Rip Van Winkle

Rip Van Winkle Analysis

The exposition of Rip Van Winkle by Washington Irving , introduces a man named Rip Van Winkle and the area around the Catskill mountains before the the Revolutionary War. The rising action begins when Rip goes to the forest, with his dog, to get away from his nagging wife. When he returns to the village, he hears someone calling his name. Rip sees an odd-looking man and follows him to an amphitheater where there are many more strange men drinking and playing ninepins. He joins in the party and is offered some liquor and soon falls into a deep sleep. The climax occurs when Rip Van Winkle wakes up and discovers that his dog is gone and his gun has been “replaced” with a rusty old gun. He believes the strange men have tricked him, but when he goes back to his village, he finds that everything has changed. The falling action commences when he tells his story to a group of people and learns that he has been gone for 20 years, his wife has died, and his old friends have left as well. The resolution begins when he finds his daughter, who is grown up and has her own child. Rip ends up living with his daughter and spends the rest of his time sitting at an inn door telling his story to strangers.
One of the main themes in Rip Van Winkle is change. When Rip comes back from his long sleep, everything changed in his village. “The very village was altered; it was larger and more populous. There were rows of houses which he had never seen before, and those which had been his familiar haunts had disappeared. Strange names were over the doors—strange faces at the windows—everything was strange” (pg. 5). Irving repeats the word “strange” to emphasize the fact that everything looked different to Rip. This shows how Rip felt confused and unaccustomed to how life was after the Revolutionary War, as well as how quickly things can change in twenty years. “Rip’s heart died away at hearing these sad changes in his home and friends, and finding himself thus alone in the world” (pg.5). This description of Rip’s emotions shows how change can negatively affect people. Rip was heartbroken at the loss of his wife and friends, and also felt alone and lost because he couldn’t recognize anyone.
Irving uses personification and similes in his writing to paint a picture in the readers’ mind. “The mountains began to throw their long blue shadows over the valleys” (pg. 4). Irving animates the mountains’ shadows by giving it a human action to create a better image. One could imagine the mountains actually throwing the blue shadows, casting them across the land. Another instance of a vivid description tells how Rip “would sit on a wet rock, with a rod as long and heavy as a Tartar’s lance” (pg. 2). In this passage, Irving compares a fishing rod to a Tartar’s lance to exaggerate a bit on how long and heavy the rod is. This gives the reader a better image of what the rod looked like instead than just saying “a long and heavy rod. ”
He was very helpful to everyone in his village, but was lazy when it came to caring for his own things. “He would never even refuse to assist a neighbor even in the roughest toil, and was a foremost man at all country frolics for husking Indian corn, or building stone-fences” (pg. 2). The narrator shows that Rip was very helpful and kind to others because he would never reject a request for help. Irving uses “even in the roughest toil” to accentuate how Rip would help his neighbors at any cost. Since he was a “foremost man ”, it shows that he did a good job at helping his friends as well. “In a word Rip was ready to attend to anybody’s business but his own” (pg. 2). Rip did not care for his own farm and it ended up being the “worst conditioned farm in the neighborhood” (pg.2). Nevertheless, this quote shows that he was always very selfless and accessible to his neighbors. From this story, I learned more about the world, and specifically more about what life was like before and after the Revolutionary War. This story also showed how much can change in just twenty years. I didn’t really like this story because it was confusing at first and the ending was abrupt, unlike the beginning and middle of the story where it was at a more sluggish pace. Irving did a good job of describing Rip Van Winkle and the Catskill Mountains, but it wasn’t a very interesting story. I would recommend this story to people who like to read short stories about the English colonies because the reader can learn more about what life was like back then.