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Literary Analysis Of Rip Van Winkle

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Some people will take power naps, some will take two hour long naps, but it’s uncommon for someone to take a twenty-year nap! In the story “Rip Van Winkle,” written by Washington Irving, the protagonist goes off into the woods, and takes a rather long snooze. He comes back, and realizes how much the world changed in what feels like is overnight.
Rip Van Winkle is truly an entertaining story, and one that shows how time really does go by fast.

Rip Van Winkle was published in 1819, back in the days of early America. The United States had been independent from Great Britain for roughly forty years, and things were incredibly different from when they were under the rule of a monarchy.
The story begins in the earlier 1700s, when the United States remained under Britain’s control. The tale is set in the Kaatskill (Catskill) Mountains in a Dutch village. The description of village places the reader in a spooky, mysterious mindset. This greatly helps make the mysterious happenings later on believable. …show more content…

You can also tell from Rip’s own words how he feels about the king. After coming back to the village after his extensive nap, and he is pressed about who he voted for, Rip responds he is “…a loyal subject of the King, God bless him!”
After Rip declares his loyalty to the King, the people are upset. They shout that he is a spy for Britain, and that he is a scoundrel. But is Rip really a

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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).

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