“Rip Van Winkle”

Washington Irving

Possible Themes:

• Loss and discovery of identity; the identity crisis as a staple of American literature.
• The work ethic—how much does the new country depend on it?
• How much true change has resulted from the Revolution:
• King George and George Washington
• The confusion of most colonists, for whom the Revolution did seem to happen “overnight.”
• How long will it take to understand the true significance of the Revolution?
• The new country is like Rip—uncertain, confused, doubted, accused of being crazy. But eventually it earns the respect of others and a certain amount of confidence and authority.
• The impermanence of identity in the New World.
• Rip becomes the town storyteller. America needs to tell its own story now.
• Rip is no longer just a crazy drunk—now he has a role and a place. America needs to create a role and a place for itself.
• The American Dream (before that term was coined) and the American Dreamer as a staple of American life and culture.

Rip as an American Type:

• A simple, good-natured guy; an obedient, hen-pecked husband.
• A loser that we like to see “win.”
• Not exactly thrilled about work.
• An anti-model to the American ideal proposed by Benjamin Franklin (“a penny saved is a penny earned”; “early to bed and early to rise…”). Rip would rather “starve on a penny than work for a pound.”
• Franklin wrote of the great luck of being American. Irving is one of the first to explore the difficulties and anxieties of being American.

Dame Van Winkle—Another American Type:

• Rip’s wife is Irving’s invention; there’s no counterpart to her character in the German legend on which this story is based.
• She is the villain. The real “victory” in the story is Rip’s ability to escape her and gain independence from her.
• The first in a long line of stories about American men escaping women and civilization by retreating to the wilderness.
• Men—have a simple, good nature; free spirits; creative
• Women—represent everything that inhibits these characteristics of men
• The “American Dream” as a world with a diminished role for women, or a world with no women at all.
• The irony that in the end, Rip is taken in and supported by his daughter.
• Consider the story from Dame Van Winkle’s perspective…