The beginning of American mythology was credited to Washington Irving. He created the four characteristics in his story “Rip Van Winkle”. The first characteristic is that the story is set in the past and in a remote location. Secondly, it has a variety of strange and exaggerated characters. Next, the story has a magical quality included that has an effect on Rip. In the conclusion of Rip Van Winkle Irving shows how the community accepts Rip Van Winkle with his flaws. This lets Rip enjoy the last few years with his family and community. The setting of “Rip Van Winkle” takes place up the Hudson River and near the Catskill Mountains before the Revolution. The American Revolution dated 1775-1783. The story was published in 1819. This meets the …show more content…
In the story he makes Rip and his wife Dame Van Winkle the most exaggerated. We see Rip described as carefree, nice, and lazy when it comes to his own work. Dame Van Winkle is always nagging and very harsh with her words. These two characters set the tone in the story. Irving shows how “indirect characterization” works in this story. He exposes the characters through their actions and reactions of those around them. Their relationship and arguing send Rip out to hunt. The hunt ends up sending Rip into the mountains where his mysterious experience occurs. In our third characterization we see Rip Van Winkle experiences a mysterious event that changes his future. He is done hunting but hears somebody call out his name. Rip is not sure who it is but sees someone and approaches them. The man was old with a square built. He takes Rip more into the hills and into the amphitheatre. Rip helps serve the other patrons. Rip was nervous and afraid of the crowd. However, over time he became more relaxed and began to drink along with the crowd. This made Rip fall asleep and he awoke with no dog, rusted gun and a beard that is one foot long but 20 years