Homo Economics In Washington Irving's Rip Van Winkle

Washington Irving’s “Rip Van Winkle” shows people as thinking intelligent individuals clearly illustrating the principles of Homo economics. It does this by showing its main character, Van Winkle, as a typical person in a village who still makes the best choices to get to his end goal. The characters is shown to be a thinking individual being capable of feeling one thing and reasoning out a better action as he does when he helps the man carry up the keg. He feels “shy and distrustful of his new acquaintance” but he still can make a reasoned decision to “[compile] with his usual alacrity” so that he gains the benefit of “mutually relieving one another” (14). Similarly, Van Winkle can find and take the best course of action to achieve his goals. When he wakes up after drinking the alcohol he “determined to revisit the scene” showing that the man was reasoning, “determining”, a logical action, going to the last place he remembered, to achieve

Where Franklin supports industry through personal success and improvement as a way to happiness. Van Winkle is described as a man who “would rather starve on a penny than work for a pound” with he himself saying “it was no use to work on his farm” showing that the man has no interest in achieving the stereotypical measures of success (10). Instead the man chooses to take wakes in the woods and speak with the men in the square to pass his time. In these things he can “console” himself (11). In this way, Van Winkle happiness represents a happiness divergent from the standard. Overall, Van Winkle shows even the individuals who differ from the standard of success and improvement are still capable of being thinking and independent so as to allow them to achieve their own