Depression In Rip Van Winkle

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For many generations, people around the world have read the short story of Rip Van Winkle,. The story was originally published in a book called “The sketch Book……………..” written by American author Washington Irving………………………. The story itself takes place around a small village near the Hudson River in a time around the American Revolution era where Great Britain still had control of the colonies. Irving uses effective writing to show the reader as much detail as possible to understand where and what is going on especially during the transitioning periods. But as a inadvertent thought by the author could the theme of this story be about depression as insinuated by irving in certain topics that the main character from the story experiences. Did …show more content…

For the adults He helped the children in the village in a variety of ways “He assisted at their sports, made their playthings, taught them to fly kites and shoot marbles…” (31). He was liked by everyone for all the generous things he would do for others. This was not the situation he had in his home though. The first section of the story symbolizes the personal depression of Rip Van Winkle by introducing his daily life in the Hudson river town place. Always seemed like a likable character to other except his wife. His son was exactly the same as him. His daughter wasn’t. In his personal life Van Winkle did not display any motivation to work for himself. his wife Dame Van Winkle would always scold him for practically any decision he made. She could be seen as the greatest instigator for his lack of motivation. Which leads to believe that deep down Rip Van Winkle could have been going through a form of depression and that could be what Irving was trying to describe inadvertently and possibly be a cry for help from himself. Irving wrote the story in a way that it could be narrated by a fictional character Diedrich Knickerbocker, who acts as the narrator for other tales from the same book, which could entail why there are not direct sources for the sadness Van Winkle was probably having thus giving the reader a bigger gap to think with their imagination on what could really be

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