What Is The Mood Of Rip Van Winkle

Washington Irving’s Rip Van Winkle is the future of its time. Irving’s use of words gives the story a realism feeing and makes the reader feel as almost that of the main character. The historical events that Irving uses are similar to those in North America. The personalities he used are that of the average person. Irving taught a serious lesson in this short story about time and how precious it is. He used historical events, personalities, and time as a background for this.

Personalities is a big thing in this story. Irving describe Rip as a lazy man with self-respect for himself. He prides himself on being lazy and does not understand why everyone else has a problem with it. The nagging of his wife makes him no better then what he already

As he explained in the story, “Whoever has made a voyage up the Hudson, must remember the Kaatskill mountains” (Irving 471). Kaatskill mountain is a range in southeastern New York. Also he states that “while the country was yet a province of Great Britain” (Irving 472) suggesting that the story took place before the Revolutionary War. This gives the reader a good time frame as the events of the story play out. As Rip is out looking for squirrels and he is met by outsiders who get him drunk, which makes him fall asleep. This is considered the life changing event in the story because Rip is in a deep time changing daze. Irving made sure that the reader would know the time of place before Rip fell asleep so that he can bring forth his lesson of time. It also brings a lesson of not talking to strangers, Rip did not know of the outsiders but were drinking with them which put him into the trouble he was not seeking. As Rip awakens and makes his way back to the place he calls home, he soon will learn that time waits on no

Rip came home to a different place to find out that he had been asleep for 20 years. The family that he once knew were dead and gone. His house was no more and the things he once loved were all destroyed. Irving did this to show how much society had change over time. The Revolutionary War had taken place and America was in the coming. Rip was looked at by the people as an outsider and not known by many. Washington Irving uses Rip Van Winkle to criticize American society after the Revolution. Since Rip slept through the transition from British colony to independence, he is able to comment on the new social order from the perspective of the old. Irving also represents within the story the progressive stages of New World history from the Indian period, through the Dutch and British colonial era to the American epoch. Rip enters the realm of the local gods and returns to become the local storyteller, demonstrating the importance of the past and of contact with the mythic for community life (Pearce). Time passed Rip so much that he didn’t know where to start from again. It was almost as if he was a new person born in a different time. Irving made it so the reader could understand the troubles that Rip face when