Rip Van Winkle

Issues or Themes:

"Don't let time pass you by." Don't be fooled by how quickly time can go just because it may seem slow every day.

Issues or Themes:

"Don't run away from your problems because you will miss out in the end/it isn't worth it." Rip runs away from his problem, his nagging wife, and ends up being punished for it by sleeping for twenty years.

Opinion of the text and why:

I found the story to be very interesting and all the characters had a quality about them that made them unique. All the themes and issues connected and the story flowed very well.

Opinion of the text and why:

Normally stories that are assigned tend to be boring and a pain to read, but this one wasn't so bad. The story was interesting and I liked how we read it in class all together as to as an at home or on your own time assignment. I like how the themes link in with the story also, they are both very true.

Title and Author:

Rip Van Winkle by Washington Irving

Synopsis of the Characters and Plot:

Rip is a British-American villager loved by all his town. He avoids labor though which leads his wife Dame to nag him. Rip decides to escape his wife's nagging one day and wanders off until mountains with his dog Wolf. He meets a man who asks him to help carry his ceg up the mountain, where he meets many men who were playing nine pins. Then he begins to drink the liquor and falls into a deep sleep that ends up being for over twenty years. When he awakens his beard has grown a foot long, his dog is gone, and when he returns to his village nobody recognizes him. He discovers that his wife and close friends have died, King George III has been replaced with George Washington, and another man is being called his name. He is taken in by his adult daughter, and resumes his old habits.

According to Campbell's criteria whether you think Rip is a hero or not:

Rip is not a hero. "We are not meant to admire Rip. He is not the man who will lead the nation into the future. He is a missed opportunity, a failed hero."

Synopsis of the Characters and Plot:

Rip- main character who ran away and slept for 20 years Dame- Rip's wife, chased him away because of hen pecking and nagging Wolf- Rip's dog who was dead when he returned Judith- Rip's daughter who he met when he came back Rip (son)- Rip's son