American mythologies have been a part of our culture for many years and enriched our folklore; it has been transmitted through many generations. Our ancestors have enjoyed these American mythologies because they have a way of keeping legendary figures alive. Washington Irving’s in his ‘Rip Van Winkle’ introduces us to a new world of imagination using strange characters experiencing mysterious events in exciting places.
Rip Van Winkle is a regular man with an extraordinary story. The biggest twist in this story is that Rip falls asleep for 20 years! “…for the whole twenty years had been to him but as one night…” (80). Rip assisted a group of Dutchmen who are dressed oddly, they had different color beards and held the gravest faces never breaking their silence, “On a level spot in the Centre was a
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He wakes up to find his dog, and everything around him is missing. Rip discovered, “He looked around for his gun, but in place of the clean, well-oiled fowling-piece, he found an old firelock lying by him, the barrel incrusted with rust, the lock falling off, and the stock worm-eaten…, …he whistled after him, shouted his name, but all in vain; the echoes repeated his whistle and shouted, but no dog was to be seen.” He then proceeds to his town which is unrecognizable, which is reasonable if you have slept 20 years. Rip found out that a whole generation has passed and only one person knew of him was his daughter. She exclaimed: “Ah, poor man, his name was Rip Van Winkle; it’s twenty years since he went away from home with his gun, and never has been heard of since—his dog came home without him; but whether he shot himself, or was carried away by the Indians, nobody can tell. I was then but a little girl.” Rip Van Winkle learned a valuable lesson about change; it happens in the strangest of places and