Plot and Setting

"Rip Van Winkle", by Washington Irving is a short story about a man who resides in America before the Revolution, when the province is still under the rule of Great Britain, and after slumbering for 20 years, Rip Van Winkle awakens to a whole new independent America. The story establishes an identity before and after the American Revolution.

In a village, at the foot of New York's "Kaatskill" Mountains, lives Rip Van Winkle, a colonial British-American village dweller of Dutch descent. Rip is a good-natured man who enjoys lone activities in the wilderness. Rip is a likeable man in town—especially toward the children whom he tells stories to and makes toys for, and the woman. However, Rip is known to loathe physical labor, which causes his wife (Dame Van Winkle) to chastise him. Because of his lack of willingness toward labor, his home and farm fall into disorder.

On an autumn day, due to his wife’s nagging him, Rip wanders up to the mountains with his dog, Wolf. He hears his name being shouted and notices that the man calling him is dressed in outdated Dutch clothing, carrying a keg. The strange man begs Rip for his assistance, and without exchanging words, the two hike up to an amphitheatre-like hollow. Here, Rip finds the source of the thunderous echoes he had heard earlier, and a group of other ornately-dressed, hushed, bearded men who are playing nine-pins.

Rip, without speaking to the men or questioning them, begins to drink some of their liquor, and soon falls into a deep slumber—this is a major turning point in the story. Once awake, he finds himself in a series of bizarre situations: he guesses it is morning, his gun is aged and rusty, his beard has grown a foot long, and Wolf, his dog, is nowhere in sight. Rip wanders back to his village, where he comes to find that he cannot identify anyone he once knew.

His wife has died and his close friends have died in a war or have moved on from the village. Rip finds himself in a dilemma when he insists he is a loyal subject of King George III. not knowing that the American Revolution has begun. King George III's portrait on the town inn has been swapped for one of George Washington. Rip is also comes to find that another man is being called Rip Van Winkle, who he learns is in fact his son.

The men Rip came across in the mountains are rumored to be the ghosts of Hendrick (Henry) Hudson's crew. Rip is taken aback to find that he has been asleep for twenty years. An old local recognizes Rip, and Rip comes to recognize his daughter who is now older and has a child. Rip goes about in life in his old lethargic ways. Every villager comes to know Rip’s story, and all who pass through hear of Rip’s infamous tale.

Irving’s story, Rip Van Winkle, gives its readers a vibrant portrayal of the American culture by setting a story of foreign origin into an American environment during an exceedingly vital historical period of the creation of the country's identity. The nature imagery, landscape snap-shots and historical background that resonate from the old settler's traditions give a clear image of the American way of life and of the psychological transformations that the citizens went through during such a vital time of change. The American Revolution is used as an objective correlative to represent a short dream, but still, the change that it has brought upon are seen essential for the structure of the American nation.