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Essay about character of rip van winkle
Washington irvings rip van winkle
Message/theme of rip van winkle
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Rip Van Winkle - A Fairy Tale
In the short story "Rip Van Winkle" , Washington Irving tells a story of a man who sleeps through the revolution. This story demonstrates two ways of looking at Revlutionary history, one of myth and one of fact. The mythical representation wins out, through popularity, over the factual representation.
In the story, Rip Van Winkle wanders off to the mountains and runs across some small men who are rolling bowling balls and drinking. Rip witnesses all this and joins them in their drinking until he passes out. When he wakes up, everything has changed the people, the town, and himself. After he tells his story, he becomes very popular among the townspeople, whereas before he was seen as lazy.
The two characters that mainly represent the opposing sides are Rip and the man with the cocked hat. The man in the cocked hat represents the factual representation. Upon Rip's entrance into the town, the man asks him very direct question and expects very direct answers. If someone were to ask the man where he had been for the past twenty years he probably would would have told the story of the revolution and specific battles. He is not interested in tales, only the facts. From his description, "the man with the cocked hat," cocked can also mean leadership. The man was a leader, or at least an authority at the time Rip returned. Rip on the other hand, tells a tale that is reminiscent of a fairy tale. He talks of little men and drinking. He uses symbols to represent the story of the revolution.
The community perfers the fairy tale version over fact. This is evident through Rip's gain in popularity and the commn knowledge of his story. Irving writes, "and not a man, woman, or child in the neighbourhood, but knew it by heart" while "the self-important man in the cocked hat...screwed down the corners of his mouth, and shook his head - upon which there was a general shaking of the head throughout the assemblage." This demonstrates that the community wants the revolution to look a certain way; they want it to be fun and symbolic, so Rip's version fits better.
The townspeople in the story may prefer a fairy tale but this can be problematic. The symbols in Rip's story become so far removed from the actual occurances that it is hard to tell what some of the symbols represent.
In an English interpretation, one could see Rip Van Winkle as the mother country or England. Rip is “a kind neighbor, and an obedient hen-pecked husband .” (430) To an English citizen reading this story, it could easily represent the English monarchy. For years before the revolution, America had defied the King by refusing to pay taxes; support the militia that was protecting it from the French, Spanish, and Indians; and in many ways hindering progress in the colonies. England could easily have been seen as “hen-pecked” in the ways in which it handled the colonies. Many of the tax acts, such as the Stamp act, were ignored and monarchy was viewed as inept in dealing with the colonies. The Crown levied no penalties against the colonist when these acts were defied. The Crown just accepted not getting the money.
...ture of King George in “Rip Van Winkle.” Rip returns to his village twenty years after he left and realizes that someone has transformed the King into George Washington (541). Irving, realizing that much of life is merely a refashioning of the same ideas and structures into something that looks new, has taken an old German folk tale and turned it into a story of American life. We may live in a time with vastly different resources, technologies, and opportunities, but the urges that drive us are still the same.
In the period preceding and immediately following Poland’s accession into the European Union (01.05.2004) Polish media were overflowing “gender talk.” On the radio one would hear randomly placed banter about “natural differences between the sexes” (in fact, a new station (FM 94), was established in 2002 with “real men” in mind). Almost any event discussed on the evening news could be commented with a “this is what women are like” or “men cannot help but be men.” Magazines and newspapers provided an abundance of images featuring manly men and womanly women, as well as departures from such norm (most notably drag queens from gay pride parades in Western Europe). What follows is a reading of a selection of gender-focused cover stories published by three mainstream political weeklies – Polityka, Wprost, and the Polish edition of Newsweek between spring 2003 and the summer of 2004. My aim is to suggest a link between the intensity of “gender talk” in the media and Poland’s E.U. accession.
Irving, Washington. "Rip Van Winkle." The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Paul Lauter. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1998.
Political commentators often label American students not as liberals or conservatives, but simply as apathetic citizens unconcerned with political issues. The number of students venturing to the polls continues to be depressing to any advocate of a democratic form of government. Outside of political science classrooms, few students seem to be knowledgeable of simple political events and personalities.
With the end of the American Revolution, came an explosion of politicians hoping to influence the young democracy. At the time various political groups were attempting to fashion America politics into their vision of democracy. It was only natural that literature in the country at the time began showing the influence of this newly created democracy. Born in New York in 1783 and named for the American Revolution hero and first president, Washington Irving grew up a nation engulfed in the democratic passions. An atmosphere of this kind of politics could lend the idea that Irving would satire politics of this time. This satirical writing can be seen in the nature of the historical references and symbolic characters Irving uses in “Rip Van Winkle” where he mockingly compares colonial life under British rule to the young democracy that is the United States of his time.
Llewellyn, Jennifer, et al. “The Cold War.” The Cold War. Alpha History, n.d. Web. 29 October 2013.
Sir Isaac Newton’s laws of motion affect every aspect of life, and there are examples of those forces at work all over, not just in baseball. The laws of physics are at play in even the simplest of movements or actions, facts so widely accepted that you don’t even have to think about them. Athletes don’t think about the physics behind their movements before they throw a ball. However, all the information above demonstrates just how much a sport like baseball depends on the laws of physics. Without these forces, America’s pastime wouldn’t be very entertaining to watch or play at all.
In “Rip Van Winkle” by Washington Irving he writes about a simple man, Rip Van Winkle, who does just enough to get by in life. He lives in a village by the catskill mountains, and is loved by everyone in the village. He is an easy going man, who spends most of his days at the village inn talking with his neighbors, fishing all day, and wandering the mountains with his dog to refuge from his wife the thorn on his side. On one of his trips to the mountains Rip Van Winkle stumbles upon a group of men who offer him a drink, and that drink changes everything for Van Winkle. He later wakes up, twenty years later, and returns to his village were he notices nothing is the same from when he left. He learns that King George III is no longer in charge,
When you throw a football across the yard to your friend, you are using physics. You make adjustments for all the factors, such as distance, wind and the weight of the ball. The farther away your friend is, the harder you have to throw the ball, or the steeper the angle of your throw. This adjustment is done in your head, and it's physics. Physics is the branch of science that deals with the physical world. The area of physics that is most relevant to football is mechanics, the study of motion and its causes. The three main categories of motion that apply to the game are:
In conclusion, Ferguson’s article is explaining how Washington Irving’s story “Rip Van Winkle” has multiple meanings that many readers can draw conclusions from. His article also demonstrates the generational aspect to the story and how everyone that reads it can enjoy and find their imaginations in it. The mentions of the general population and their thought process of the time can also be interpreted in many ways from their addictions to dismay and ignorance of their
Irving composed the story in light of the American individuals at time when society has changed drastically due to American Revolution. The analogies of Irving's Rip Van Winkle cover an array of Revolutionary encounters: America before English enforcement, early American provinces under English principle, and after the American Revolution. He suggests that there is an immense contrast which leads Rip astonished, to know he is in some other time. This could symbolize the American's perspective on their new home.
Boyer, Paul and Stuckey, Sterling. “The Cold War” The American Nation Harcourt Bruce and Company: Austin, 1995
Washington Irving presents two of the chosen short stories, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and “Rip Van Winkle”, by saying they are works of a Diedrich Knickerbocker. The reason he published the stories under that name came from the fact that his brothers were all in the study of law. Irving tried that career out for a while, but the he quickly grew bored. He told his brothers that he wanted to find a different career. When he started writing, he grew embarrassed and decided to change his name in printing.
Hemingway synthesizes the theory that because of the pain that is brought about, love is not able to survive. The feeling of love is felt by both Henry and Catherine, but it is hard to realize that when pain always surrounds the couple. Hemingway’s creative mind creates a frustrating love story for the reader – one in which ends in devastation. Love is present but will not last. Human nature is to be attracted to love, but humanity may be destined for pain because of the tragedy brought about by love.