RIP VAN WINKLE -WASINGTON IRVING
RIP VAN WINKLE
-WASINGTON IRVING
Rip Van Winkle" is a short story written by the
American author Washington Irving and published in 1819. The story was
originally published as part of a collection called "The Sketch Book of
Geoffrey Crayon, Gent". The story was written while Irving was living in
Birmingham, England. The story was one of the biggest successes of the collection
and has since been adapted into plays, operettas, concerts, poems, comic books,
cartoons, TV shows, claymation, web series and films.
The story tells the tale of a kindly but lazy man
named Rip Van Winkle, who lives in a small village at the foot of the Kaatskill
mountain in New York. Rip is constantly henpecked by his nagging wife and takes
to hunting with his dog all day in the mountains in order to avoid her.
One day, Rip realizes that he has accidentally gone
farther up the mountain than he ever has before and as he is heading down again
he is happened upon by a small man carrying a very large keg on his shoulders.
The man beckons to Rip and Rip helps him carrying the keg through the mountain
to a party filled with other small men who are playing nine-pin. The men are
quiet and seem to be suspicious of Rip but he begins to relax and drink some of
the beer from the keg. Soon, Rip begins to feel quite drunk and falls asleep.
When he awakes, the men have vanished.
Rip descends the mountain to return to his town and
finds that rather than sleeping on the mountain overnight as he supposed, he
has actually been asleep for 20 years. Everything he knew of in the town is
gone and his wife has died. While he was asleep, the Revolutionary War took
place and Rip must navigate this new world as a free citizen of the United
States. Eventually, Rip is reunited with his daughter and goes to live in her
house with her. He spends his days sitting outside the local inn and telling
his story to whoever will listen, quite happily.
Book Summary
The story begins with a short postscript informing
the reader that this story was "found among the papers of the late
Diedrich Knickerbocker, an old gentleman of New York, who was very curious in
the Dutch history of the province and the manner of the descendants from its
primitive settlers". Knickerbocker completed the history of the province
during the reign of the Dutch governors after exhaustive research and has
become the unquestionable authority on the subject. He died shortly after his
life’s work was published and the author of this story relates that now that
Knickerbocker is dead, it may not be lamentable to suggest that he might have
spent his time on a weightier labor. However Knickerbocker is remembered by his
critics, his name is still said with praise among good folks whose good opinion
is well worth having and even now his face has been stamped onto new-year cakes
by the biscuit makers of New York.
The story truly begins in the Kaatskill mountains
which the good wives of the town use as weather predictors. When the weather is
fair the mountains are clothed in blue and purple but when the weather is
rougher the mountains gather a "hood of gray vapors around their
summits". At the foot of these mountains is a little village that hasn't
ancient Dutch roots having been founded before America won the Revolutionary
War. The village was founded during the times of the government of Peter
Stuyvesant, the last Director-General of the colony of New Netherland in 1664.
Some of the small yellow houses of the original settlers still stand in the
village. In one of these small houses lives a man named Rip Van Winkle.
Rip Van Winkle has lived in the house for many years
and is a descendant of the noble Van Winkles, who accompanied Peter Stuyvesant
in the siege of Fort Christina. However, Van Winkle himself is a good-natured,
kind man who inherited little of the warring nature of his ancestors. Van
Winkle is married to a wife who bullies him and has two children. However, Van
Winkle himself is much revered in the village and the children of the town
shout with joy whenever they see him.
Van Winkle enjoys spending time with the
neighborhood children and teaches them to fly kites, shoot marbles and tells
them long ghost stories. In fact, the only problem that Van Winkle suffers from
is a lack of drive to do any profitable work. Although Van Winkle spends much
time doing odd jobs and helping his neighbors with any chores that they need,
attending to his family and keeping his farm in order seem to be nearly
impossible for him.
Van Winkle feels that his own little farm is the
most difficult piece of land to care for in the entire country and so many
things went wrong with it, from his cow going astray to weeds growing faster
there than anywhere else that he eventually gave up tending it all together.
Although he was left more lands by his ancestors, Van Winkle's tended land
dwindled down until it was only one patch of corn and potatoes.
Van Winkle's children are as ragged as his farm and
his son Rip takes after his father in the sense that he does not like to work
and wears ragged clothes. Despite all of this, Van Winkle himself is happy. He
is described as: "one of those happy mortals, of foolish, well-oiled
dispositions, who take the world easily, eat white bread or brown, whichever
can be got with least thought or trouble, and would rather starve on a penny
than work for a pound".
His wife, however, continually nags him about his
lack of work ethic. Rip merely shrugs at her when she does so. Rip's only ally
at home is his dog, Wolf who is courageous although he still fears Dame Van
Winkle. As the years drag on, Dame Van Winkle only grows more bitter and Van
Winkle himself begins spending his time at a club of philosophers who hold
their meetings on a bench in front of a small inn. He sits with other men and
tells stories about the people and the town endlessly. Until a newspaper
happens to fall into their laps and then they begin talking about world events
and the level of discussion picks up.
Derrick Van Bummel, the village's schoolmaster is a
fellow member of the club. Van Bummel is a learned man who is well-read and
"not to be daunted by a gigantic word in the dictionary". Another
member of the club, Nicholas Vedder, is the patriarch of the village and the
landlord of the inn. Vedder rarely speaks, but sits faithfully on the bench
from morning till night, smoking his pipe. The men sit like this all day until
inevitably Dame Van Winkle arrives to roust her husband and scold him for
wasting his day.
Eventually, Van Winkle is reluctant to even join the
men and begins going hunting in the woods every day for peace and quiet
instead. Van Winkle travels deep into the woods and sits at the foot of an old
tree where he commiserates with Wolf.
One fine autumn day he and Wolf accidentally walk to
one of the highest parts of the Kaatskill Mountains. Tired from his walk, Van
Winkle sits down on a green knoll the overlooked the town. He sits for some
time admiring the view and resting and begins thinking about his most recent
fight with his wife. Suddenly Van Winkle begins hearing someone calling his
name. Wolf hears the call too and becomes fearful, clinging to his master's
side. In the distance, Van Winkle sees a strange, hunched figure approaching
and, thinking that it someone from the village, hurries down to help them with
the large bundle they are carrying on their back.
When he gets closer to the man he realizes that he
does not recognize him. The man is "a short, square-built old fellow, with
thick bushy hair and a grizzly beard. His dress was of the antique Dutch
fashion". And on his shoulder, he carries a stout keg that seems full of
liquor. The man signals for Van Winkle to approach and help him with his load.
Van Winkle, being helpful, hurries down to him.
Van Winkle helps the man climb up a narrow gully and
into a hollow that appears to be a small amphitheater. Inside the amphitheater
is a group of odd-looking people playing at ninepins. The people are dressed in
a strange fashion and have oddly large heads, broad faces, and small, piggish
eyes. All of them have beards of various shapes and colors. One of the strange
men seems to be the leader: "He was a stout old gentleman, with a
weather-beaten countenance; he wore a laced doublet, broad belt and hanger,
high-crowned hat and feather, red stockings, and high-heeled shoes with roses
in them".
The whole party reminds Van Winkle of an old Flemish
painting he had seen in the parlor of one of the people of the village. Odder
still is the grave, stern expressions on all of the men's faces as they amuse
themselves and the complete silence that surrounds them. As Van Winkle and his
companion approach, the men all suddenly turn and stare and Van Winkle finds
himself afraid. His companion, however, does not and goes to empty the keg into
large flagons. The men begin drinking the liquor in silence and return to their
game. Van Winkle continues to watch them and begins to get more comfortable and
less awed. He even begins drinking the beer that he helped to bring and soon
becomes quite drunk and falls asleep.
When he wakes, he finds that he is back on the green
knoll that he first saw the little man approaching from. Van Winkle realizes
that it is morning and that he must have slept there all night because of the
flagon of liquor he drank. Van Winkle begins worrying what he will tell his
wife and begins gathering his things to return home. But, instead of finding
his gun he finds an old firelock lying in its place. The barrel is rusted, the
lock is falling off and the stock is worm-eaten. Van Winkle suspects that the
little men from the party have played a trick on him and robbed him of his gun.
Wolf is gone as well, but Van Winkle suspects that he may have just strayed
away.
Van Winkle decides to return to the scene of the
party so that he may demand his dog and gun. As he rises to walk he finds that
he is uncommonly stiff from his sleep but assumes that it is because he slept
on the ground. When Van Winkle returns to the gully that he traveled through,
he is shocked to see that the dry stream bed from the night before is now a
fresh, rushing stream. He scrambles along it anyway and forces his way through
plants and growth that now cover the path. When he returns to the amphitheater,
he cannot find the opening. Now in its place is only a high rock with a
waterfall descending from the top of it.
Confused and bewildered, Van Winkle realizes that he
is hungry and must return to town to eat. He is reluctant to give up his dog
and gun but realizes that it will not do to die of hunger in the mountains
either. Van Winkle descends the mountain to return to the village and is
surprised to see groups of people none of whom he recognizes. The people seem
to be dressed in a fashion that he does not recognize as well and they stare at
him as if he is the strange one. The people begin stroking their chins in
wonder at him which causes Van Winkle to do the same and he realizes that his
beard seems to have grown a foot long overnight.
As he walks into the village, Van Winkle becomes
surrounded by a group of strange children who point at his gray beard and
laugh. He sees the village and notices that it seems to have changed, too. It
is larger and more populated. Rows of houses seem to have cropped up overnight
and all of his familiar landmarks have disappeared.
Van Winkle begins to feel that he is going insane.
He wonders if the village or himself is bewitched. He tries to reacquaint
himself with natural landmarks around the town - like the Kaatskill Mountains
and the Hudson river - in order to ascertain that he is, in fact in his
village. Van Winkle wonders if the flagon of beer may have addled his mind. He
approaches his own house, expecting to hear his wife's angry voice. Instead, he
finds the house is badly decayed, the roof has fallen in and the windows are
shattered. A dog that he does not recognize but who looks like Wolf is waiting
inside. Van Winkle calls him by name but the dog is half-starved and in bad
condition. He snarls and shows his teeth on defense. Van Winkle, thinking that
the dog is still Wolf, laments that even his own dog has forgotten him.
The house itself is empty and abandoned on the
inside. Van Winkle calls for his wife and children but his call is met with
only silence. He runs from the house straight to the village inn, his old
haunt, but finds that it is gone too. Another hotel stands in its place called
'The Union Hotel by Jonathan Doolittle'. Instead of the old tree that used to
sit in front of the inn a large flag pole now stands. Atop the pole is a flag
that Van Winkle does not recognize but that has an assemblage of stars and
stripes. Now instead of a portrait of King George outside the inn, a portrait
of a man named Washington is hung.
Outside the inn, a crowd of people is gathered and
Van Winkle thinks that even their disposition seems changed. There is a busier
tone about them as opposed to the lazy tone that he is used to. He looks for
Nicholas Vedder, as he knows that the man will always be sitting outside of the
inn and then for Van Bummel but finds a lean, bilious-looking fellow in their
place. The man is handing out handbills and shouting about the rights of
citizens, elections, members of congress, liberty, Bunker Hill, heroes of
seventy-six and other things that are all complete nonsense to Van Winkle.
Van Winkle's grizzled appearance and the children
surrounding him soon attracts the attention of the inn's politicians. The man
handing out handbills approaches Van Winkle and asks him "on which side he
voted". Van Winkle, not knowing how to answer this, merely stares at him.
Another man bustles up and pulls him by the arm, rising on tiptoe to ask
"whether he was a Federal or a Democrat". Van Winkle is equally
confused by this question.
Suddenly a "knowing; self-important old
gentleman, in a sharp cocked hat", elbows his way through the crowd and
marches up to Van Winkle. The man stops, and with one hand on his cane and one
on his hip, asks with a penetrative look in his eyes what brings Van Winkle to
an election with a gun on his shoulder and a mob at his heels. The man wishes
to know whether Van Winkle is trying to start a riot. Van Winkle, trying to
defuse the situation, announces that he is a quiet, peaceful man and a loyal
subject of the king. This causes an uproar amongst the people. They begin
shouting that he is a Tory and a spy and calling for him to be taken away.
The self-important man in the cocked hat gets the
crowd under control again with great difficulty. He asks Van Winkle again why
he is there and whom he is seeking. Van Winkle assures him that he means no
harm and that he is in search of some of his neighbors who used to meet at the
inn. The self-important man asks him to name the neighbors that he seeks. Van
Winkle asks for Nicholas Vedder and silence descends over the crowd. A man
speaks up and tells him that Nicholas Vedder has been dead for eighteen years.
He says that there was a wooden tombstone for him in the churchyard, but is has
since rotted and fallen apart.
Van Winkle then asks for another neighbor, Brom
Dutcher and is told that he went off the join the army at the beginning of the
war and that popular rumor is that he was killed during the storming of Stony
Point. Or possibly drowned in a squall at the foot of Antony's Nose. Either
way, he did not return from the war. Van Winkle asks for Van Bummel and is told
that he also went off to join the war, became a great militia general and is
now in congress. Van Winkle becomes saddened that everything he knew in the
town appears to be gone and puzzled that so much time seems to have elapsed since
he was last there. Unable to discover the fate of any more friends, he asks
himself, asking if anyone in the crowd has heard of Rip Van Winkle.
Some of the crowd are delighted and tell him that
Rip Van Winkle is just across the square, leaning against a tree. Rip turns to
see another man who appears to be the exact match of himself when he first went
up the mountain that fateful day. He becomes confused, doubting his own
identity and whether he truly is himself. The crowd asks him who he is and he
confesses that he does not know and that he doesn't appear to be himself.
"God knows", exclaimed he, at his wit's end; "I'm not myself -
I'm somebody else - that's me yonder - no... that's somebody else got into my
shoes. I was myself last night, but I fell asleep on the mountain, and they've
changed my gun, and everything's changed, and I'm changed, and I can't tell
what's my name, or who I am!".
At this exclamation, the bystanders seem to assume
that the old man is crazy and decide to treat him kindly but secure his gun so
that he will not do any harm.
The self-important man in the cocked hat goes back
into the inn, assuming that Van Winkle is just a crazy old man. At this point,
a beautiful woman with a small child in her arms walks through the crowd. The
little child begins to cry when he sees the old man and the woman comfort him,
calling the baby Rip. Van Winkle feels that he recognizes the woman and asks
for her name. She says that she is Judith Gardenier. He asks for her father's
name and she tells him that her father was Rip Van Winkle, but that he
disappeared into the mountains 20 years earlier and his dog came home without
him. Judith says that she does not know if her father shot himself or was
carried away by Native Americans. Van Winkle, overcome, asks her in a faltering
voice where her mother is. She tells him that Dame Van Winkle has also died a
short while earlier after breaking a blood vessel yelling at a peddler.
Van Winkle finally seizes Judith by her arms and
tells her that he is her father. "I am your father!" he cried
"young Rip Van Winkle once - old Rip Van Winkle now! Does nobody know poor
Rip Van Winkle?". The crowd is silenced again until an old woman totters
out and takes Van Winkle's chin in her hands. She peers at him and announces
that he is Rip Van Winkle. She welcomes him home and asks where he has been.
Van Winkle tells them about the little men and the flagon and says that the
whole 20 years he has been missing have been to him like one night. The crowd
still doesn't quite believe him and they decide to ask old Peter Vanderdonk for
an opinion on whether or not he is telling the truth.
Peter Vanderdonk is only just arriving at the scene.
The oldest man in the village, Peter is a descendant of the historian of the
same name who wrote one of the earliest accounts of the province and is well
versed in the stories of the area. Peter recognizes Van Winkle at once and
tells the crowd that he is telling the truth about the little men in the story.
He knows as he has been told by his ancestors that the Kaatskill mountains are
inhabited by strange beings.
He says that the great Henrick Hudson, the
discoverer of the river and country, knew of the little men in the mountains
and that his father had once seen them in their old Dutch outfits playing
nine-pins. And that Henrick himself had once heard the sound of the balls
rolling in the game like peals of thunder in the mountains. After this, the
crowd believes Van Winkle and disperses to return to the more important
concerns of the election.
Van Winkle's daughter brings him to her small,
well-furnished home to live with her. Her husband is discovered to Van Winkle
to be one of the children who used to follow him around the village. Van
Winkle's son, Rip, now the man who was seen leaning against the tree and the
striking image of his father was employed to work on his brother-in-law's farm
but, much like his father, had a lazy disposition.
Van Winkle begins resuming his walks and former
pastimes. He finds many of his old friends still in the village although they
are much older now. Van Winkle returns to making friends out of the children in
the village and helping them with their games. "Having nothing to do at
home, and being arrived at that happy age when a man can be idle with impunity,
he took his place once more on the bench at the inn-door and was reverenced as
one of the patriarchs of the village and a chronicle of the old times before
the war”.
Van Winkle soon learns about the Revolutionary War
that has passed while he was sleeping and is delighted to learn that he is now
a free citizen of the United States. He is also happy that he is free of his
wife and may do as he pleases without her input. He sits on the bench in front
of the inn and tells his story to travelers that pass. He is sometimes found to
differ on some details of the story although that is forgiven as a quirk of a
man who has only recently awakened.
Comments