Review the “Rip Van Winkle”: An American Mythology assignment. Follow the instructions below to help plan and organize your essay. Use your Student Guide notes from this unit to complete this activity. As you move forward and begin to draft your essay response to the writing assignment, keep this document handy. Use the information you've recorded here to build your answer.
1. Start organizing your thoughts by citing at least two examples from “Rip Van Winkle” of each characteristic of mythical stories.
Characteristic Examples from “Rip Van Winkle” set in the past, often in remote or exciting places and times “Rip Van Winkle” is the story that describes two different periods of time, both of which are past to the reader. The story starts describing the situation in America twenty years before the War for Independence (1775-83) and ends describing the life in the middle of the War. Although the definite dates are not stated, from the very beginning the writer stresses that it is the story from the past. filled with remarkable, strange, or exaggerated characters Irving Washington is widely known today for his ability to describe characters. Despite the fact that he says little or no word about Rip Van Winkle’s, his wife’s and his friends’ appearances, it is easy to imagine them. The author concentrates on description of personality, making a stress on the differences of human nature that made his heroes really prominent. Let us take the description of Dame Van Winkle as an example. “His wife kept continually dinning in his ears about his idleness, his carelessness, and the ruin he was binning in his family. Morning, noon and night, her tongue was incessantly going, and everything he said or did was sure to produce a torrent of ho...
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...his wife’s tyranny in the surrounding mountains hunting squirrels. With such an unimpressive beginning the strange and mysterious story of Rip Van Winkle starts. Being idle, but still kind person Rip Van Winkle agrees to help a stranger to carry his keg, the liquor in which possesses some magic characteristics. Drinking this liquor made Rip fall asleep for twenty years. While it is the basic mystery of the story, it still has a lot of unanswered questions that are for each reader to answer. For instance, why he fall asleep for twenty years? Is it because he made twenty sips? As to the consequences of this twenty-years sleep, they turned to be more favorable for the idler than he could expect. In his return he found his children ground up and willing to take care of him, no Dame Van Winkle to get on his nerves and an opportunity to do what he wanted.
Myths relate to events, conditions, and deeds of gods or superhuman beings that are outside ordinary human life and yet basics to it” ("Myth," 2012). Mythology is said to have two particular meanings, “the corpus of myths, and the study of the myths, of a particular area: Amerindian mythology, Egyptian mythology, and so on as well as the study of myth itself” ("Mythology," 1993). In contrast, while the term myth can be used in a variety of academic settings, its main purpose is to analyze different cultures and their ways of thinking. Within the academic setting, a myth is known as a fact and over time has been changed through the many different views within a society as an effort to answer the questions of human existence. The word myth in an academic context is used as “ancient narratives that attempt to answer the enduring and fundamental human questions: How did the universe and the world come to be? How did we come to be here? Who are we? What are our proper, necessary, or inescapable roles as we relate to one another and to the world at large? What should our values be? How should we behave? How should we not behave? What are the consequences of behaving and not behaving in such ways” (Leonard, 2004 p.1)? My definition of a myth is a collection of false ideas put together to create
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
After reading the story of Rip Van Wrinkle, the first expression I received as a message was change, and regardless of how one reacts or view circumstances, evolution will continue its natural process. In addition, when I considered how the author’s illustration of Rip Van Wrinkle need to find refuge in the time of (distress) his wife’s overwhelming nagging, I noticed how Wrinkles’ neglected to take charge of his empire; his home, children and wife, therefore, he did not confront his personal challenges to ease or eliminated his stress, instead, he walked away from his wife’s overwhelming nagging. In turn, another message the reading audience may convey is that, in order to witness radical change, sometimes interest and or participation is
Everything and everyone is constantly changing whether people realize it or not. Life after the revolutionary war influenced a lot of the changes that made America. New ideals and customs were beginning to form and people had to learn to conform to these changes in order to survive. Washington Irving depicts this in his writing “Rip Van Winkle”, along with Caroline Stansbury Kirkland’s writing “A New Home-Who’ll Follow”. Although, with some minor differentials, Kirkland and Irving depict similar themes in adaptation and simulating to culture unknown to them.
The generalised or stereotyped characters are from the American people before and after Revolutionary War. Dame Van Winkle and Rip are stock characters that have been found in literature the irksome wife and the henpecked husband as Rip Van Winkle’s character represents the American society as perceived by England whereas his wife, Dame Van Winkle portrays England. This element between the free will loving Rip and his overbearing wife executes a key idea of the American Dream
Irving, Washington. "Rip Van Winkle." The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Paul Lauter. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1998.
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.
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,
Irving, Washington. “Rip Van Winkle.” The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Nina Bayn. New York: Norton & Company, 1999.
Irving, Washington. "Rip Van Winkle." Baym, Nina. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. . 8th ed. New York: Norton, 2012. 470-482. Print.
Wyman, Sarah. "Washington Irving's Rip Van Winkle: A Dangerous Critique of a New Nation." ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes, and Reviews Vol 23 no 4 (2010): 216-222. Web.
Washington Irving’s story Rip Van Winkle is about a man named Rip Van Winkle, who lived in a small town near the Hudson Valley. All of the towns’ people really like Rip Van Winkle because he would assist anyone or anything in need of help. Others see Van Winkle as a kind neighbor, and an obedient henpecked husband. Everyone who knows him is happy with Rip Van Winkle except for his awful wife, Dame, their marriage is a symbol for the American Revolution. Dame Van Winkle, his wife, is the main source of their marital conflict. She would nag Rip to death over his duties so much that he would seek freedom from these tirades and run away. Irving uses the character of Dame Van Winkle as a symbol to represent
Essentially, there are three typical characteristics of mythology. Classic myths often include gods or supernatural heroes, are “closely linked to religion,” and “generally take place in a primordial age, when the world had not yet achieved its current form” (“Mythology” Wikipedia). Furthermore, myths provide an explanation for the existence of life and how the world came to be.
Rip looked, and beheld a precise counterpart of himself, --[It appears Rip has seen an exact mirror-image of himself--the way others have always perceived him]-- as he went up the mountain--[This was the way he was before his "sleep," or journey up the mountain]--: apparently as lazy, and certainly as ragged--[Before he encountered the party on the mountain, he was a casual, rough and lazy person]--. The poor fellow was now completely confounded--[It appears to everyone that Rip Jr. was confused in his thoughts, however, just as Rip Sr. was, he knew exactly what was going through his head--it appeared he had a plan for everything]--. He doubted his own identity, and whether he was himself or another man--[I believe Rip underwent some type of self realization and was beginning to realize this change--wondering whether he was the same old Rip, or the newer, more aware Rip]--. In the midst of his bewilderment, --[I'm trying to figure out here whether Rip was just very confused with what was going on in seeing his son, or whether he's still drunk and in a "daze."]-- the man in the cocked hat demanded who he was, and what was his name?
In Washington Irving's "Rip Van Winkle," Rip's character is closely correlated with the theme of nature and its prominence over the ever-changing world. The story is set in the Kaatskill Mountains, an important setting with a luminance that does not falter throughout. Similarly, Rip is immediately described as a respectable and well liked man in his mountainous setting. Right off the bat, the two can be easily associated. The magical elements in the story cause Rip to fall asleep for twenty years, and upon waking, he is in a world completely changed by the progression of time. However, despite the extreme alterations, only Rip and the nature that he is so familiar with are able to prevail, remaining ultimately unaffected by the new world.