Title: “Rip Van Winkle” Summary & Analysis | LitCharts
Headings: “Rip Van Winkle”
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“Rip Van Winkle” Summary & Analysis

Content: Active Themes
Related Quotes with Explanations
Knickerbocker’s story opens with a poem by Cartwright about truth. He then proceeds to describe the “magical” beauty of the Catskills. He zeroes in on a small village at the foot of these mountains, where a good-natured man named Rip Van Winkle lives. Rip’s greatest trouble is his wife, Dame Van Winkle, who is shrewish and constantly nagging Rip about hisbiggest weakness: that he can find no motivation to engage in profitable labor of any kind. Though he is happy to help on properties that are not his own, he avoids work on his own farm and his land is severely run down. His children are unruly, and his son, Rip Van Winkle Jr. is determined to grow up to be just like his father. His wife’s lecturing is incessant, but Rip’s response is always resigned: he shrugs his shoulders, shakes his head, and looks up to the sky. The initial juxtaposition of Cartwright’s words about truth and Knickerbocker’s description of the “magic” of the Catskills again complicates the notion of historical “accuracy.”