Transformation of the Tale: Washington Irving’s “Rip Van Winkle” and Robert Coover’s Rip Awake An American folklore that established Washington Irving as one of the first American authors, “Rip Van Winkle” is a short story about a local Dutch-American villager and the mysterious event that kept him away from home for twenty years. Narrated in the third person omniscient, the narrator depicts a panoramic view of the natural landscape as well as provides an objective view of the main character’s thoughts. To provide a closer view of his personal thoughts, Robert Coover reintroduces Rip Van Winkle with his own monologue in Rip Awake to give him a voice to describe the aftermath of his experience when he returns home. Irving and Coover demonstrates …show more content…
The colonies are now independent and free from British rule and King George III is now replaced by General George Washington. When Rip walks through the village and comes to the inn that he used to visit, he sees that the great tree and now replaced by a pole with a flag of King George III’s face . The red coat Rip’s reappearance in the village is one of confusion and surprise because the people he encounters are unfamiliar to him. he himself becomes under scrutiny by the new locals because of his odd appearance. The change in how people are dressed, the structures of homes, and the new language is unsettling for Rip who thinks that “both he and the world around him were bewitched” (960). When he realizes what has happened to him through accounts from people that used to know him, Rip has CONCLUSION The legacy of Rip Van Winkle will not be described in history as a man who fought for his country but a man who did not fight in the independence of his country because he wanted to escape his wife