Literary analyses of "Rip Van Winkle" .
Rip Van Winkle is a man from a small village located at the foot Kaatskill Mountains. He lives with his wife, 2 kids, and his dog. His son, Rip Van Winkle, was just like his father. His dog, Wolf, was his best friend. They were always together and Wolf was always faithful. Rip Van Winkle is a man of many traits. He always helped others while his home remained pretty well run down. In the short story "Rip Van Winkle", Washington Irving uses simple, henpecked, lazy and friendly to describe the main character Rip Van Winkle. .
The first thing that is used to describe Rip Van Winkle is simple. Rip is a simple man that just enjoys life. Irving says this by saying "Rip Van winkle was one of those happy mortals, of foolish, well-oiled dispositions, who take the world easy, eat white bread or brown, whichever can be got with least thought or trouble"(36). This tells that Rip takes what he can get without much hassle for it. Then Irving states, "if left to himself, he would have whistled life away, in perfect contentment"(36). Rip just takes life as it comes and does not worry about nothing but what's happening with him at that point and time. Rip seems to have no worries or regrets about his simple life.
The second point that is portrayed by Rip Van Winkle is henpecked. Henpecked means that he's nagged and yelled at all the time by his wife. One example of him being henpecked is when it says, "his wife kept continually dinning in his ears about his idleness, his carelessness and the ruin ha was bringing on his family"(36). His wife is always pestering him about how he is ruining his family because of how he is. It then says "He shrugged his shoulders, shook his head, cast up his eyes, but said nothing"(36). He has been so badly verbally abused that he would not say anything for fear of more yelling. Then Irving also quotes "he is fain to draw off his forces, and take to the outside of the house-the only side which belongs to a henpecked husband"(36).
