"Rip Van Winkle"

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses how Rip Van Winkle is essentially a passive character who does not take action but who has actions taken toward him. It shows how at the beginning of the story, he withdraws from a meddlesome domestic situation and goes into the wilderness where he is acted upon by supernatural forces. When he returns home, he finds everything changed not through any action of his own but simply through the passage of time.

From the Paper:

"Critic Josh Ozersky notes that Rip Van Winkle is a character well-remembered, though primarily for his long nap and not for any strength of character development in the story: Van Winkle is no Sherlock Holmes; there really is not that much to know about his character, other than a few very important characteristics. But those characteristics are so essential to America, and are presented by Irving in such a powerfully allegorical way, that every American, however illiterate, grows up knowing the myth of Rip Van Winkle (Ozersky). Those characteristics help explain the story and show a change in nature over time. Van Winkle begins the story as the amiable townsman with a shrewish wife, and he ends the story "an emancipated widower and ultimately, the village patriarch" (Catalano 114)."

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