Rip Van Winkle

Rip Van Winkle

The “Rip Van Winkle” was written by Washington Irving. This story is set in the past in a very exciting time, and also in this story there are many strange and remarkable characters, “Rip Van Winkle” features incredible, magical, and mysterious events, and convey a positive message about a nation and its people.

“Rip Van Winkle” is set in a time a little bit before and after the revolutionary war in a pleasant village at the foot of New York’s Catskill Mountains. The story starts before the revolutionary war on a warm day and ends after the revolutionary war in confusion. This affected the story because the revolutionary war was a very bloody and important battle and it surprises the reader that someone can sleep through all of it and not know it even happened.

“Rip Van Winkle” had many strange and remarkable characters. Rip Van Winkle is one of many characters in the story; he is loved by all in the village, especially the kids. He helps anybody who asks for it and gives children toys and tells them stories. However he does not do anything to help his own home or property and his wife, Dame Van Winkle, always nags to him about it. Later into the story Rip walks into the forest to get away from his wife’s nagging and soon discovers that a man dressed in antiquated Dutch clothing, carrying a keg up the mountain, requires Rip's help. After rip helps him in silence he meets a group of other ornately-dressed, silent, bearded men who are playing nine-pins. It turns out that these people are ghosts of Hendrick Hudson's crew! Rip of course did not know this until later in the story. At this point in the story Rip drank some of their wine and fell asleep throughout the revolutionary war.

There are some very mysterious and magical events that happen in “Rip Van Winkle”. Rip helps anybody that needs it, but he refrains from helping himself or his family or land, which caused his wife to always nag at him for not doing things, so this led to Rip wandering into the forest with his dog, Wolf, and his gun. While he was walking he heard somebody call his name, a man dressed in antiquated Dutch clothing, carrying a keg up the mountain, required Rip's help. After rip helps him in silence he meets a group of other ornately-dressed, silent, bearded men who are playing nine-pins. Rip doesn’t say anything and drinks some of the wine from the keg, and then he goes to sleep and when he wakes up, his dog is gone, his gun is rusted, and he has a very long beard. It turns out that he has slept for 20 years! And those people are ghosts of Hendrick Hudson’s crew! Wouldn’t it be mysterious and magical if you fell asleep for 20 years and didn’t even know?

Washington Irving was a romanticism poet and saw the woods as mystical, full of the supernatural things and magic. And in this story, that was just what Rip needed to live a life free of his nagging wife. This is the story's message, sometimes we must escape the harshness of our lives and to do so, the countryside is always welcoming.