Rip Van Winkle essay

Rip Van Winkle was considered a happy, careless, and foolish man who was unconcerned with his own life, but would help help his neighbors who are in need with their daily tasks. He is one to sit on a bench and smoke his pipe incessantly, rather than help out his wife, Dame Van Winkle. One day Rip takes a walk with his dog up into the mountain and comes across some strange people, they offer him a drink, and the next thing Rip knows, he is waking up at the stump of a tree, with his dog nowhere to be found and his gun decomposing, twenty years later. I believe the significance of the nap is to reflect what kind of person Rip Van Winkle is, he is one to just let everything pass by and not care at all.
One mythological characteristic is that the story is set back in the past, usually in remote or exciting places and times. The main thing I noticed was when Rip described the clothing. “...a cloth jerkin strapped round the waist—several pairs of breeches, the outer one of ample volume, decorated with rows of buttons down the sides, and bunches at the knees.” It isn’t very common that you hear the word jerkin. One other thing that the reader may have noticed that they used a sun-dial, which was used in the past. Both of these items show that this story was written in the past. This makes the reader think back, and think of how it would possibly be like to live back then.
The next mythological characteristic is that the story is filled with remarkable, strange, and exaggerated characters. As Rip Van Winkle was walking he came across “...odd–looking personages playing at ninepins. They were dressed in quaint outlandish fashion; some wore short doublets, others jerkins, with long knives in their belts, and most of them had enormous breeches, of similar style with that of the guide's. Their visages, too, were peculiar; one had a large head, broad face, and small piggish eyes; the face of another seemed to consist entirely of nose, and was surmounted by a white sugar–loaf