“Rip Van Winkle” Notes

A motif : a recurring subject, theme, idea, feature, etc. in a literary work

In “RVW,” there is a motif of Vision vs. Reality (there’s a contrast between the two)

Vision vs. Reality Vision = what appears to be vs. Reality = what is

Vision vs. Reality “Rip Van Winkle” is the classic American story of a man who finds his home life intolerable, and so escapes into a world of fantasy and vision. The mountains are Rip’s escape from the real world and all its problems.

Rip’s Everyday-Life: The Village lies “at the foot of the fairy mountains” (247) “a little village, of great antiquity” (248) “There were some of the houses…built of small yellow bricks…having latticed windows and gable fronts, surmounted with weathercocks”(248). “His fences were continuously falling to pieces; his cow would go astray or get among the cabbages; weeds were sure to grow quicker in his fields than anywhere else…(249).

Rip’s Escape: The mountains “fairy” mountains (247) “Every change of season, every change of weather, indeed, every hour of the day, produces some change in the magical hues and shapes of these mountains…When the weather is fair and settled, they are clothed in blue and purple, and print their bold outlines on the clear evening sky; but sometimes, when the rest of the landscape is cloudless, they will gather a hood of gray vapors about their summits, which, in the last rays of the setting sun, will glow and light up like a crown of glory”(247).

Vision vs. Reality Even before Rip goes into the mountains and apparently falls asleep for 20 years, the story is divided between reality and fantasy/vision.

Vision vs. Reality Reality: Home life, under the rule of Dame Van Winkle Farm: “most pestilent piece of ground in the whole country” (249) Children: “ragged and wild as if they belonged to nobody” (249) Wife: “continually dinning in his ears about his idleness, his carelessness, and the ruin he was bringing on his family” (250)

Vision vs. Reality Vision: Community anywhere outside the house Playing with village children/telling stories (249) Minding “any body’s business but his own”; “an insuperable aversion to all kinds of profitable labour” (249) “frequenting a kind of perpetual club of the sages, philosophers, and other idle personages of the village” (250) Escaping into the woods with gun and dog Wolf (251)

Personification in “Rip Van Winkle” The following descriptions are used to describe the Catskill Mountains, near which the story takes place: “They are a branch of the great Appalachian family, and are seen to the west of the river…” (247). “When the weather is fair and settled, they are clothed in blue and purple…” (247). “…but sometimes, when the rest of the landscape is cloudless, they will gather a hood of gray vapors about their summits…” (247).

In all of these descriptions, the mountains are given human-like qualities.