Title: A Summary and Analysis of Washington Irving’s ‘Rip Van Winkle’ – Interesting Literature
Headings: A Summary and Analysis of Washington Irving’s ‘Rip Van Winkle’
A Summary and Analysis of Washington Irving’s ‘Rip Van Winkle’
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Content: One interpretation is that Irving, through this light-hearted tale, is actually trying to downplay the American Revolution. Rip Van Winkle manages to sleep right through it, which is quite a feat when you think about what a noise there must have been. When he gets back to his village, although several of his friends have died – one presumably in the war itself – the others have survived, and he soon goes back to sitting and gossiping with them outside of the pub where they used to chatter together. The name of the pub may have changed – to represent the shift from one George to another, from King George to George Washington – but life for these simple villagers is largely the same as it was before. Rip’s son is his ‘ditto’, or spitting image: the next generation is much the same as the last. The humour of the story – chiefly in Rip Van Winkle being a henpecked husband – also supports this analysis of the story. If Dame Van Winkle is like Old Mother England, lording it over Rip (representing the American colonies), then her death is a blessed release for Rip, but nothing more momentous than that. He is relieved rather than anything more dramatic. The author of this article, Dr Oliver Tearle, is a literary critic and lecturer in English at Loughborough University.