"Rip Van Winkle"

Charles So           
English 48A

Journal for Irving

Author Quote:

“Rip Van Winkle, however, was one of those happy mortals, of foolish, well-oiled dispositions, who take the world easy, eat white bread or brown, which ever can be got with least thought or trouble, and would rather starve on a penny than work for a pound” (955)

Internet Quote:

“As literature, as, thus, a unique kind of cultural expression, Irving’s tales and sketches allow us to see the manner in which attitudes, assumptions, and values were imaged in and by the creative act”  (Rip, Ichabod, and the American Imagination by Terence Martin found in http://www.google.scholar.com/)

Summary:

Rip Van Winkle is non ambitious and very lazy, but he has kids and a wife. His wife nags at him about it his contentment for mediocrity and her pestering unnerves him. Winkle is a man who does not like to work or do any type of hard labor. He frequents a club where people talk and gossip about the daily news around the parts. One day fleeing from his wife and work he goes to the top of the Catskill Mountains and meets the ghosts of Hudson and his crew. He ends up drinking with them. He then falls asleep from the drinking and then wakes up 20 years later from his drunken slumber. He then goes back down to the town and finds everything has changed.
Personal Opinion:

It seem the short story was about the peaceful, idealic life of a worry free man who has a nagging wife. There is peacefulness in how Winkle lives his life without any worries and he seems to be happy but his wife always insist he needs to do more. Winkle can be seen as a message of waking up from the rule of England. As Winkle wakes up and goes to town he bring up King George as a testimonial and finds out now that President George Washington is in charge. This can be looked at as a message about the colonies before the revolutionary war. Even though everything has changed Winkle is satisfied with the new present that he awoke to and how everything has turned out. He does not concern himself with anything and he is most happy that his nagging wife has past away and she can not pester him about where he has been that past 20 years.