Rip Van Winkle

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For other uses, see Rip Van Winkle (disambiguation).
Statue of Rip van Winkle in Irvington, New York, not far from "Sunnyside", the home of Washington Irving

"Rip Van Winkle" is a short story by the American author Washington Irving published in 1819, as well as the name of the story's fictional protagonist. Written while Irving was living in Birmingham, England, it was part of a collection entitled The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon. Although the story is set in New York's Catskill Mountains, Irving later admitted, "When I wrote the story, I had never been on the Catskills."[1]

Contents

[edit] Plot summary

The story of Rip Van Winkle is set in the years before and after the American Revolutionary War. Rip Van Winkle, a villager of Dutch descent, lives in a nice village at the foot of New York's Catskill Mountains. An amiable man whose home and farm suffer from his lazy neglect, he is loved by all but his wife. One autumn day he escapes his nagging wife by wandering up the mountains. After encountering strangely dressed men, rumored to be the ghosts of Henry Hudson's crew, who are playing nine-pins, and after drinking some of their liquor, he settles down under a shady tree and falls asleep. He wakes up twenty years later and returns to his village. He finds out that his wife has died and his close friends have died in a war or gone somewhere else. He immediately gets into trouble when he hails himself a loyal subject of King George III, not knowing that in the meantime the American Revolution has taken place. An old local recognizes him, however, and Rip's now grown daughter puts him up. As Rip resumes his habit of idleness in the village, and his tale is solemnly believed by the old Dutch settlers, certain hen-pecked husbands especially wish they shared Rip's luck.

[edit] Characters

  • Rip Van winkle - a henpecked husband who loathes 'profitable labor'.
  • Dame Van Winkle - Rip Van Winkle's cantankerous wife.
  • Rip - Rip Van Winkle's son.
  • Judith Gardenier - Rip Van Winkle's daughter.
  • Derrick Van Bummel - the local schoolmaster and later a member of Congress.
  • Nicholas Vedder - landlord of the local inn.
  • Mr. Doolittle - a hotel owner.
  • Wolf - Rip's faithful and equally lazy dog
  • The Ghost of Henry Hudson - A ghost that shares magic liquor with Winkle.

[edit] Composition and publication history

The first installment of The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon included "Rip Van Winkle".

After a failed business venture with his brothers, Irving filed for bankruptcy in 1818.[2] Despondent, he turned to writing for possible financial support, though he had difficulty thinking of stories to write. He stayed in Birmingham, England with his brother-in-law Henry Van Wart.[3] The two were reminiscing in June 1818 when Irving was suddenly inspired by their nostalgic conversation.[4] Irving locked himself in his room and wrote non-stop all night. As he said, he felt like a man waking from a long sleep. He presented the first draft of "Rip Van Winkle" to the Van Wert family over breakfast.[5]

"Rip Van Winkle" was one of the first stories Irving proposed for his new book, The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon. Irving asked his brother Ebeneezer to assist with publication in the United States. As Irving wrote, "I shall feel very anxious to hear of the success of this first re-appearance on the literary stage—Should it be successful, I trust I shall be able henceforth to keep up an occasional fire."[6] 2000 copies of the first octavo-sized installment which included "Rip Van Winkle" was released on June 23, 1819, in New York, Boston, Baltimore, and Philadelphia, published by Cornelius S. Van Winkle and sold at a somewhat expensive 75 cents.[7] A British edition was published shortly after by John Miller, who went out of business immediately after. With help from friend Walter Scott, Irving was able to convince John Murray to take over British publication of the Sketch Book.[8]

[edit] Literary forerunners

 This article may contain original research or unverified claims. Please improve the article by adding references. See the talk page for details. (March 2009)

The story is similar to Peter Klaus the Goatherd by J. C. C. Nachtigal, which is a shorter story set in a German village.

The story is also similar to the ancient Jewish story about Honi M'agel who falls asleep after asking a man why he is planting a carob tree which traditionally takes 70 years to mature, making it virtually impossible to ever benefit from the tree's fruit. After this exchange, he falls asleep on the ground and is miraculously covered by a rock and remains out of sight for 70 years. When he awakens, he finds a fully mature tree and that he has a grandson. When nobody believes that he is Honi, he prays to God and God takes him from this world.

The story is also similar to a 3rd century AD Chinese tale of Ranka, as retold in Lionel Giles in A Gallery of Chinese Immortals.

In Orkney there is a similar and ancient folklore tale linked to the Burial mound of Salt Knowe adjacent to the Ring of Brodgar. A drunken fiddler on his way home hears music from the mound. He finds a way in and finds the trowes (Trolls) having a party. He stays and plays for two hours, then makes his way home to Stenness, where he discovers fifty years have passed. The Orkney Rangers believe this may be one source for Washington Irving's tale, because his father was an Orcadian from the island of Shapinsay, and would almost certainly have often told his son the tale.

And in Ireland there is the story of Niamh and Oisin, which deals with a similar theme. Oisin falls in love with the beautiful Niamh and leaves with her on her snow white horse to Tir Na nOg - the land of the ever-young. Missing his family and friends he asks to pay them a visit. Niamh lends him her horse warning him never to dismount and he travels back to Ireland. But three hundred years have past. His family and fellow warriors are all dead. Some men are trying to move a boulder. Oisin reaches down to help them. The girth of the horse's saddle snaps and he falls to the ground. Before the watching eyes of the men he becomes a very very old man.

Another story was by Diogenes Laertius, an Epicurean philosopher circa early half third century, in his book On the Lives, Opinions, and Sayings of Famous Philosophers. The story is in Chapter ten in his section on the Seven Sages, who were the precursors to the first philosophers. The sage was Epimenides. Apparently Epimenides went to sleep in a cave for fifty-seven years. But unfortunately, "he became old in as many days as he had slept years". Although according to the different sources that Diogenes relates, Epimenides lived to be one hundred and fifty-seven years, two hundred and ninety-nine years, or one hundred and fifty-four years old.[9]

A similar story is told of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, Christian saints who fall asleep in a cave while avoiding Roman persecution, and awake more than a century later to find that Christianity has become the religion of the Empire.

[edit] Adaptations

Joseph Jefferson as Rip Van Winkle, 1896

The story has been adapted for other media for the last two centuries, from stage plays to an operetta to cartoons to films. Actor Joseph Jefferson was most associated with the character on the 19th century stage and made a series of short films in 1896 recreating scenes from his stage adaptation, and which are collectively in the US National Film Registry. Jefferson's son Thomas followed in his father's footsteps and also played the character in a number of early 20th century films. The story was also loosely adapted for the show "Twilight Zone" in the 1961 episode "The Rip Van Winkle Caper" starring Oscar Beregi.

This story is echoed in the main plot of the comedy / sci-fi cartoon, Futurama. The basis for the series is that Phillip J Fry falls into a cryogenic stasis chamber on December 31, 1999, not to be revived until December 31, 2999. It's interesting to note that the moral of the story is retained, for when Fry realizes that all his friends, family, and everyone he ever knew have long since died, he exclaims 'Woohoo!' in celebration. Like the original Van Winkle, Fry was a lazy man who hated his job, and when he awakens he seeks out his only living descendant to 'mooch off of', although he is now forced to work (somewhat) hard in the family business.

In the 17th episode of The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo, which originally aired on January 16, 1965, Mr. Magoo (voiced by Jim Backus) plays Rip Van Winkle.

The story also inspired an episode of The Flintstones entitled Rip Van Flinstone, which originally aired on November 5, 1965. In it, Fred falls alseep at the Slate Company Picnic and dreams he has awakened in Bedrock twenty years in the future. Barney has become a rich oil tycoon, Pebbles has married Bamm Bamm, and Wilma has become a bitter old widow. Fred, meanwhile, finds that he is alone and forgotten. At one point during the episode, Fred even says, "Maybe I have fallen asleep for twenty years. Like in that Rip Van Winklestone story."

A Garfield Sunday strip had Garfield dreaming of himself as Rip Van Garfield, waking up from a 50-year catnap and seeing how much has (and hasn't) changed. This strip was later adapted into an episode of Garfield and Friends.

There is also an episode of the popular HBO Original show Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales For Every Child. They retold popular fairy tales by setting them in different cultures and settings and featuring voices provided by celebrities. For Rip Van WInkle they did a Feminist retelling of the story, given a 1960s twist, and told from the point of view of Rip (voiced by Tom Arnold)'s wife Vanna (Calista Flockhart).

A section of Rip Van Winkle is read by one of the band members in the background of their song "I Could Be Dreaming," by Scottish band, Belle & Sebastian

[edit] Dictionary allusions

To be a Rip van Winkle, is to awake suddenly to profound changes in one's surroundings. This may be due to physical absence or to absence of mind.

This term was quoted on January 3, 1992, in the Christian Science Monitor by Laura Van Tuyl like below.

American Public Radio (APR) has shifted into "rescue mode" and through an arduous campaign of pilot programs and experiments is hoping to help stave off, if not reverse, the decline in the number of listeners to classical music on the airwaves "I call it the Rip Van Winkle Syndrome, where we're just waking up after a long sleep and realizing that our audiences are going away," says Ruth Dreier, project director of APR's Classical Music Initiative.

Someone who has remained oblivious to social and political changes over an extended period can be said to be 'Rip-Van-Winkleish'. Andrew Higgins wrote in The Observer, 1997

A political Rip van Winkle who had never watched television and read neither newspapers nor books until the last years of his term, Kim cannot believe, even less comprehend, this changed world. His only reading material until 1990 had been the Bible.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Pierre M. Irving, The Life and Letters of Washington Irving, G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1883, vol. 2, p. 176.
  2. ^ Burstein, Andrew. The Original Knickerbocker: The Life of Washington Irving. New York: Basic Books, 2007: 117. ISBN 978-0-465-00853-7
  3. ^ Jones, Brian Jay. Washington Irving: An American Original. New York: Arcade Books, 2008: 168. ISBN 978-1-55970-836-4
  4. ^ Burstein, Andrew. The Original Knickerbocker: The Life of Washington Irving. New York: Basic Books, 2007: 125. ISBN 978-0-465-00853-7
  5. ^ Jones, Brian Jay. Washington Irving: An American Original. New York: Arcade Books, 2008: 168–169. ISBN 978-1-55970-836-4
  6. ^ Burstein, Andrew. The Original Knickerbocker: The Life of Washington Irving. New York: Basic Books, 2007: 120. ISBN 978-0-465-00853-7
  7. ^ Jones, Brian Jay. Washington Irving: An American Original. New York: Arcade Books, 2008: 177–178. ISBN 978-1-55970-836-4
  8. ^ Burstein, Andrew. The Original Knickerbocker: The Life of Washington Irving. New York: Basic Books, 2007: 149–150. ISBN 978-0-465-00853-7
  9. ^ Laertius, Diogenes: Lives of Eminent Philosophers: Books I-V, RD Hicks, trans., Cambridge: Harvard, 1972. p. 115

[edit] External links

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