with charm. It yields a sense of quaintness and hospitality. The setting establishes a land that is widely unexplored and, for the most part, uninhibited. Irving also describes the moment when Rip walks through the village he knows so well not recognizing anyone and when the village people saw him they stared and “invariably stroked their
Winkle falling into a deep sleep of twenty years is unimaginable. As Winkle wakes up dreading his trip back home to his “nagging wife,” Irving also describes the moment when Rip walks through the village he knows so well not recognizing anyone a “larger and more populous” village, a vacant home, a dead wife, and a nation that is no longer under Britain's rule and when the village people saw him they stared and “invariably stroked their chins”. Washington writes that Rip Van Winkle, “At the constant recurrence of this gesture, induced to Rips, astonishment he found his beard had grown a foot long”. As the reader follows Rip through the story there is a sense of wonder and fear that makes a person think that the world would always go on even without them.

Washington Irving's “Rip Van Winkle” is definitely a magical and humorous story is an American treasure that will be shared from generation to generation. The mythological characteristics combined with the theatrical characters form “Rip Van Winkle” that pedestal among American mythologies. Incorporating all of these mythological characteristics, breathtaking settings, and mysterious events in “Rip Van Winkle.” Washington Irving produces a story that will forever change readers and the ability to welcome each other back in one’s life no matter how long someone has been away or in this case of