Analysis Of Rip Van Winkle

The characters in “Rip Van Winkle” are exaggerated and strange. For the most part, Irving uses Rip Van Winkle & Dame Van Winkle to show exaggeration in the characters. People in their town view Rip Van Winkle as someone who is friendly & loves to help everyone. His wife, Dame Van Winkle, only saw him as being lazy due to Rip not doing much work around his house. Dame Van Winkle spends most of her time in this story criticizing him and Rip just “….shrugged his shoulders, shook his head, cast up his eyes, but said nothing.” To get away from his wife’s nagging, Rip chooses to go up to the Catskill Mountains with his dog. Dame Van Winkle
The mysterious & magical elements in “Rip Van Winkle” come to the forefront when the lead character of this
story, Rip Van Winkle, comes across a strangle little man while in the Catskill Mountains trying to escape his wife’s nagging. Rip sees that the strange man needs help carrying a keg, so he helps him carry it high into the mountains. Once they found a clearing, Rip spotted a small group of more strange men who were also dressed in traditional Dutch attire. The strange men open up the keg & Rip drinks a cup of the magical liquid they offered him. It turns out that the strange men were ghosts of Hendrick Hudson's crew. These strange men largely impacted the story because the magical liquor the strange men gave Rip is what put him into a 20 year slumber. When Rip wakes up, he learns that everything in his world has changed drastically.