“Rip Van Winkle” is the story of a Dutch American colonist from the Hudson River valley who meets a mystical group of dwarf-like residents of the Catskill Mountains, falls under the sleeping spell of their liquor for twenty years, and returns to his home to find that the American Revolution has taken place. A number of classic elements of legend and folklore combine to create a compelling portrait of a henpecked, ne’er-do-well husband saved from his domineering wife through supernatural forces.
Rip Van Winkle lived in the most run-down house in a charming village on the banks of the Hudson at the foot of the Catskill Mountains. Rip’s children were the most ragged rascals in the neighborhood and his fields were full of weeds. Even so, he was immensely popular with the local children, with whom he played and told ghost stories, and with the town housewives, who took his side in all his domestic disputes. Mrs. Van Winkle, conversely, was widely viewed as a nagging biddy. Rip escaped her whenever he could, seeking the tranquility of the woods in the company of his loyal dog Wolf.
The Return of Rip Van Winkle by John Quidor (1849) in the National Gallery of Art. The character of Rip Van Winkle is the creation of Washington Irving, an early nineteenth-century author credited with developing the American storytelling tradition. In the narrative, Rip Van Winkle passes into a deep sleep lasting twenty years, which causes him to miss the social, cultural, and political upheavals of the American Revolution. (Art Reserve/Alamy Stock Photo)
One day as Rip rambled in the hills, he was accosted by a stranger short in stature and dressed in the traditional Dutch style. Responding to this quaint figure’s request for assistance, Rip helped carry a keg of liquor through the hills to a large amphitheater, where a group of little men were concentrating upon a game of ninepins. All were dressed in a similar fashion, and altogether the scene reminded Rip of an image drawn from a Rembrandt painting. The sound of the balls and ninepins crashing echoed like thunder through the surrounding valleys. Overawed by the bowlers, Rip served them as they played until he gained enough confidence to sneak a few drinks himself. Eventually the liquor overpowered him, and Rip fell deeply asleep.
Rip woke to a bright morning in the place where he first met the stranger; however, any mirth was overshadowed by the dreaded prospect of facing his wife. In addition, he was dismayed by the loss of Wolf, who wouldn’t come to his call, and the theft of his beautiful fowling piece, which some thief seemed to have swapped with a rusty old gun. Returning to his village, Rip was shocked to find everything had changed. His house was tumbled down, and a half-starved twin of Wolf bared his fangs at Rip when called. The portrait of King George outside the village inn had been made over into the likeness of George Washington—the American Revolution had come and gone. Most confusing of all, Rip’s son was the spitting image of his father at the same age, which bewildered the poor man’s wits still further. Finally, Rip’s daughter appeared; they were reunited, and Rip learned of the demise of old Mrs. Van Winkle. The village historian confirmed Rip’s identity, crediting Rip’s charmed slumber to Hendrick Hudson and his men. Rip lived out his days happily in his daughter’s house. Ever after the villagers attributed the bluster and boom of any summer thunderstorm to Hendrick Hudson and his lads at their game of ninepins, and not a few henpecked husbands of the region wished for a drink such as Rip gulped down from that keg.
Written under the pseudonym of “Geoffrey Crayon,” “Rip Van Winkle” is one of the most famous of the tales of The Sketch Book, a collection of stories by Washington Irving, which also includes “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” This story, reputedly written mostly in one night in June 1818, was included in a group of sketches Irving sent to his brothers in March 1819, and was published in May of that year. The entirety of The Sketchbook consisted of seven such installments, which were published as a book in 1820.
The character of Rip Van Winkle presents an American antihero, a stark contrast to the rags-to-riches accounts that began in the colonial period in figures like Benjamin Franklin and perhaps reached their peak in the nineteenth century with the stories, and in the person, of Horatio Alger. Furthermore, Wolf’s twin who snarled at Rip from the wreckage of his old shack is an antithesis of Argus from the Odyssey, suggesting that Rip may be understood as a sort of underachieving Ulysses.
Rip is a charmingly lazy squanderer who just wants to be left alone to doze and hunt in the company of his beloved dog. Although a reasonable reader would certainly acknowledge the well-placed frustration of the ne’er-do-well’s wife, the story is not at all sympathetic in its portrayal of her, and clearly Rip’s escape from her through his long, liquor-induced slumber is presented as a blessing. For all its folksy charm, however, it is clear that the confusing change of a place so near and dear to old Rip offers a cautionary insight into the rapid transformation of America during its early years.
“Rip Van Winkle” is, in a sense, a story within a story within a story, as the preface to the tale is presented as a commentary added by the narrator concerning a reliable source. In this preface, Irving’s alter-ego Geoffrey Crayon tells us that we are hearing a true story drawn from the accurate, if unimportant, papers of one Diedrich Knickerbocker. Knickerbocker, like Crayon, is a charming creation used by Irving to utilize a compelling “friend of a friend” narrative technique such as is seen in modern urban legends. The matter-of-fact tone and journalistic quality of the tale, told at a believable remove from the author, draws readers in before presenting them with the supernatural episode that has rendered this story iconic for every generation of American audiences since its publication. Indeed, the brilliance of “Rip Van Winkle,” like that of “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” is in Irving’s sly attribution of the story to Diedrich Knickerbocker, whom Irving identifies as an old New York folklorist well versed in the oral traditions of his Dutch Hudson Valley forebears. Knickerbocker, of course, is as much a character in the story as Rip himself.
The enduring value of “Rip Van Winkle” is to be found in its wonderful storytelling style, which has become a part of the American psyche, rather than in the tale’s alleged factuality. In this case, as in “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” Irving drew upon a German folktale, “Peter Klaus,” which he regularly cited as his ultimate source for “Rip Van Winkle.” In adapting the setting and style of such folktales to the New York of the fledgling United States, Irving transformed each of these stories into the appearance of folktales with truly American character and flavor.
C. Fee
See also Headless Horseman; Irving, Washington; Legends
Further Reading
Burstein, Andrew, 2007. The Original Knickerbocker: The Life of Washington Irving. New York: Basic Books.
Irving, Washington. 2009. The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent, edited by Susan Manning. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Jones, Brian Jay, 2008. Washington Irving: An American Original. New York: Arcade.
“Rip Van Winkle.” 2004. In The Oxford Companion to American Literature, edited by James David Hart and Phillip Leininger. New York: Oxford University Press.