Rip Van Winkle by Washington Irving

Daniely Modesto
Engl 48A
Week 5

Washington Irving
Rip Van Winkle


“Rip Van Winkle, however, was one of those happy mortals, of foolish, well-oiled dispositions, who take the world easy, eat white bread or brown, which even can be got with least thought or trouble, and would rather starve on a penny than work for a pound.”

When I mention the name Washington Irving (1783-1859), chances are audiences either (1) think I’m talking about a basketball player, (2) don’t know who he is, or (3) know generally who he is, but can’t name a thing he’s written.
Yet, two of his most famous stories, “Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and “Rip Van Winkle” — both ripped from a longer work that most readers can’t name – are so ingrained in our American DNA that you can probably summarize the plot of each even if you’ve never read it.

Brian Jay Jones

(I wonder if that is because he was writing using his pseudonym Geoffrey Crayon)

Rip Van Winkle, is described in the story as a man who used to work in odd jobs always helping his neighbors, but did not want to do anything around his own house and farm. He always does what he could “got with least thought or trouble” just like some kids do. His wife is always telling him what to do, and he is tired of listening to her, however he never did anything to change or make her happy.

As usual, he decides to take a nap and he just wakes up after 20 years. As he got up, he was very stiff, his bones did not want to corporate, and he thinks he might have developed rheumatism from sleeping outside in the cold night. When he wakes up, everything is “different” however, somehow familiar. There are strange faces and names in his old hometown that for a second he started to wonder if he is getting crazy, if he is really Rip Van winkle. He finds his house “gone to decay- the roof falling in, the windows shattered and the doors off the hinges” (960). He finds his daughter, his son, and he finds out that his wife died a short time after him. Rip Vim winkle also realize that his friends fought in the war and are all dead now.

The story is very creative an interesting. At first, the reader does not know that he had slept for 20 years, but throughout the description, we can see the difference in the period of the history as Irving describes. Irving describes two different periods of society, American during the English rules and after the revolutionary War.