Rip Van Winkle

Rip Van Winkle Characters Derrick Van Bummel

Derrick Van Bummel is the schoolmaster. He is an educated and articulate man who eagerly participates in earnest discussions of the news contained in old, outdated newspapers with other townspeople at the inn. He becomes a great militia general in the war and, after the war, eventually becomes a member of Congress.

Rip Van Winkle Quick Summary

It follows a Dutch-American villager in colonial America named Rip Van Winkle who falls asleep in the Catskill Mountains and wakes up 20 years later, having missed the American Revolution.

Rip's son is identical to his father, and the introduction of a third Rip Van Winkle suggests a

Kind of comforting indefinite continuity.Thus the hero's ultimate accomplishment is his ability to resist the drive to progress and change.

Rip Van Winkle Characters Nicholas Vedder

Nicholas Vedder is the landlord of the old inn, who sits all day in the shade of a large tree, who speaks very little, and whose opinions are indicated by the way he smokes his pipe: short puffs when he is displeased, and long tranquil puffs when he is pleased. He is dead by the time Rip wakes up from his long sleep. Spends everyday pursuing the shade of a large tree outside the inn and he pursues the shade so that the neighbors could tell the hour by his movements

(when Rip sneaks a sip the drink from the keg he helped the stranger carry up the mountain) The magical drink that Rip takes is irresistible, just like the promise of escape and freedom that drew Rip up the mountain in the first place.

Promise of escape and freedom that drew Rip up the mountain in the first place.

Rip Van Winkle Characters Judith Gardenier

Rip Van Winkles daughter

What is Rip Van Winkles biggest weakness?

That he can find no motivation to engage in profitable labor of any kind. -Though he is happy to help on properties that are not his own, he avoids work on his own farm and his land is severely run down.

Rip Van Winkle Characters Peter Vanderdonk

The "most ancient" inhabitant of Rip Van Winkle's village, Peter Vanderdonk is the one person able to recall Rip Van Winkle after his 20-year absence. He corroborates Rip's story to the townspeople and thereby ends the confusion surrounding Rip's strange return.

Who wrote "Rip Van Winkle"?

Washington Irving

What is the name of Rip Van Winkles dog?

Wolf

The inn is a place to

avoid duty and productivity, where labor is enjoyable, not profitable.

The only way Rip Van Winkle can avoid his angry wife is to

escape his home.

Rip's greatest trouble is

his wife, Dame Van Winkle, who is shrewish and constantly nagging Rip about his biggest weakness: that he can find no motivation to engage in profitable labor of any kind.

(Near the end of the story) In spite of all of the dramatic changes just revealed to us, Rip goes on living in much the same way he did before. He thus becomes a figure who stands for

sameness and the past, and links the peaceful and slow time before the Revolutionary war to the bustling time after.

Rip Van Winkle Setting

"Rip Van Winkle" is set in the years before and after the American Revolutionary War in a village at the foot of New York's Catskill (kaatskill) Mountains where Rip Van Winkle, a Dutch-American villager, lives

Rip Van Winkle Characters Dame Van Winkle

Rip Van Winkle's wife is a sharp-tongued and nagging woman whose only role in the story is to antagonize and hound her lazy husband, who avoids all domestic duties. Though Dame Van Winkle's unceasing harassment of her husband is mentioned frequently, she has no dialogue in the story and remains a kind of comical background force. She dies while Rip is asleep on the mountain, from "breaking a blood vessel in a fit of passion at a New England Peddler."

What is Rip Van Winkles response to his wife's nagging/lecturing that has now become a habit?

Rip shrugs his shoulders, shakes his head, and looks up to the sky and says nothing -this always provoked a fresh volley from his wife

The Inn

The inn is a hotspot of unproductive labor. Lazy Nicholas Vedder spends his whole day pursuing, rather than profit or personal gain, the shade of the big tree. Even more notable is Derrick Van Bummel, who uses his considerable intelligence to debate about events that happened many months ago. Though the narrator notes how articulately and passionately Derrick spoke about the papers, the reader can understand that the exercise is ultimately useless. The inn is a place to avoid duty and productivity, where labor is enjoyable, not profitable.

Rip Van Winkle Characters Rip Van Winkle

The protagonist of the story, Rip Van Winkle is a genial, passive man living in a small Dutch province in the Catskills, who spends his time engaging in work that is not useful or profitable, such as hunting squirrels and doing odd jobs in houses and gardens that aren't his own. He is the "henpecked husband" of his constantly nagging wife, Dame Van Winkle, from whom he is often hiding, and who is the cause of most of Rip's unhappiness. Rip ventures up to the top of a mountain one day while squirrel hunting and encounters strange beings who bewitch him with liquor such that he sleeps for 20 years, missing the American Revolution and the dramatic transformation of both his town and the country around it.

Rip Van Winkle Summary

"Rip Van Winkle" is set in the years before and after the American Revolutionary War in a village at the foot of New York's Catskill Mountains where Rip Van Winkle, a Dutch-American villager, lives. One autumn day, Van Winkle wanders into the mountains with his dog Wolf to escape his wife's nagging. He hears his name called out and sees a man wearing antiquated Dutch clothing; he is carrying a keg up the mountain and requires help. Together, the men and Wolf proceed to a hollow in which Rip discovers the source of thunderous noises: a group of ornately dressed, silent, bearded men who are playing nine-pins. Van Winkle does not ask who they are or how they know his name. Instead, he begins to drink some of their liquor and soon falls asleep. When he awakens on the mountain, he discovers shocking changes: his musket is rotting and rusty, his beard is a foot long, and his dog is nowhere to be found. He returns to his village, where he recognizes no one. He arrives just after an election, and people ask how he voted. Never having cast a ballot in his life, he proclaims himself a faithful subject of King George III, unaware that the American Revolution has taken place, and nearly gets himself into trouble with the townspeople until one elderly woman recognizes him as the long-lost Rip Van Winkle. King George's portrait on the inn's sign has been replaced with one of George Washington. Van Winkle learns that most of his friends were killed fighting in the American Revolution. He is also disturbed to find another man called Rip Van Winkle; it is his son, now grown up. Van Winkle also discovers that his wife died some time ago but is not saddened by the news. He learns that the men whom he met in the mountains are rumored to be the ghosts of Henry Hudson's crew from his ship, the Halve Maen. He also realizes that he has been away from the village for at least 20 years. His grown daughter takes him in and he resumes his usual idleness. His strange tale is solemnly taken to heart by the Dutch settlers, particularly by the children who say that, whenever thunder is heard, the men in the mountains must be playing nine-pins.

Washington Irving

1. Created 2 of the most popular and enduring figures in American culture, Rip Van Winkle and Sleep Hollow's Ichabod Crane 2. His innovative travel sketches blurred the line between the personal essay and fiction, and he is considered on the "inventors" of the modern short story

Rip Van Winkle Characters Rip Van Winkle, Jr.

1. The son of protagonist Rip Van Winkle and Dame Van Winkle. Rip Jr. is determined to grow up to be just like his father. The reader sees at the end of the story that he has succeeded in this (which also means that he has avoided succeeding in much of anything else).

Rip Van Winkle

1. The tale was found among the papers of the late Diedrich Knickerbocker, an old gentlemen of New York 2. "Rip Van Winkle" was one of the first stories Irving proposed for his new book, The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.

Diedrich Knickerbocker

Knickerbocker is the fictional historian who narrates the story of Rip Van Winkle. We learn that Knickerbocker has died shortly after composing this history. Formerly an "old gentleman of New York," Knickerbocker fostered a keen interest in the history of the Dutch settlers of New York, and preferred to do research by obtaining first person accounts as opposed to turning to books. He had the capability and intelligence to concern himself with "weightier labours" but nevertheless focused on enjoyed his hobby thoroughly until his death, and is generally well remembered by common people in his community, if not by critics.

(When Rip has reached the top of the peak with the stranger he has helped and sees the men playing nine-pins, He notes there dress about their appearance) The antiquated dress of the strangers (and Rip's confusion about it) foreshadows

Rip's return to town later in the story (when he will appear strangely old-fashioned to the residents there).