Daigrepont, Lloyd M. “Rip Van Winkle and the Gnostic Vision of History”. Clio 15.1 (1985): 47-59. Wilson OmniFile. Web. 21 Sept. 2015. Lloyd Daigrepont is an English Professor at Lamar University in Beaumont Texas. In this article, Dr. Daigrepont has pointed out the view of Rip Van Winkle, and many Americans, as seen by Irving. In addition to how Rip’s character is viewed in the story, Daigrepont points out Irving’s understanding of change and how the progression of civilian life in America may not have been for the better. Daigrepont sees Rip as a lazy man that would do anything to get away from his nagging wife at home. However, the way the story is told by Irving, Daigrepont feels that the laziness is somehow overlooked as nothing more than typical male behavior that is widely accepted by the small village he was from. The main point of this article is to point out Daigrepont’s assertion that Irving saw the “possibility of a way of life in which men make the best of the human condition by accepting their own imperfections and the discipline of nature rather than compounding discontent through hopeless pursuit of the ideal” (Daigrepont 56). Basically saying that men of that time were fine with their inadequacies. They weren’t motivated to change for the better. …show more content…
As a reader, I’m interpreting Irving’s giving Rip a happy ending in this story as almost rewarding his ignorance and laziness. He slept for twenty years because he was sick of a wife that nagged him and somehow he is rid of her and he has a new life. He is fine with the fact that she is gone and he can move on as if she never existed. Wyman, Sarah. “Washington Irving’s Rip Van Winkle: A Dangerous Critique of a New Nation.” ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes, and Reviews 23.4 (2010): 216-22. Omnifile. Web. 21 Sept.
“Rip Van Winkle” and the Emergence of an American Mythology. By Danise Bachman Rip van winkle in indeed a classic piece of American mythology. Washington Irving set this story in the past and filled it with exaggerated and sometimes, strange characters. It also features a mysterious and magical occurrence that put the main character to sleep for twenty years!
Module Four: Thinking like a Historian Part One Compare the views of these two scholars by answering the following questions. Be sure to find specific examples in the selections to support your answers. 1.) What issues that surround Latino immigration to America does each author address?
New Spirits: Americans in the Gilded Age, 1865-1905 written by Rebecca Edwards provides readers with many different individual accounts to illustrate the transformative time of America during the Gilded Age. The work shows the cultural, social, political and economical elements of the age that aided in forming the America we have today. Edwards’s purpose in writing New Spirits is to offer readers new insights on the era by eliminating predetermined stereotypes one may have established before reading the work. Edwards wants readers to put aside their prior knowledge to understand just what it was like to live in the Gilded Age by providing readers with the consequences and achievements of people during the time.
After the WWII, America’s economy boomed causing its population to increase. The increase in the population led to many suburban homes each with a family containing many children. The ideal life goals were to go to school, get a job, get married, buy a suburban house, and have kids. The whole idea was to get more American to achieve a middle class status to buy products, such as the television, which was the latest craze, to help the economy. J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye troubled character Holden Caulfield goes against “culture of conformity” social standards.
In every aspect of society, there are social norms, a regulation or expectancy that dominates people’s morals, beliefs, actions, attitudes and behaviors. In J.D. Salinger’s 1951 novel, Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield defy societal norms, becoming an outsider who is searching for his place and meaning in the world. His world is full of what he calls, “phonies,” a person who is not genuine, will do whatever it takes to make themselves look good, and change their personality to fit into a certain group. Throughout the novel, the audience is taken on a journey with Holden through post-World War II New York. During that time period, the United States of America was an other-directed society; a society based on one’s ability to conform to societal
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is written as a mockery of American ideals, and emphasizes materialism, sexual immorality, and selfishness. Though it appears at first glance to be a love story about Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan, The Great Gatsby is actually a satirical take on American culture, especially in the 1920s. In the 1920s, known as the “Roaring Twenties”, America’s economy was booming, jazz was immensely popular, and alcohol had been banned. Organized crime ran rampant, and Americans seemed to lose their moral values.
Just reading his thoughts makes you want to sit in a warm shower for extraneous amounts of time. This being said the conclusion I can draw from this tableau is how J.D Salinger saw the world at times. Writing with such detail, making the reader feel the alienation and depression the Holden feels, one
Rip Van Winkle pursues a very seldom lifestyle with no pursuit and no ambition. He displays almost no willingness to change from his traditional ways after realizing the American colonies were independent from British Tyranny. He even still accepts the rule of King George III when he enters the town greeting the towns people with saying he is a loyal subject of the king. The reader can see his total disembodiment from the situation when the narrator says “instead of being a subject of his Majesty George the Third, he was now a free citizen of the United States. Rip, in fact, was no politician;
In the paradoxical personality of Holden we discover something much deeper. As Holden makes himself out to be tougher than what he actually is, Salinger introduces stubbornness. Holden’s true nature of gentleness and sensitivity offered throughout the book often brings bedlam into his life, though Salinger brings into
Irving’s Character Alikeness Biographical and short story writer, Washington Irving is known for his works “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” However, he does have additional short stories. Between 1819 and 1820, Washington Irving published The Sketch Book, which was made up of approximately 30 short stories. Within those works were characters such as John Bull, Rip Van Winkle, Ichabod Crane, the Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow, and several other unnamed characters. Now, the nameless characters in Washington Irving’s tales had just as deep impacts in their stories as named characters; from those deep impacts came about noticeable character resemblances between those characters.
In novels focusing on parody of European attributes of romanticism Washington Irving created the unexampled masterpieces. “Rip Van Winkle” being one of the unexampled works of Washington Irving combines gentle and perfect humor. This story is Irving’s imaginative reworking of an old German tale in which his valuable parody professionally covered. In the story Washington Irving gave the national shade to the description of events and outlandish beings for America.
Washington Irving’s, The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. is a collection of thirty-four of his essays and short stories. Attributed to the fictional Dutch historian character, Diedrich Knickerbocker, are two of Irving’s most popular stories, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle. Rip Van Winkle is the story of a Dutch villager, living at the foot of the Catskill mountains before and after the American Revolutionary War. Van Winkle is genuinely loved by the people of his village, especially by the children whom he tells ghost stories to, plays with, and gives toys. However, this simple, easy-going man has one great error in his character: he is incredibly lazy, despising work in all forms.
Hugh S. Dawson also added some thoughts to the ideas of Young, Fetterley and Fiedler about Rip Van Winkle that Rip Van Winkle being Gothic story once more shows the advantage of marriage to avoid from wasting life in impenetrable forest [6, 14/08/2015]. Another bestseller work of Washington Irving is “The Spectre Bridegroom” that also included in “The Sketch Book by Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.”. If Irving in “Rip Van Winkle” headed to mix the physical and metaphorical dream reflecting the sigh of freedom in colony, in this work he brought the new American breath to the old Europe. Unlike other works, Irving described the happened events in Germany. All these hinted at that Irving wanted to ruin the old fences around Europe that formulated for many years.
Fiction is known to be for entertainment. In fact, a story is defined as an account of imaginary or real people and events told for entertainment. Although fiction is said to be for amusement, is it possible that these stories have value to historians? The Headstrong Historian by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a historical fiction story that is historically accurate, and does an outstanding job of portraying the vital truth of Colonial Nigeria. Fiction holds great value in the study of Colonial Nigeria, because not only is it accurate in portraying historical events, it provokes an emotional response in relation to these events and the vital truth of Colonial Nigeria.
Unfortunately for Mr. Henry Irving, Henry James had plenty of negative feelings towards Mr. Irving’s production, but rather than simply stating them, he utilizes strategies such as juxtaposition and oxymoron to allow for his diction to disguise much of the negative emotions and display it in a more friendly manner. For instance, Henry James utilizes the figurative language, juxtaposition, when describing how Mr. Irving isn’t an effective actor to the readers when he states, “Mr. Irving has several points in common with Edwin Booth, and belongs to the same general type of actor; but I may say that if, to my thinking, Edwin Booth comes nearer to being a man of genius, I find Mr. Irving more comfortable to see” (lines 41-44). This quotation exemplifies that Mr. Irving does encompass some characteristics, in which an actor in his category needs; however, he can’t fully be assigned the status of an “actor” due to the lack of such criteria. James depicts this by comparing Mr. Irving to Edwin Booth, a famous 19th-century American actor, as well as differentiating them by explaining that he believes that Edwin Booth is considered a man of genius,