Rip Van Winkle By Crayon: Poem Analysis
The best cars are those designed to suit a purpose. If the purpose of a vehicle is to haul hay, it would make no sense to build a Mustang GT with over 500 horsepower beneath the hood and no truck bed for the purpose of hauling hay. So it is with literature. Looking at the function of the story and the form it takes can help us understand its content. In 1819, Washington Irving published the first American short story called “A Posthumous Writing of Diedrich Knickerbocker” published in The Sketch Book and Irving used the pen name Geoffrey Crayon but the piece is often referred to as “Rip Van Winkle.” This essay reviews Irving’s “Rip Van Winkle” by first summarizing the plot and then second detailing the relationship between the story’s structure
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The reader is to determine for themselves whether this is truth or tale. In the opening poem, Irving writes “Truth is a thing that ever I will keep.” Knickerbocker had done a history of the New York region and delved into the area’s history to produce “a book of unquestionable authority.” (But Crayon does not address the fact that this story was not included in that book which he says was fact.) Irving describes the Catskills or Kaatskill, as he wrote it, early on in the story. The sense of place he describes as “a dismembered branch of the great Appalachian….” This gives a sense of isolation to the place that swells “up to a noble height, and lording it over the surrounding country.” The author refers to “these fairy mountains” as a place with “magical hues and shapes.” Because of its isolation, the Catskills have little human traffic in them and therefore remain …show more content…
When she told him that her mother had died by blowing a blood vessel over a peddler, relief fell upon Rip. He moved into the happy home of his daughter and Rip had never been as content as he was with his life as he was at this point. But this move also gave his life meaning as the town had new meaning because of the political changes brought by the Revolutionary War. Rip Van Winkle is a story about a sad man living a sad life that takes an interesting turn that changes everything. It expresses the the change Rip went through because of all the time that has past and because he was in a new time. Without his wife and the villagers tagging him with this pre set identity of laziness and little to no worth Rip was able to be happy
The reader is to determine for themselves whether this is truth or tale. In the opening poem, Irving writes “Truth is a thing that ever I will keep.” Knickerbocker had done a history of the New York region and delved into the area’s history to produce “a book of unquestionable authority.” (But Crayon does not address the fact that this story was not included in that book which he says was fact.) Irving describes the Catskills or Kaatskill, as he wrote it, early on in the story. The sense of place he describes as “a dismembered branch of the great Appalachian….” This gives a sense of isolation to the place that swells “up to a noble height, and lording it over the surrounding country.” The author refers to “these fairy mountains” as a place with “magical hues and shapes.” Because of its isolation, the Catskills have little human traffic in them and therefore remain …show more content…
When she told him that her mother had died by blowing a blood vessel over a peddler, relief fell upon Rip. He moved into the happy home of his daughter and Rip had never been as content as he was with his life as he was at this point. But this move also gave his life meaning as the town had new meaning because of the political changes brought by the Revolutionary War. Rip Van Winkle is a story about a sad man living a sad life that takes an interesting turn that changes everything. It expresses the the change Rip went through because of all the time that has past and because he was in a new time. Without his wife and the villagers tagging him with this pre set identity of laziness and little to no worth Rip was able to be happy