33 pages • 1 hour read
Washington IrvingRip Van Winkle
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1819A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Themes
America’s War for Independence and the Meaning of Freedom
Rip’s emancipation from his husbandly and fatherly duties metaphorically reenacts the American War of Independence (1775-1783). With lighthearted satire, Irving draws parallels between the tyranny of the Crown and the tyranny of day-to-day responsibilities. Rip owes work to Dame Van Winkle like the American colonies owed fealty to Great Britain until finally, both Rip and the colonies escape from under the thumb of their oppressors.
Still, when Dame Van Winkle is long dead, Rip nostalgically admits that she “kept a good house”—a sentiment that gestures to the fact that by the 18th century the relationship between American and Britain was closer than ever: trade flourished, and a common culture prized commerce and the concept of liberty.
With Dame Van Winkle gone, Rip is free to once again become the town gossip and storyteller—that is, to resume his old way of life. His house is a mess, the portrait hanging in the tavern is different, the people are busier, but other than that, not much has changed. Though the removal of Great Britain has changed life at the top, everyday Americans need the connection to the past that Rip provides.
Myth in the Old World and the New
While the details of the Rip Van Winkle story are as American as apple pie, the structure and elements of his story are firmly rooted in its settlers’ countries of origin: The story’s epigraph features the Norse god Odin, and Knickerbocker is writing a history of Dutch colonists. Meanwhile, the story’s basic plot—a man unmoored from time in the realm of the fae returns to a different reality—is a trope that occurs in Greek mythology, Norse mythology, Arthurian legend, and even the Koran. Irving’s direct source is the Germanic legend of Peter Klaus, a story he was accused of plagiarizing. These elements connect the young nation to a long mythological tradition, as Irving forges a literary pedigree for his story.
Many details in “Rip Van Winkle” recall these older stories. Rip sees crows circling, a reference to the ravens in a story collected by the Brothers Grimm a king sleeping for hundreds of years in a mountain. Rip’s dog is named Wolf in a nod to the Norse legends of Odin’s companions, the wolves Geri and Freki. Its behavior is a joke about Homer’s Odyssey: Odysseus’s dog Argos recognizes the warrior after his 20-year absence, but Wolf barks and bites at Rip after his 20 years of sleep. “My very dog,” Rip laments, “has forgotten me!”
In adding these elements to his story, Irving gives America its own legendary lore, which for him is just as important to a country’s character as its “true” history.
Rip Van Winkle: Early American Romantic
Irving published “Rip Van Winkle” just on the cusp of an evolution of the literary landscape. After the logic and order prized by the Enlightenment, an 18th-century intellectual movement, a new ideal emerged: Romanticism, which prized emotions over reason, elevated nature, and valorized personal and political freedom.
Several themes in “Rip Van Winkle” would go on to become key aspects of the American Romantic movement. Early in the story, Irving paints a beautiful picture of the Catskills. Natural surroundings and scenic beauty were of critical importance to future Romantics like Henry David Thoreau, who saw the untamed wilds as an appropriate place for self-discovery. Irving makes the irrational more powerful than the rational. Rip cannot explain the world’s transformation when he wakes through logic—the only explanation is that he has gone through an otherworldly experience and reveals a deeper truth. Romantics like Edgar Allan Poe would later appeal to mysticism and the supernatural in the same way. Finally, Irving emphasizes the importance of freedom, both nationally as America leaves Great Britain and personally as Rip escapes his wife). The Romantics were obsessed with the concept of freedom, eager to free themselves from the rules of the old literary regime.
Irving argues that each modern town needs a Rip: a Romantic free spirit who can’t be counted on to tell the truth, necessarily, but whose stories nonetheless get at some deeper truth of the human experience.
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