American Literature
October 9, 2014
What we think about America today is not how America was in the 1700’s. Much thought should go into how this country was made from the very beginnings and the struggles that the early Americans went through. Before the Revolutionary War, some people might not think about it, America was ruled by the British. The British had set up 13 colonies, where the people were under rule by King George. America was essentially a mini British country that was trying to make its way. Then there was the Revolutionary War between the British and the colonists, which brought so much change throughout the entire land. Eventually, the Declaration of Independence was signed, George Washington was made President, and instead of being 13 British colonies, America was now 13 states. So much change had happened in such a short time.
America signed the declaration, elected a president, and became 13 states with the benefit of freedom. What more could a country want? Well I am here to prove that at this time, change didn’t happen for the colonists like it is portrayed. “Rip Van Winkle” suggests that the people of this time didn’t appreciate the Revolutionary War. Their adaptation to new features for living life may have changed, but the Revolutionary War had little impact on how the people thought about government and the idea of freedom. Using the story of “Rip Van Winkle”, I will compare characters and ideas in the book to broader ideas of the American nature at this time. The war may have changed the general guidelines for living, but did it really have a big impact on the people? Let me start with explaining the characters and how they were essentially ideas of Britain and America.
Rip Van Winkle is the definition of early America. He was slow, sluggish, and content. We can see by the text that the colonists didn’t take life all that serious and Rip Van Winkle was one of the focus points of taking life easy. The texts states “The children of the village would shout with joy whenever he approached. He assisted at their sports, made their playthings, taught them to fly kites and shoot marbles, and told them long stories of ghosts, witches, and Indians. Whenever he went dodging about the village, he was surrounded by a troop of them, hanging of his skirts, clambering on his back, and playing a thousand tricks on him with impunity” (Irving 31). Life for early Americans was just simple and easy. For early Americans, I’m not saying that they wanted to be ruled by someone as they were with the British, but I’m saying it wasn’t all that bad for them. I’m sure they wanted improvement to the standard of living, but it’s not like they were in Hell. Rip loved to sit and smoke his pipe all day under a tree which covered the inn. Being pushed around and told what to do was something that he didn’t like. He wanted to be his own man with freedom. He thought if he didn’t have someone pushing him around, he felt that life would be even simpler than it was. But the question is, who was bossing him around and what made him think if he had this freedom, that it would change his life perspective all around?
The person bossing him around was Dame Van Winkle. It was his wife of many years. Dame’s problem with Rip was that he didn’t help around with the family and was lazy. Dame is the representation of the British. Like I said in the last paragraph, the colonists, as portrayed by Erving, over in America didn’t have it so bad being ruled by the British, but they thought that if they didn’t have rule, they would be way better off. This was the case for Rip as well. Get rid of the nagging wife, or as it represents the nagging country of Britain, and life would be as easy as Rip and America would ever want it. As it states in the book “If left to himself, he would have whistled life away, in perfect contentment; but his wife kept continually dinning in his ears about his idleness, his carelessness, and the ruin he was bringing on his family” (Irving 32). The British want the colonists to do certain things and they wanted them to do it how they wanted it, just as Dame wanted Rip to follow her directions.
Throughout what I have stated in this paper, I am trying to connect the central idea that Rip, being America, thinks it would be better if the British didn’t rule them. They want to be free and not have someone overlooking their back. Dame, being the British, wanted control and wanted things done her way. Change needed to be made because without change how could America ever prosper into the country of the free?
Rip is an adventurous thinker who takes strolls into the wilderness because it is his way of getting away from Dame. All he wanted was to be away from Dame’s rule and be his own man. He would almost choose any other circumstance over the one he had with Dame. But here is the thing, what we think is the problem sometimes may not have been the problem in the first place. We just believe it is the problem and don’t think logically about the situation. As it is for Rip, he takes a stroll in the woods to get away. He was at finally done with the situation and needed to get away, as Irving illustrates, “Poor Rip was at last reduced almost to despair; and his only alternative to escape from the labour of the farm and the clamour of his wife, was to take gun in hand, and stroll away into the woods” (Irving 33). Rip then wakes up the next morning, and comes to find out by his town villagers that he had been gone for 20 years.
Rip is confused, as I could imagine, about what happened while he was gone. He notices physical changes with the people and the buildings. Irving illustrates, “Their dress, too, was of different fashion from that to which he was accustomed”. “The very village seemed altered: it was larger and more populous. There were rows of houses which he had never seen before, and those which had been familiar haunts had disappeared” (Irving 36). Rip then sees that the tree I talked about earlier that covered the towns’ inn had been replaced by a tall naked pole with a flag on it. It says in the text that “He recognized on the sign, however, the ruby face of King George, the red coat was changed for one of blue and buff, a sword was stuck in the hand instead of a scepter, the head was decorated with a cocked hat, and underneath was painted in large characters, GEORGE WASHINGTON” (Irving 37). Rip comes to find out that a war had happened between the colonists and the British over independence. He realizes that things were different and that war must have been the deciding factor. Before Rip fell into a deep sleep, all he could think about was how much he wanted to get away from his wife because he believed that she was the problem in his life. He believed if she was gone, all bad situations would go away. As he talks to the people and they tell stories back and forth, it gets mentioned that his wife died many years ago. For Rip, the news of couldn’t of been any more satisfying. There is no more Dame to deal with, or in other words, as Rip thought, there was no one British rule to deal with. So because of the war, he gets what he wanted and instead of being under control by the British, they now are a free land under a democratic leadership. Now that this has happened, Rip can go on to live a free and happy life just like he always wanted to. But he quickly realizes that really nothing has changed in his life other than his wife being gone. He goes and sits under the inn, where he used to, and smokes his pipe. The people’s dress is different, the houses are different, but the overall being of everyone hasn’t changed. The same things go on within the town as it did 20 years ago. The people of early America thought things that they shouldn’t have and were confused by their thoughts. Dame, the British, wasn’t the problem. The war had nothing to do with how the people could live their lives. Rip got what he wanted but notices that maybe if he would have just opened his mind up to the fact that Dame was not the problem, then he could have probably lived his life almost the same instead of always thinking of things so negatively when it came to Dame and the British.
Throughout this whole paper I have been writing, I have been laying the guidelines to this thesis of how the Revolutionary War had little impact on the people. Rip has always thought that if he could ever get a chance to be away from his wife, that everything would change completely. But we can see how after 20 years and a new leadership after the war really didn’t change how the people and Rip operated. The British, as Dame, didn’t change how people acted. Dame was an enforcer of the law, but without the law now, Rip is the same person with the same habits. America is still trying to find its way into the grand scheme of everything and the only thing that has changed is what kind of leadership there is now. Rip didn’t have to worry about freedom because freedom was always there for him. The war might have proven to be beneficial in today’s terms, but Rip thought that the problem was Dame, or in other words the British. It states “the changes of the states and empires made but little impression on him” (Irving 40). That was never the problem. Rip got what he wanted as in 20 years of freedom away from everyone and everything, but when he got back, only physical features of America were different and the core of what America was stayed the same.

Works Cited
Irving, Washington. “Rip Van Winkle.” The Norton Anthology American Literature. Ed. Nina Baym. Crawfordsville: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2012. 29-40. Print.