Rip Van Winkle

The humor of Rip Van Winkle's situation comes largely from his relations with his wife and from his own flawed character. He is said to be "an obedient, henpecked husband" and his wife is described as a "shrew" under whom their home becomes a "fiery furnace of domestic tribulation" (31). In the end, through his long sleep, he has escaped the "despotism" of her "petticoat government" and has gotten "his neck out of the yoke of matrimony" (45). Despite the fact that this seems quite misogynist it was certainly as clear to Irving as it is to the modern reader that Dame Van Winkle had a great deal to complain about.

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e not changed very much and this contrasts with the passing of so many people he has known and with the great changes in government that have taken place. The barely changed face of nature serves to put all the human changes into perspective and Irving lightly mocks the new Americans for taking themselves so very seriously. This interpretation agrees in some points with those of three critics who wrote in Irving's story. Philip Young wrote at great length on the mythological origins of Irving's story. The sleeper who witnesses the secret rites, often those of the thunder god Thor, was an ancient figure. The myth generally centered around fertility, the thunder being an indication of the rain that nourishes the earth. But Young concludes that even though modern versions of the myth were clearly the source of Irving's story, he did not attempt to rewrite the story one more time. Instead, Young believes, Irving was writing a satire on the American character. Rip slips from childhood to second childhood without spending too much time on manhood. "It is not just his wife he has dodged, either, but all the obligations of maturity" (Young 83). He settles in to the comforts of irresponsibility at the aptly named Mr. Doolittle's
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1811
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)

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