Washington Irving- Rip Van Winkle STASIS

Rex De Asis

“Rip Van Winkle” is a folktale which Washington Irving had learned about during his twenty year stay in Europe. The actual tale was found in the papers of Diedrich Knickerbocker who was an old gentleman of New York.

This folktale introduces us to Rip Van Winkle, a man who is good natured but careless to his obligations to his own societal status and family. Rip “unconsciously scrambles” (955) to the highest part of the Kaatskill (Catskill) Mountains and falls asleep for twenty years. As this popular tale continues, Rip finds himself waking to a world different from the one he had remembered. Although this story is completely unrealistic, it illustrates how the American Revolution had changed a small village but did not change Rip.

Rip Van Winkle represents the resistance to societal change. While his twenty year sleep is obviously impossible, it represents a stasis in character. This stasis keeps Rips character frozen and unchanged, thus giving the reader an insight to two time periods instead of one. Irving uses this tale to illustrate the village during England’s rule and contrasts it to a timeframe following the American Revolution. By keeping Rip the same, and without any alteration, we are drawn to focus more on Rips new surroundings instead of reexamining his familiar disposition.

Rip clearly see’s the changes in the village as it is has went from being rural to more urban. “The very village was altered; it was larger and more populous” (961) Additionally, Rip finds changes in politics but fails to assimilate and understand it. He was oblivious to being either Federalist or Democratic. "matters of which he could not understand: war-congress." (962)

Ultimately Rip, rejoins his daughter and continues his life with liberation that the American Revolution had brought. There is a contrasting parallel created between Rip and the village who had both faced change after the war. The village had completely changed, however, Rip seems to have stayed the same carrying over his familiar solitary and laid back characteristics. It is true he had now joined with his daughter but in the end he is happy to be liberated from “the yoke of matrimony” (his nagging wife) and “the tyranny of Dame Van Winkle” (964)