“Rip Van Winkle”
Imagine if you took a nap and woke up twenty years later, everything would be completely different. In the story of “Rip Van Winkle” by Washington Irving, a man by the name of Rip Van Winkle living during the period of the Revolutionary war when America was ruled by Great Britain, took a nap in the park and woke up twenty years later to a free country. When he awoke he no longer recognized the people and the village he lived in twenty years ago. This story is an example of an American mythology including the three myth characteristic of past settings, strange or exaggerated characters, and magical events and their consequences.
One of the myth characteristics that the story of “Rip Van Winkle” includes is a past setting. This story is set in the years before and after the American Revolutionary War. Rip lived in a remote village in New York’s Catskill Mountains. This is a strange period because before he took a nap he was living in a small village and when he awoke, it was a busy city. Rip realized that the country he lived in two years ago was no longer ruled by Great Britain, but a free country “there now was reared a tall naked pole…and from it was fluttering a flag, on which was a singular assemblage …show more content…
An example of this is how it was possible for Rip to sleep for twenty years. This was magical because he didn’t die while sleeping. In addition to sleeping for that long, came some consequences. He missed his children growing up and the Revolutionary War “Rip’s heart died away, at hearing of these sad changes in his home and friends” (Irving 75). Another mysterious event that occurred is that no one found him sleeping, they just thought he killed himself or was taken by the Indians “… but whether he shot himself, or was carried away by the Indians, nobody can tell” (Irving 76). In conclusion, the magical events impacts the story because it makes it
Imagine if you took a nap and woke up twenty years later, everything would be completely different. In the story of “Rip Van Winkle” by Washington Irving, a man by the name of Rip Van Winkle living during the period of the Revolutionary war when America was ruled by Great Britain, took a nap in the park and woke up twenty years later to a free country. When he awoke he no longer recognized the people and the village he lived in twenty years ago. This story is an example of an American mythology including the three myth characteristic of past settings, strange or exaggerated characters, and magical events and their consequences.
One of the myth characteristics that the story of “Rip Van Winkle” includes is a past setting. This story is set in the years before and after the American Revolutionary War. Rip lived in a remote village in New York’s Catskill Mountains. This is a strange period because before he took a nap he was living in a small village and when he awoke, it was a busy city. Rip realized that the country he lived in two years ago was no longer ruled by Great Britain, but a free country “there now was reared a tall naked pole…and from it was fluttering a flag, on which was a singular assemblage …show more content…
An example of this is how it was possible for Rip to sleep for twenty years. This was magical because he didn’t die while sleeping. In addition to sleeping for that long, came some consequences. He missed his children growing up and the Revolutionary War “Rip’s heart died away, at hearing of these sad changes in his home and friends” (Irving 75). Another mysterious event that occurred is that no one found him sleeping, they just thought he killed himself or was taken by the Indians “… but whether he shot himself, or was carried away by the Indians, nobody can tell” (Irving 76). In conclusion, the magical events impacts the story because it makes it