Washington Irving, American Story Teller I believe it is true that “Washington Irving found in legend and folklore a view of the natural world colored by emotion, by superstition, and by the ancient belief that supernatural beings inhabit the wild places of the earth. He wrote stories that illustrated old truths about human nature and the dramatic possibilities of the American landscape.” Although Irving wrote over twenty volumes, including essays, poems, histories, biographies, and more, in class, we have focused on his fiction. Irving dispersed many beliefs and legends of his time, and the past, into his stories. He also made great use of American themes in these literary pursuits. Such details along with existent people and events
(1819), in New York, Philadelphia, and London, enabled him to become an international figure. The book contained a variety of witty sketches and fictitious accounts, narrated by an illusory, Geoffrey Crayon. This collection included two of the most recognized (and earliest) American short stories, “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” which I will be addressing here. Both fictions up for review kindly mock the irrational beliefs of common people, but I will focus on “Rip Van Winkle,” first. For this tale, Irving utilizes the backdrop of the Catskill Mountains. Near the start of this story, he sews the seeds of rural beliefs and opens a door to the supernatural by mentioning that the good wives regard their “magical hues and shapes” (Irving 492), as barometers and goes on to call them “these fairy mountains” (492). The story begins before The Revolution, in an antiquated village that was founded by some Dutch colonists. Irving explained that America was still a province of Great Britain at this time. The protagonist of this yarn is the affable, title character Rip Van Winkle. He is a simple and decent, yet meek man by virtue of his neighborly kindness and unyielding submission to his markedly nagging wife. Both Rip and Dame Van Winkle, convey characteristics that lend to the idea of Washington Irving illustrating “old truths about human
Always friendly and willing to help others, he spends quality time with the village children and is an avid outdoorsman. Having given up the idea of being a worthy farmer or monetary provider, Rip often fled his wife’s harassing by joining idle friends in the village to discuss current gossip and stories. When his badgering wife would break up, these get-togethers, Rip’s only escape was hunting in the woods. On one such occasion, Irving’s tale of this normal everyman turns
Throughout Irving’s story, he used characterization, irony, the dreams, and other literacy devices to bring The Legend of Sleepy Hollow to life for Irving’s audience.
Irving, Washington. “Rip Van Winkle.” The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Nina Bayn. New York: Norton & Company, 1999.
First off in the story of Rip Van Winkle, a man sick of his wife wanders off into the woods only to disappear for twenty years.
Washington Irving and Edgar Allan Poe were both writers who exemplified the writing style of the Romantic era. Both writers used their great talents to take the reader into the story. For example, Irving, in “Rip Van Winkle”, starts the story by saying, “Whoever has made a courage up the Hudson must remember the Kaatskill Mountains.” He also involves the reader in the story by taking us into the everyday lives of the Van Winkles and goes into some detail describing Rip’s “business”. Poe also demonstrates his ability to pull the reader into the story. In “The Fall of the House Usher” he uses extensive descriptions of the settings to give the reader the feeling of being there while the story is developing around them. The writers are also similar in the use of tone in their works. Irving’s use of tone in his stories is typically lighthearted, yet dramatic. This is demonstrated in “Rip Van Winkle” when Rip comes back from the “Kaatskills” and is talking to all the people in the town. There, he finds his son and daughter and asks, “Where’s your mother?” By asking this question, Irving implies both curiosity and even fear if Dame Van Winkle is still around. This humorous approach to the subject of Rip’s wife, makes light of ...
At first glance, "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" by Washington Irving seems to be an innocent tale about a superstitious New England town threatened by a strange new comer, Icabod Crane. However, this descriptive narrative is more than just a simple tale because it addresses several gender issues that deserve attention. The pervasiveness of female influence in Sleepy Hollow and the conflict between male and female storytelling in this Dutch community are two pertinent gender issues that complicate Irving's work and ultimately enable the women of Sleepy Hollow to control the men and maintain order.
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,
Washington Irving wrote Rip Van Winkle with the American people in mind. At this time society was changing drastically. America was attempting to go through a struggle with forming their own identity. America was wanting to have an identity that would set them free from English culture and rule. Irving uses his main character, Rip Van Winkle, to symbolize America. Rip goes through the same struggles that America was going through at this time before and after the Revolution. Irving uses such great symbolism in this story to describe the changes that American society went through. This story covers a wide variety of time periods including: America before English rule, early American colonies under English rule, and America after the Revolutionary War.
In Washington Irving’s work “Rip Van Winkle,” Irving demonstrates all characteristics of an American Mythology rather humorously. These characteristics affect the story attracting the attention of readers and impacting the reader’s experience of the story by relishing America’s unique attributes and values. In “Rip Van Winkle,” Irving incorporates attributes of American Mythology by setting the story in exciting pastimes, filling the story with strange and exaggerated characters, and featuring magical mysterious events.
This portrayal of Dame Van Winkle exhibits that Irving thinks lowly of women and that they’re controlling, manipulative people that perpetually aggravate men. A quote that represents that is “For a long while he used to console himself, when driven from home...” She made him so miserable that he didn’t even want to be at his home with his family. It is understandable that he would write this so the story is more interesting, but it’s disappointing that the scenario is repeated multiple times in many of his other works because it’s so degrading to women. The view of women being controlling and manipulative is also seen during the part when Rip finds out that his wife is dead, resulting in him being not necessarily sad about it. The controlling and manipulative aspect ties in here because it is just that which resulted in Rip not being affected that greatly by the event. When he is told by his daughter that Dame had passed away, he was more concerned about her not realizing that it was her own father rather than being sorrowful about Dame’s passing - “The honest man could contain himself no longer. He caught his daughter and her child in his arms. ‘“I am your father!’” Overall in this story, it is quite obvious that Washington Irving looks at women
In RIP Van Winkle, Dam Van Winkle is abusive, nagging, and sarcastic. In Rip Van Winkle, Washington Irving states that “but what courage can with stand the ever-during and all besetting terrors of a woman’s tongue.” He seems to imply that he did not like women who gave their opinions and spoke their mind. It seems that Rip is going into the woods to escape his wife.
In Rip Van Winkle, Irving shows his doubts in the American Identity and the American dream. After the Revolutionary war, America was trying to develop its own course. They were free to govern their own course of development; however, some of them had an air of uncertainties on their own identity in this new country. Irving was born among this generation in the newly created United States of America, and also felt uncertainty about the American identity. Irving might be the writer that is the least positive about being an American. The main reason for this uncertainty is the new born American has no history and tradition while the Europe has a great one accumulated for thousands of years. Therefore, in order to solve this problem, Irving borrows an old European tale to make it take place in America. This tale related to the Dutch colonists haunts the kaatskill mountains. In order to highlight the American identity, Irving praises the “majestic” mountains which Europe lacks. He describes the mountains that “their summits…will glow and light up like a crown of glory” Nevertheless, the use of these ancient explorers into Rip Van Winkle only to show that although American has formed its own identity, no one can cut its connection with Europe. No wonder when America was still under tyranny of the British rule, some people still cannot cut the blood relationship with Europe. Therefore, the American identity is blurred by their relationship with Europe since then.
Have you ever imagined being asleep in the forest for twenty years, coming back home and not knowing what has gone on all those years of your absence? Rip Van Winkle went through that, and had to come back home and face some real changes. The author Washington Irving has some interesting characters whom he puts in his short stories. Irving puts some characters in his short stories to reflect on some of his life. For example, Irving has similarities between Rip Van Winkle being asleep in the forest 20 years and Irving was in Europe for seventeen writing short stories and being the governor’s aid and military secretary. These two situations are similar, because they both didn’t know what they were going to come back too and were gone for such a long period of time. Irving does put some of his own life into his short stories and with a reason for his self-reflective works.
Washington Irving's, "Rip Van Winkle" presented a tale of a "dreamer." Rip Van Winkle was a family man
Wyman, Sarah. “Washington Irving’s Rip Van Winkle: A Dangerous Critique Of A New Nation.” Anq 23.4 (2010): 216-222. MasterFILE Complete. Web. 18 Apr. 2014.
Rip Van Winkle tells the story of a man who, on a trek into the Kaatskill mountains, mysteriously sleeps away twenty years of his life during the Revolutionary War. When he returns home, he finds that things have dramatically changed; King George no longer has control over the colonies, and many of his friends have either died or left town. At this point, the story reaches its climax, where Van Winkle realizes that his life may be forever changed.