Rip Van Winkle and the American Elements
The American Revolution was an eruption of enlightenment thinking. After hundreds of years of reserved Calvinistic attitudes, the pleasures and benefits of creativity, originality, and independent thought blossomed. The creative institutions made popular within the revolutionary period were great leaps of advancements in American writing. Fiction, particularly the short story form, invigorated the American spirit by pronouncing a sense of creativity previously unknown to the rest of the world. Folklore set readers’ minds ablaze with idealistic imagination that continues to influence American judgment to this day. Satire, requiring keen wit and insight, assisted in projecting the image of an enlightened and intelligent society along with the short story form. Together, these three elements worked to enhance the positives of the American image and solidified the literary credentials of its people. Washington Irving’s “Rip Van Winkle” personifies all three defining characteristics, allowing following generations to refer to Irving’s most well known work as a foundation for the American style.
The short story form is quite young compared to its brethren the novel, the poem, or the ballad; it doesn’t even come close to the heroic epic. Yet, even with age, wisdom, and experience behind these forms of writing, the short story quickly trumped each with a surge of popularity during the revolutionary period. America, in its genesis, wished to separate itself from all that came before in a successful attempt to promote the country’s significance. Anything that differentiated the lands west of the Atlantic from Europe was put on a pedestal; Columbus’s travels, regional folklore, Constitutional rights, and the short story form all became hot properties. Sara Puryear Rodes hints towards the usage of the short story as a contributor to Irving’s success in “Rip Van Winkle” by associating folklore with writing style, pointing out that the story “is the American version of an ancient folk tale in which Irving keeps very close to the folk version and with which he makes his greatest contribution to and use of American folklore” (248). According to Webster’s unabridged Dictionary, a folktale is “a tale or legend originating and traditional among a people or folk, esp. one forming part of the oral tradition of the common people.” Stories passed on orally are understandably short and easy to follow, because recollection plays a large part in a particular story’s survival. “Rip Van Winkle” begins with a nod to the oral tradition of storytelling through the fictional persona of the narrator, Diedrich Knickerbocker, who apparently had “died shortly after the publication of his work” (637). After a few moments in memorandum, Irving dives right into the story. The sentence structure he uses to introduce his readers to Rip and his home borrows the syntax of a campfire storyteller; he adds little asides to further explain: “In that same village, and in one of those very houses (which, to tell the precise truth, was sadly time-worn and weather-beaten), there lived many years sinceâÂ?¦ a simple good-natured fellow of the name of Rip Van Winkle” (638). Irving opted not to write overly descriptive prose to impress the masses; he built and edited faithful reproductions of popular myth. Upon publication of “Rip Van Winkle,” Irving was criticized for not crediting his source material; Irving responded that the story was common European folk tradition and therefore had no definite source to draw from (Rodes 249). It was Irving’s affection for folklore that contributed most heavily to the form, style, and length of “Rip Van Winkle,” resulting in a conveniently sized story that could be digested much more easily by the growing number of literate readers.
As literacy rates rose, so did the valuing of American symbolism. Folklore and imagination alike were prided in American literature, and Irving became a prime representation of the American author for his usage of each. Lewis Leary notes that “Irving created-it may be thought inadvertently-a symbol of the mythic American” (253). The usage of allegorical symbols build up Rip to be a man who would be happier without the tired icons he lives with. His wife Dame is likened to an old crow (641), his kids run ragged and wild showing no respect to their parents (639), and his village is antiquated (638). By any interpretation, Irving shows distaste for the world before the revolution. When Rip awakens on a green knoll, everything he knew has faded, replaced by a sunny morning and twittering birds, together with the powerful image of the majestic Bald Eagle circling overhead (643). Happiness and freedom are in the air, as the image of the famous American Bald Eagle confirms; Rip just does not yet know it. He finds his gun, rusted over and useless, by his side (643). With the war over, peace and freedom reign, so Irving suggests that the need for bloodshed has passed. Rip’s home, an institution that once separated him from the rest of the village, is now crumbling beyond repair (644-5). In the Calvinist period, religion was meant to be an assuring comfort zone, but like Rip’s home life, what was supposed to be and what actually came to pass was not one in the same. After the revolution, Irving suggests, Calvinist attitudes and beliefs were ancient and no longer necessary, allowing Rip to experience the benefits of the enlightened way of life. When Rip returns to the new version of his village, he is welcomed with open arms and accepted, ending the story with reverence to America’s policy of cultural acceptance.
The most notable aspect of “Rip Van Winkle” is Irving’s use of satire. Until the revolution, the sense of humor of the populace, at least in a literary sense, was malnourished. Irving shows a complete reversal in morale, packing his folktale with enough humorous observations to cause readers to “kill [themselves] laughing at it” (Wagenknecht 250). Though contextual changes over time have disabled the effectiveness of portions of Irving’s wit, funny moments still make readers smile. Rip himself is jabbed several times in a deprecating manner; he apparently has not inherited the “martial character of his ancestors” (638), he doesn’t stand up to his nagging wife (638), and his “great error” is “an insuperable aversion to all kinds of profitable labor” (639). In modern terms, Rip Van Winkle is a lazy dreamer with nothing to look forward to. John Clendenning supports the idea of Rip Van Winkle the dreamer, claiming that Rip’s problem was that he was a dreamer in a world where dreams were not valued (256). Interestingly enough, Irving never gives his readers a solid physical description of Rip. We know he naturally wears outdated clothing and he has an overgrown beard, but these aspects merely refer to his past self and how times have changed. Instead, Irving intentionally leaves Rip as a blank slate, enabling the reader to fill in the gaps, or, more likely, step into his shoes. The deprecating humor expressed about Rip then becomes self-depreciating, humbling the reader and inspiring future humorists like Mark Twain to develop self-deprecation further and establishing it as a staple of American humor.
Washington Irving does indeed represent many of the qualities that Americans proudly claim as their own. From the affection of folklore to the pride in American symbolism to the usage of witty satire, “Rip Van Winkle” certainly paves the way for later American writers to explore with gusto. That exploration has changed the face of the American people from Calvinists to Satirists to Romanticists, Industrialists, and Revisionists. Thanks to the international appeal and success of “Rip Van Winkle,” traditional folklore has been preserved, idealism has been engrained in western culture, and satire has warmed the hearts of many feeling pain. These results are just what Irving had wanted. Irving knew from the time he heard his very first folktale that stories have a way of uplifting and satisfying readers, and in his own words, “If, however, I can by some lucky chance, rub out one wrinkle from the brow of care, or beguile the heart of one moment of sorrowâÂ?¦ I shall not have written in vain” (Leary 253). “Rip Van Winkle” isn’t just inspiration to all of America, or even to all the world; no, Irving’s stories are a celebration of inspiration.
